The
Braddock expedition, also called
Braddock's campaign or, more commonly,
Braddock's Defeat, was a failed
BritishGreat Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island. With a population of about 59.6 million people, it is the third most populated island on Earth. Great Britain is surrounded by over 1000 smaller...
attempt to capture the
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
Fort DuquesneFort Duquesne was a fort established by the French in 1754, at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers in what is now downtown Pittsburgh in the state of Pennsylvania....
in the summer of 1755 during the
French and Indian WarThe French and Indian War, also known as the War of the Conquest or referred as part of the larger conflict known as the Seven Years' War, was a war fought in North America between 1754 and 1763...
that ended with the
Battle of the Monongahela. The expedition takes its name from General
Edward BraddockGeneral Edward Braddock was a British soldier and commander-in-chief for North America during the actions at the start of the French and Indian War...
, who led the British forces and died in the effort. Braddock's defeat was a major setback for the British in the early stages of the war with France and one of the most disastrous defeats for the British in the eighteenth century.
Background
Braddock's expedition was just one part of a massive British offensive against the French in North America that summer. As
commander-in-chiefA commander-in-chief is the commander of a nation's military forces or significant element of those forces. In the latter case, the force element may be defined as those forces within a particular region or those forces which are associated by function. As a practical term it refers to the...
of the
British ArmyThe British Army is the land armed forces branch of the British Armed Forces. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England and Scotland and...
in America, General Braddock led the main thrust against the
Ohio CountryThe Ohio Country was the name used in the 18th century for the regions of North America west of the Appalachian Mountains and in the region of the upper Ohio River south of Lake Erie...
with a column some 2,100 strong. Braddock's command consisted of two regular line regiments, the 44th and
48th-History:The regiment was first raised in 1741 as James Cholmondeley's Regiment of Foot in Norwich, England during the War of Austrian Succession. The regiment first saw action at the Battles of Falkirk and Culloden in 1745-1746, campaigning against the Young Pretender. In 1748, it was renumbered...
with about 1,350 men also, about 500 regular soldiers and
militiaThe term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
men from several
British American coloniesBritish North America consisted of the colonies and territories of the British Empire in continental North America after the end of the American Revolutionary War and the recognition of American independence in 1783....
and artillery and other support troops. With these men Braddock expected to seize Fort Duquesne easily, and then push on to capture a series of French forts, eventually reaching
Fort NiagaraFort Niagara is a fortification originally built to protect the interests of New France in North America. It is located near Youngstown, New York, on the eastern bank of the Niagara River at its mouth, on Lake Ontario.-Origin:...
. Twenty-three year-old
George WashingtonGeorge Washington was the commander of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War and served as the first President of the United States of America...
, who knew the territory, served as a volunteer aide-de-camp to General Braddock. Braddock's Chief of Scouts was Lieutenant John Fraser of the Virginia Regiment, who owned land at Turtle Creek and who had previously served as Second-in-Command at Fort Prince George at the confluence of the Allegheny and Mononghela Rivers, the site of Fort Duquesne by the time of the Braddock Expedition, and who had been at Fort Necessity.
Braddock's attempt to recruit
Native AmericanNative Americans in the United States is the phrase that describes indigenous peoples from North America now encompassed by the continental United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii. They comprise a large number of distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of...
allies from those tribes not yet allied with the French proved mostly unsuccessful; he had but eight
Mingo IndiansThe Mingo are an Iroquoian group of Native Americans that migrated west to the Ohio Country in the mid-eighteenth century. Anglo-Americans called these migrants mingos, a corruption of mingwe, an Eastern Algonquian name for Iroquoian groups in general...
with him, serving as scouts. A number of Indians in the area, notably
DelawareThe "Lenape", pronounced IPA: , , or in English, means "the people." Sometimes the name is spelled Lenape or Lenapi. Also known as the Lenni Lenape, the "true people", or as the "Delaware Indians", they are organized bands of Native American peoples with shared cultural and linguistic...
leader
ShingasShingas , was a leader of the Delaware people in the Ohio Country and a noted American Indian warrior on the western frontier during the French and Indian War. Dubbed "Shingas the Terrible" by Anglo-Americans during the war, Shingas led devastating raids against white settlements...
, remained neutral. Caught between two powerful European empires at war, the local Indians who were committed to their lands could not afford to be on the side of the loser. Braddock's success or failure would influence their decisions.
