General Braddock

“ The men who had faced the legions of Europe were panic-stricken by this dreadful unseen foe, and fled, only to be shot down in their tracks. To make it more terrible, the officers were singled out for slaughter, and out of eighty-six officers in a very little while twenty-six were killed and thirty-seven wounded. General Braddock himself had his horse shot under him, and as he rolled on the ground a cry of pain was wrung from him by two musket-balls that pierced his body. Of his three aides, two lay weltering in their blood, and George alone was at his side helping him to rise. ”

“ General Braddock looked at the gaunt weather-beaten man of the woods, clad in hunting shirt and moccasins, painted and bedecked with feathers like an Indian. Truly a strange ally, he thought. "I have experienced troops," he said, "on whom I can depend." ”

“ After much discussion, a campaign plan was adopted whereby General Braddock was to capture Fort Duquesne and expel the French from the Ohio Valley. At this same conference, the suggestion was made that the British Ministry could levy taxes on the colonies to help pay the expense of the war.
Braddock and his troops marched westward from Alexandria into western Pennsylvania near Fort Duquesne through dense wilderness from April 12 to July 9. General Braddock had been accustomed to fighting the European tactics way, but he was wholly unfamiliar with Indian and ambush fighting. ”

“ Captain Vanbraam told him much of this one night when he rode from Alexandria to spend the night with George.
"General Braddock is a great, bluff, brave, foolish, hard-drinking, hard-driving Irishman. He does not understand the temper of our soldiers, and has not the remotest conception of Indian fighting, which our enemies have been clever enough to adopt. I foresee nothing but disaster if he carries out the campaign on his present lines. There is but one good sign. He has heard of you, Colonel Washington, and seems to have been impressed by the devotion of your men to you. ”

“ On July ninth, 1755, General Braddock, in command of two thousand British troops, accompanied by Colonel Washington with eight hundred Virginians, marched toward Fort Duquesne with the intention of capturing it. When within a few miles of the fort, they were surprised by a large party of French and Indians in ambush, and Braddock, who angrily disregarded Washington's advice, saw his troops slaughtered by an invisible enemy. The English and colonists lost seven hundred and seventy-seven men, killed and wounded, while the enemy's loss was scarcely fifty. ”

“ The men were camped about the fort, and half a mile away through the forest a hundred Indians had pitched their wigwams. And here, on the tenth of May, came the Forty-Eighth under Colonel Dunbar, and General Braddock himself in his great traveling chariot, his staff riding behind and a body of light horse on either side. We were paraded to welcome him, the drums rolled out the grenadiers, the seventeen guns prescribed by the regulations were fired, and the campaign was on in earnest. ”

“ GENERAL BRADDOCK SCORNING
WASHINGTON'S ADVICE.
"The Indians," said Braddock, "may frighten Colonial troops, but they can make no impression on the king's regulars. We are alike impervious to fun or fear." Braddock thought of fighting the Indians by manœuvring in large bodies, but the first body to be manœuvred was that of General Braddock, who perished in about a minute.
GENERAL BRADDOCK AFTER SCORNING WASHINGTON'S ADVICE.
We give the reader, above, an idea of Braddock's soldierly bearing after he had been manœuvring a few times. ”

“ There was an outcry in England against General Braddock, for allowing his army of four thousand men to be cut to pieces at the river Ohio,F in the year 1755, by six hundred and fifty Canadians and Indians only, much more than they blame General Abercrombie.
The reason of it is clear. Abercrombie lived to return to England: the living always find means to justify themselves. But Braddock was killed: the dead are always in the wrong, and never find disinterested advocates to plead their cause. Braddock’s order of march​—​criticised by your French Generals​—​may, at first sight, appear singular ”

“ For two hours the battle raged, until Braddock, having had five horses shot under him, went down himself, mortally wounded. Then the regulars that remained took to flight, and Washington, left in command; ordered a retreat, carrying with him his dying general. Braddock died three days after the battle, expressing regret that he had not followed the counsel of Washington. The British prisoners were taken to Duquesne, and that evening the Indians lighted fires on the banks of the Allegheny River, near the fort, and tortured the captives to death. ”

