Braddock's Road: The March Toward Disaster
Near Wisp, Pennsylvania
In the summer of seventeen fifty-five, British General Edward Braddock led roughly two thousand soldiers and colonists through this corner of Maryland and Pennsylvania on a road they were cutting through the wilderness themselves. Their destination was Fort Duquesne, the French stronghold at the forks of the Ohio River, present-day Pittsburgh. On June twenty-third, Braddock's advance column passed near this spot, racing ahead to reach the fort before French reinforcements could arrive.
He chose speed, pushing ahead with a lighter advance column. Three weeks later, on July ninth, the column was ambushed by French troops, Canadian militia and their Native American allies near the Monongahela River. Braddock was mortally wounded.
His young aide-de-camp, Colonel George Washington, helped organize the retreat and had two horses shot out from under him. The road Braddock's men cut became the foundation for westward expansion.