Braddock's Road
Setting out from
Fort Cumberlandthumb|220px|Fort Cumberland, 1755Fort Cumberland was constructed by troops of General Braddock at the confluence of Wills Creek and the Potomac River, at the current location of the City of Cumberland, Maryland. The wood palisade fort is now gone, and occupying the site is the existing Emmanuel...
in
MarylandMaryland is a state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia to the south and west, Pennsylvania to the north, and Delaware to the east. It is comparable in size to the European country of Belgium. According to the U.S...
on May 29, 1755, the expedition faced an enormous logistical challenge: moving a large body of men with equipment, provisions, and (most importantly for the task ahead) heavy cannon, across the densely wooded
Allegheny MountainsThe Allegheny Mountain Range — informally, the Alleghenies — is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the eastern United States and Canada...
and into western
PennsylvaniaThe Commonwealth of Pennsylvania , often colloquially referred to as PA by natives and Northeasterners, is a state located in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States...
, a journey of about 110 miles. Braddock had received important assistance from
Benjamin FranklinBenjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author and printer, satirist, political theorist, politician, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, soldier, and diplomat...
, who helped procure wagons and supplies for the expedition. Among the wagoners, incidentally, were two young men who would later become legends of American history:
Daniel BooneDaniel Boone [October 22 , 1734 – September 26, 1820] was an American pioneer and hunter whose frontier exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. Boone is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now the U.S. state of Kentucky, which was...
, and
Daniel MorganDaniel Morgan was an American pioneer, soldier, and United States Representative from Virginia. One of the most gifted battlefield tacticians of the American Revolutionary War, he later commanded the troops that suppressed the Whiskey Rebellion.-Early years:Most authorities believe that Morgan...
. Other members of the expedition were Ensign
William Crawford (soldier)William Crawford was an American soldier and surveyor who worked as a western land agent for George Washington. Crawford fought in the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War...
and
Charles Scott (governor of Kentucky)Charles Scott was an American soldier and politician who served as Governor of Kentucky from 1808 to 1812. Orphaned at an early age, Scott served under Edward Braddock and George Washington in the French and Indian War...
. Among the British were
Thomas GageThomas Gage was a British general, best known for his role in the early days of the American Revolution.Born to an aristocratic family in England, he entered military service, seeing action in the French and Indian War, where he served alongside a future opponent, George Washington. After the...
;
Charles LeeCharles Lee was a British soldier turned Virginia planter who was a general officer of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War.-Early life:...
, future American president
George WashingtonGeorge Washington was the commander of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War and served as the first President of the United States of America...
, and
Horatio GatesHoratio Lloyd Gates was a British soldier turned American general during the Revolutionary War. He took credit for the American victory at the Battle of Saratoga and was blamed for the defeat at the Battle of Camden.-Early career:Gates was born in...
.
The expedition progressed slowly because Braddock considered making a road to Fort Duquesne a priority (in order to effectively supply the position he expected to capture and hold at the Forks of the Ohio), and largely due to the lack of sufficent healthy draft animals. In some cases, the column was only able to progress at a rate of two miles a day, creating
Braddock's RoadThe Braddock Road was a historical roadway in what was then British America and is now the United States. It was constructed in 1755 by British troops who were part of an expedition to conquer the Ohio Country from the French at the beginning of the Seven Years' War.-Construction:In 1755, General...
—an important vestige of the march—as they went. To speed up movement, Braddock split his men into a "flying column" of about 1,300 men which he commanded and a supply column of 800 men with most of the baggage commanded by Colonel Thomas Dunbar. Dunbar's command lagged far behind. They passed the ruins of Fort Necessity along the way, where the French had defeated Washington the previous summer. Small French and Indian war bands harried Braddock's men during the march, but these were minor skirmishes.
Meanwhile, at Fort Duquesne, the French garrison consisted of only about 250 regulars and Canadian militia, with about 640 Indian allies camped outside the fort. The Indians were from a variety of tribes long associated with the French, including
OttawaOttawa is the capital of Canada and a municipality within the Province of Ontario. Located in the Ottawa Valley in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario, the city lies on the southern banks of the Ottawa River, a major waterway forming the local boundary between the Provinces of Ontario and...
s,
OjibwaThe Ojibwe or Chippewa is the largest group of Native Americans-First Nations north of Mexico, including Métis. They are the third-largest in the United States, surpassed only by Cherokee and Navajo. They're equally divided between the United States and Canada...
s, and
PotawatomiThe Potawatomi are a Native American people of the upper Mississippi River region. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a member of the Algonquian family...
s. The French commander, after receiving reports from Indian scouting parties that the British were on their way to besiege the fort, realised that his fort could not withstand Braddock's cannon, decided to launch a preemptive strike: an ambush of Braddock's army as he crossed the
Monongahela RiverThe Monongahela River is a river on the Allegheny Plateau in North-Central West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania in the United States...
