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Rh attempted to stem the tide of retreat were almost powerless. "No orders are obeyed," Washington wrote Dinwiddie, "but such as a party of soldiers, or my own drawn sword enforces." Such was the frenzy of the retreat of the frontier population that threats were made "to blow out the brains" of all in authority who opposed them. But the young commander continued undaunted. He impressed men and horses and wagons, and sent them hurrying for flour and musket-balls and flints; he compelled men to erect little fortresses to which the people might flee.

Not the least of his trials—undoubtedly the most discouraging—was the faithlessness of the troops sent out by Governor Dinwiddie upon the reeking frontier. Many of them were themselves panic-stricken and fled back with the rabble. The whole militia régime was inadequate; there was no authority of sufficient weight vested in the commanding officers to enable them to deal even with insolence, much less desertion. "I must assume the freedom," Washington wrote the governor, "to express some surprise, that we alone