Colonel Dunbar was to remain with the residue of the two regiments, and all the heavy baggage.
{June 19.} Although this select corps commenced its march with only thirty carriages, including ammunition wagons, the hopes which had been entertained of the celerity of its movements were not fulfilled.

"I found," said Colonel Washington, in a letter to his brother, written during the march, "that instead of pushing on with vigour, without regarding a little rough road, they were halting to level every mole-hill, and to erect bridges over every brook." By these means they employed four days in reaching the great crossings of the Yohiogany, only nineteen miles from the Little Meadows.
Colonel Washington was obliged to stop at that place;--the physician having declared that his life would be endangered by continuing with the army.

He obeyed, with reluctance, the positive orders of the general to remain at this camp, under the protection of a small guard, until the arrival of Colonel Dunbar; having first received a promise that means should be used to bring him up with the army before it reached fort Du Quesne.
{July 8.} The day before the action of the Monongahela he rejoined the general in a covered wagon; and, though weak, entered on the duties of his station.
In a short time after the action had commenced, Colonel Washington was the only aid remaining alive, and unwounded.

The whole duty of carrying the orders of the commander-in-chief, in an engagement with marksmen who selected officers, and especially those on horseback, for their objects, devolved on him alone.

Under these difficult circumstances, he manifested that coolness, that self-possession, that fearlessness of danger which ever distinguished him, and which are so necessary to the character of a consummate soldier.