. The Indian allies were initially reluctant to attack such a large British force, but the French commander Liénard de Beaujeu, who dressed himself in full war regalia complete with war paint, convinced them to follow his lead.
Battle of the Monongahela
By July 8, 1755, the Braddock force was on the land owned by the Chief Scout, Lieutenant John Fraser. That evening, the Indians sent a delegation to the British to request a conference. Braddock sent Washington and Fraser. The Indians asked the British to halt their advance so that they could attempt to negotiate a peaceful withdrawal by the French from Fort Duquesne. Both Washington and Fraser recommended this to Braddock but he demurred.
On July 9, 1755, Braddock's men crossed the Monongahela without opposition, about ten miles south of Fort Duquesne. The advance guard of 300 Grenadiers and colonials with two cannon under Lieutenant Colonel
Thomas GageThomas Gage was a British general, best known for his role in the early days of the American Revolution.Born to an aristocratic family in England, he entered military service, seeing action in the French and Indian War, where he served alongside a future opponent, George Washington. After the...
began to move ahead, and unexpectedly came upon the French and Indians, who were hurrying to the river, behind schedule and too late to set an ambush.
In the skirmish that followed between Gage's soldiers and the French, the French commander, Beaujeu, was killed by the first fire of the Grenadiers' line. Although some 100 French Canadians fled back to the fort and the noise of the cannon had held the Indians off, Beaujeu's death did not have a negative effect on French morale as Dumas rallied the rest of the French and their Indian allies. The battle, known as the
Battle of the Monongahela, or the
Battle of the Wilderness, or just
Braddock's Defeat, was officially begun. Braddock's impressive force was approximately 1,400 men. The British faced a French and Indian force, estimated to number between 300 and 900. The Battle of the Monongahela has often been described as an
ambushAn ambush is a long-established military tactic, in which the aggressors use concealment to attack a passing enemy. Ambushers strike from concealed positions, such as among dense underbrush or behind hilltops. Ambushes have been used consistently throughout history, from ancient to modern warfare...
. The encounter was actually a
meeting engagement, where two forces clash at an unexpected time and place. The quick and effective response of the French and Indians - despite the early loss of their commander - led many of Braddock's men to believe they had been ambushed. However, French documents reveal that the French and Indian force was too late to prepare an ambush, and had been just as surprised as the British.
After an exchange of fire, Gage's advance group fell back. In the narrow confines of the road, they collided with the main body of Braddock's force, which had advanced rapidly when the shots were heard. The entire column dissolved in disorder as the Canadian militamen and Indians enveloped them and continued to snipe at the British flanks from the woods on the sides of the road. At this time, the French regulars began advancing from the road and began to push the British back.
Following Braddock's example, the officers kept trying to reform units into regular order within the confines of the road, mostly in vain and simply providing targets for their concealed enemy. Cannon were used, but in such confines of the forest road, they were ineffective. The colonial militia accompanying the British took cover and returned fire. In the confusion, some of the militiamen who were fighting from the woods were mistaken for the enemy and fired upon by the British regulars.
Finally, after between an hour to three hours of intense combat, Braddock was shot off his horse as effective resistance collapsed.
Colonel WashingtonGeorge Washington was the commander of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War and served as the first President of the United States of America...
, although he had no official position in the chain of command, was able to impose and maintain some order and formed a rear guard, which allowed the remants of the force to disengage. This earned him the sobriquet
Hero of the Monongahela, by which he was toasted, and established his fame for some time to come.
"We marched to that place, without any considerable loss, having only now and then a straggler picked up by the French and scouting Indians. When we came there, we were attacked by a party of French and Indians, whose number, I am persuaded, did not exceed three hundred men; while ours consisted of about one thousand three hundred well-armed troops, chiefly regular soldiers, who were struck with such a panic that they behaved with more cowardice than it is possible to conceive. The officers behaved gallantly, in order to encourage their men, for which they suffered greatly, there being near sixty killed and wounded; a large proportion of the number we had."