“ Here he and his soldiers fought bravely against a French force of far superior numbers to which they had to yield at last.
The next year, Washington, in charge of the Virginia [162] troops, went with General Braddock, commanding the English forces, to attack the French and take Fort Du Quesne. Braddock was brave but stubborn and ignorant of the methods of Indian warfare. Washington wished the Virginia rangers to march in front in order to guard the army against surprise.
“What!” said Braddock, “a Virginia colonel teach a British general how to fight!” ”

“ BRADDOCK, EDWARD (1695–1755) , major-general, was son of Major-general Edward Braddock, regimental lieutenant-colonel of the Coldstream guards in 1703. After serving with credit in Flanders and Spaint the elder Braddock retired from the service in 1715 and died on 15 June 1720 at Bath, where he was buried in the Abbey Church. ”

“ We will not narrate again in detail here the oft-told story of Braddock's Defeat—how he insisted on marching across the mountains and valleys of Pennsylvania, as though on parade—with banners flying, fifes shrilling, and drums beating. It was a brave display, and such as the old General was accustomed to, in Europe. It would undoubtedly put the French and their skulking allies to instant flight!
Against such a method of warfare Washington raised his voice of counsel, but in vain. The grizzled veteran brushed him aside. Washington was for rapid marching, with scouting troops deployed on ahead. ”

“ At twenty he was physically a young giant capable of enduring any hardship and of meeting any foe. He ran his surveyor's chain far into the wilderness to the west of Mount Vernon. When hardly a man in age, the State of Virginia knew of his qualities and made him an officer in its militia. At only twenty-three he was invited to accompany General Braddock's staff, but neither he nor angels from heaven could prevent Braddock from plunging with typical British bull-headedness into the fatal Indian ambush. ”

“ I would, my dear children, have you dwell on these glimpses of a more manly and generous nature that brightened the closing hours of Braddock's life; because it is but Christian and just that we should be willing to honor virtue in whomsoever it may be found. With all his self-conceit and obstinacy, he had a kindly heart, and was a brave man; and had it been his lot to deal with a civilized enemy, instead of a savage one, he would, no doubt, have proved himself a skilful general. ”

“ I fear General Braddock despised them too much, which probably was of Disservice to him, and I really think without some of them any engagement in the Woods would prove fatal, and if strongly attached to our Interest they are able in their way to do more than three Times their Number. They are naturally inclined to Drink. ”

“ The two armies were to enter the great valleys, one of the St. Lawrence, the other of the Ohio, but not in direct opposition. Dieskau was hurled back at Lake George; Braddock on the Monongahela. We must follow their fortunes.
In February, 1755, Braddock landed at Hampton, Virginia, and presently he and Dinwiddie were living “in great harmony.” A son of Shirley of Massachusetts was serving Braddock as secretary, and he was telling a correspondent how “disqualified his general was for the service he was employed in, in almost every respect.” ”

“ Braddock was an old soldier, and he thought he knew more than his young staff-officer who had learned from experience how to fight Indians. The general laughed at the well-meant advice. Next day, as they were marching through a deep ravine, suddenly came the yells of savages and the crack of rifles. The British veterans were eager to fight, but they could see no foe. The men were shot down like sheep.
The young Virginian and his riflemen leaped behind trees and rocks and fought the Indians in their own way. ”

“ Under the influence of this consideration, it was determined to select twelve hundred men, who should be led by the general in person to the point of destination. The residue of the army, under the command of colonel Dunbar, was to follow, with the baggage, by slow and easy marches.
This disposition being made, Braddock pressed forward to his object, in the confidence that he could find no enemy capable of opposing him ”

