1. The Virginia troops under Braddock wore the standard provincial uniform of blue coats with red facings and blue breeches. Chesterfield burgess John Bolling wrote his son Robert in England 13 Aug. 1755 that as Braddock lay wounded on the battlefield, “he woud cry out my dear Blue’s (which was the Colrs the Virginians wore) give em tother Fire, you Fight like Men, & will die like Shouldiers; he lived from Wednesday to Sunday after, & during that time coud not bare the sight of a red Coat, whenever one came in his View, he raved imoderately, but when one of the blues, he said he hop’d to live to reward ’em” (Schutz, “Report of Braddock’s Defeat,” description begins John A. Schutz, ed. “A Private Report of General Braddock’s Defeat.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 79 (1955): 374–77. description ends 376–77). Bolling’s story cannot be corroborated, but clearly pride in the Virginia “blues” was widespread in the colony.

2. GW left Williamsburg on 3 Sept. 1755. Taking his usual route north, he stopped at Thomas Dansie’s ordinary on the Pamunkey River that night and the next day reached Todd’s Bridge on the Mattaponi apparently by way of King William Courthouse. There is no record of his visiting John Martin, however.

3. This postscript is illegible in the manuscript and is taken from Hamilton, Letters to Washington description begins Stanislaus Murray Hamilton, ed. Letters to Washington and Accompanying Papers. 5 vols. Boston and New York, 1898–1902. description ends , 1:84–85. Hamilton indicated that the word or words after “carried” had been obliterated. Barker’s and Smith’s fates are unknown. Gov. Robert Dinwiddie advertised in the Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg) on 5 Sept. 1755 an offer to pardon any of the colony’s numerous deserters who returned to duty by 20 Sept., but few accepted.