By sunset, the surviving British and American forces were fleeing back down the road they had built. Braddock died of his wounds during the long retreat, on July 13, and is buried within the Fort Necessity parklands.
Of the approximately 1,300 men Braddock had led into battle, 456 were killed and 422 wounded. Commissioned officers were prime targets and suffered greatly: out of 86 officers, 26 were killed and 37 wounded. Also, of the 50 or so women that accompanied the British column as maids and cooks, only 4 survived. The French and Canadians reported 8 killed and 4 wounded; their Indian allies lost 15 killed and 12 wounded.
Colonel Dunbar, with the reserves and rear supply units, took command when the survivors reached his position. He ordered the destruction of supplies and cannon before withdrawing, burning about 150 wagons on the spot. Ironically, at this point the defeated, demoralised and disorganised British forces still outnumbered their opponents. The French and Indians did not pursue and were engaged with looting and scalping. Dumas realized the British were utterly defeated and he didn't have enough of a force to continue organized pursuit.
Aftermath
Braddock's defeat at the Battle of the Monongahela was a momentous event for the people of the region. Dunbar retreated all the way back to Philadelphia where he went into winter quarters in August. The French and their Indian allies gained the upper hand in the struggle for control of the
Ohio CountryThe Ohio Country was the name used in the 18th century for the regions of North America west of the Appalachian Mountains and in the region of the upper Ohio River south of Lake Erie...
, and a ferocious frontier war quickly escalated. Indians in the area who had been inclined to remain neutral now found it nearly impossible to do so. And the colonists of "backcountry" Pennsylvania and Virginia now found themselves without professional military protection, scrambling to organize a defense. This brutal frontier war would continue until Fort Duquesne was finally abandoned by the French as a result of the successful approach of the
Forbes ExpeditionJohn Forbes was a British general in the French and Indian War. He is best known for leading the Forbes Expedition that captured the French outpost at Fort Duquesne and for naming the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania after British Secretary of State William Pitt the Elder.-Early life:Forbes was...
in 1758.
Another notable outcome of Braddock's defeat was the effect it had on the reputation of George Washington. Washington, despite being in poor health before the battle, distinguished himself as being calm and courageous under fire. He emerged from the disaster as
VirginiaThe Commonwealth of Virginia is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" because it is the birthplace of eight U.S. presidents. The geography and climate of the state are shaped by the Blue...
's military hero.
Debate
The debate on how Braddock, with professional soldiers, superior numbers, and artillery, could fail so miserably began soon after the battle and continues to this day. Some blamed Braddock, some blamed his officers, some blamed the British regulars or the colonial militia. George Washington, for his part, supported Braddock and found fault with the British regulars.
Braddock's tactics are still debated. One school of thought holds that Braddock's reliance on time-honoured European methods, where men stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the open and fire mass volleys in unison, was not appropriate for frontier fighting and cost Braddock the battle. Skirmish tactics that American colonials had learned from frontier fighting, where men take cover and fire individually, "Indian style", was the superior method in the American environment.
However, in some studies, the interpretation of "Indian style" superiority has been argued to be a myth by several military historians. European regular armies already employed irregular forces of their own and had extensive theories of how to use and counter guerilla warfare. Stephen Brumwell argues just the opposite stating that both Forbes and
BouquetHenry Bouquet was a prominent British Army officer in the French and Indian War and Pontiac's War. Bouquet is best known for his victory over Native Americans at the Battle of Bushy Run, lifting the siege of Fort Pitt during Pontiac’s War.-Early life:Bouquet was born into a moderately wealthy...
, at the time, recognized that "war in the forests of America was a very different business from war in Europe." Russell argues it was Braddock's failure to rely on the time-honoured European methods that cost him the battle. The British had already waged war on the irregular forces of the
ScotsThe Scots people and an ethnic group indigenous to Scotland.An ethnic group, historically they emerged from an amalgamation of Picts, Gaels and Brythons....
, and Balkan irregulars, such as Pandours and Hussars, had already made their impact on European warfare and theory by the 1740's. Braddock's failure, according to proponents of this theory, was that he failed because he did not adequately apply traditional military doctrine (particularly by not using distance), not the lack of use of frontier tactics. Peter Russell, in his study, shows that on several occasions before the Battle of the Monongahela, Braddock successfully adhered to standard European tactics to counter ambushes, and as a result had been nearly immune to earlier French and Canadian attacks.
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