“ Washington was seized with a fever, and obliged to travel in a covered wagon. Braddock, however, continued to consult him, and he advised the general to disencumber himself of his heavy guns and unnecessary baggage, to leave them with a rear division, and to press forward expeditiously to Fort Du Quesne. In a council of war it was determined that Braddock [474] should advance as rapidly as possible with twelve hundred select men, and Colonel Dunbar follow on slowly with a rear-guard of about six hundred,—a number of the soldiers being disabled by sickness. ”

“ The English general liked the young Virginian major, Washington, and invited him, as one who knew the ground, to accompany the projected expedition and give advice—which Braddock never took. Its caution seemed to him to savor too much of cowardice, and he persisted in marching through the wilderness toward Fort Duquesne as though his forces had been upon parade, with drums beating and colors flying. The French were very near to being frightened into flight, but determined on [Pg 164] making one effort at resistance. ”

“ The Governor detach'd a party to bury the Dead, and to look for the Indians, they found a Child standing in the Water scalp'd, which had 2 holes in its Skull, they brought it to the Doctor, who dressed it but Died in a Week. [19]
June 10th: the last Division of His Majesty's Forces March'd from Wills Creek with General Braddock, when the General Arrived at the little Meadows 22 Miles from the Creek, and having all his Forces wth. him, found that the Carriages, Pack horses &ca. ”

“ The commander then gave the sign to retreat, and was endeavouring to restore order when a ball struck him from his horse. The British Army had become bewildered fugitives, and a guard could hardly be kept for the wounded General, as he was borne along on a horse as a litter.
The sinking Braddock at last died and was buried in the road, that the tramp of the surging mass of men might obliterate his grave. His remains are said to have been discovered in 1823 by some workmen engaged in constructing the National road, at a spot pointed out by an old man who had been in the ranks in 1755. ”

“ Already Braddock's deputy quartermaster-general, Sir John St. Clair, had passed through Maryland and Virginia and had decided upon the route of the army to Fort Cumberland, the point of rendezvous. Four days after Braddock reached Alexandria, Governor Morris of Pennsylvania received a letter from St. Clair asking him to "open a road toward the head of Youghheagang or any other way that is nearer the French forts," in order that the stores to be supplied by the northern colonies might take a shorter course than by way of the roads then being opened through Maryland and Virginia. ”

“ The warrant of appointment, of which there is a copy in the archives at Philadelphia, appoints Braddock to be 'general and commander-in-chief of all our troops and forces yt are in North America or yt shall be sent or rais'd there to vindicate our just rights and possessions.' Braddock, who must have been then about sixty, was a favourite with William, duke of Cumberland, to whom he probably owed the appointment, although his detractors alleged that his sturdy begging for place under pressure of his gambling debts was the real cause. ”

“ The French continued hostilities, stirring up the Indians and causing no end of trouble. His Majesty's government became sufficiently exercised to dispatch an officer of the line, Major General Edward Braddock, two warships in which were stowed a fine arsenal of powder, rifles, and [Pg 15] cannon, and two regiments of regulars. Word reached Alexandria in February of Braddock's arrival in Williamsburg and that he and the Governor were in conference. ”

“ It was natural, because all eyes had been turned to Virginia by the activity of the Ohio Company, Washington’s campaign of the preceding year, and the erection of Fort Cumberland on the farthest frontier. These operations gave a seeming importance to the Virginia route westward which was all out of harmony with its length and the facilities offered. “Before we parted,” a friend of Braddock wrote concerning the General’s last night in London, “the General told me that he should never see me more; for he was going with a handful of men to conquer whole nations ”

“ BRADDOCK’S GRAVE
Near Uniontown, Pennsylvania, one mile east of Chalk Hill, beside the National Pike, lie the remains of General Edward Braddock. They are said to have been reinterred at this place in 1824.
PONTIAC
The chief of the Ottawas. In April, 1769, he was murdered, when drunk, at Cahokie (nearly opposite St. Louis) by a Kaskaskia Indian, bribed by an English trader. He was buried near the St. Louis fort.
For a long time the Indian astutely played off one foreign nation against the other ”