Braddock's March: Twelve Springs Camp
Near Wisp, Pennsylvania
In late June of seventeen fifty-five, General Edward Braddock and his British column camped about half a mile from here, pausing at Twelve Springs on their march toward Fort Duquesne at the forks of the Ohio. It was their eighth camp since leaving Fort Cumberland in Maryland. The Chestnut Ridge, visible on the western horizon, was the last mountain barrier they would need to cross.
To get there, axemen were widening an old Indian path into a road wide enough for supply wagons and artillery. It was hard, slow work through dense Pennsylvania forest. The march ended in disaster.
On July ninth, French and Indian forces ambushed the column near the Monongahela River, mortally wounding Braddock and routing his army. The road his men cut, however, became a foundation of westward expansion.
