The troops stationed among them for their protection, were unequal to that duty; and, instead of being able to afford aid to the inhabitants, were themselves blocked up in their forts.
[Sidenote: Extreme distress of the frontiers and exertions of Colonel Washington to augment the regular forces of the colony.] Colonel Washington hastened back to Winchester, where the utmost confusion and alarm prevailed.

His efforts to raise the militia were unavailing.

Attentive only to individual security, and regardless of the common danger, they could not be drawn from their families.
Instead of assembling in arms, and obtaining safety by meeting their invaders, the inhabitants fled into the lower country, and increased the general terror.

In this state of things, he endeavoured to collect and arm the men who had abandoned their houses, and to remove their wives and children to a distance from this scene of desolation and carnage.

Pressing orders were at the same time despatched to the newly appointed officers, to forward their recruits; and to the county lieutenants, east of the Blue Ridge, to hasten their militia to Winchester: but before these orders could be executed, the party which had done so much mischief, and excited such alarm, had recrossed the Alleghany mountains.
{1756} {April.} Early in the following spring, the enemy made another irruption into the inhabited country, and did great mischief.