General Braddock Defeated by French and Indians July 9, 1755

General Edward Braddock arrived in March, 1755, at Alexandria, Virginia, and at the head of two Irish regiments, under Colonels Dunbar and Halket, marched to Fredericksburg, Maryland.

This distinguished officer was sent to command an expedition against the French at Fort Duquesne. He commenced his march from Wills Creek, now called Cumberland, Md., June 10, 1755, with 2000 men, regulars and provincials.

Braddock was haughty and egotistical and entertained no doubt of his success. He advised the Governors of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, that soon as he captured Fort Duquesne he would leave there the guns, ammunition and stores he captured in it, but if the enemy first destroyed the fort, he would build another.

By forced marches he reached Little Meadows June 18, when 1200 men were chosen to continue the expedition, the balance remained in camp under command of Colonel Dunbar. A halt of two days was made twenty-five miles from their objective, to await reports of the Indian scouts. That was fatal.

On the morning of July 9 the little army forded the Monongahela River and advanced in solid platoons along the southern shore of that stream. Colonel Washington saw the perilous arrangement of the troops after the fashion of European tactics, and he ventured to advise Braddock to disperse his men in open order and employ the Indian mode of fighting in the forests.

The haughty General angrily replied: “What! a provincial colonel teach a British General how to fight!”

The army moved forward, recrossing the river. Meantime the French commander Contrecœur had decided to withdraw, but Captain Beaujeu gained his permission to resist Braddock’s passage at the second ford. Beaujeu’sBeaujeu’s command was reinforced by several hundred savages.

When Captain Beaujeu came in sight of the English they had already crossed the river, and had advanced so that both flanks would 471be exposed about two hundred yards to an enemy occupying the deep ravines, thick with tangled forest growth and vines.

Braddock marched directly into the worst ambuscade known in American history. Into these ravines the Indians glided while their white comrades blocked the English path in front and the head of the marching column went down under a storm of lead. Shaken for a moment, the vanguard moved against the concentric ring and, after another terrible discharge, returned the fire with such deadly effect that every enemy in sight was swept before it. Beaujeu and dozens of others fell victims.

The Indians turned to flee, but rallied by other French officers, they returned to cover and under their unerring fire the English advance broke and retreated. Mixing with the rear in the narrow path, both became mingled in a mob which Braddock could not restore to order. Huddled in a twelve-foot roadway, shut in by a forest alive with yells and filled with invisible fire, they lost all sense or perception, and twice shot down bodies of their own men who had gained slight vantage points, mistaking their smoke for that of the enemy. Fifty Virginians were thus slain at one blow.

The regulars refused to charge, though Braddock, with four horses successively shot from under him, and other officers strove to hearten them to invade the woods. The Provincials fought Indian fashion from behind trees and fallen logs, but Braddock with furious threats and blows drove them back again into the ranks, where they fell in scores. Washington and Halket both pleaded to have them allowed to leave the ranks and fight the Indians in their own way, but Braddock still refused.

AtAt this point the supply of ammunition failed; the baggage train was attacked; all Braddock’s aides excepting Washington were shot down; three-fourths of the officers and three-fifths of the entire army were killed or wounded, and only then would the ill-judging but heroic Braddock give the signal for retreat. Shortly afterward Braddock received a ball through his lungs, and not one English soldier remained to carry him off the field. He was picked up by one English and two American officers and carried to a spot across the river a half mile distant.

The dying commander tried to rally his troops, by establishing a camp to care for the wounded. Here he waited for Washington to return from Dunbar’s camp, where he had been sent by Braddock. The French and Indians did not follow Braddock across the river, yet the hundred or more English soldiers he had induced to halt there, stole away and fled.

On the 10th the officers who remained with General Braddock marched with him until 10 o’clock at night, when they halted and met the convoy sent by Dunbar. Braddock never ceased to give calm, skillful and humane orders. He reached Dunbar’s camp on the 11th, where 472the news of his rout had already reached the soldiers under Dunbar, and they were fleeing in wild panic.

Braddock by this time realized that any further attempt to pursue the expedition was futile, and he must have known his wounds were fatal, for he ordered the stores destroyed lest they fall into the enemy’s hands, saving only sufficient for a flying march. He then proceeded with the remnant of his army toward Great Meadows, where he died and was buried in the center of the road. The entire army marched over the spot in order that the remains of the unfortunate general might not be desecrated by the savages. In 1802, his body was reinterred at the foot of a large white oak tree.

After the retreat of Braddock’s army, the savages, unwilling to follow the French in pursuit, fell upon the field and preyed on the rich plunder which lay before them. Three years later (1758) by direction of General Forbes, the remains of many of the slain in Braddock’s army were gathered up and buried.

Of 1460 men in the battle, 456 were killed and 421 wounded; 63 of the 89 commissioned officers, and every field officer, were killed or wounded. The enemy’s casualties were only about sixty.

The entire borders were left defenseless and this defeat was not only a fatal termination of a campaign which had been expected would inflict a decisive blow upon the French and their Indian allies, but it gave the signal to the disaffected Indians to make the frontiers of the Province the scene of a predatory warfare in which every section was severely scourged.