What was braddock defeat

The French retained control of the Ohio Valley in the wake of their victory. Yet, the Battle of the Monongahela offered a young George Washington, who was recruited as a volunteer aide-de-camp to General Braddock, valuable military experience. After the death of Braddock, Washington helped save the British and provincial troops from total destruction. The conventional notion that Braddock's arrogance or blunders were chiefly responsible for his defeat has depreciated the victory that Indian and French forces won by their superior discipline, tactical decisions, and leadership.

Braddock was not defeated due to any one of these contingencies, but to all of them. The battle was not lost by one man's arrogance or bluster. Braddock's Defeat was ultimately the sum of its imperial parts, a powerful reflection of how weak the British Empire in America really was in In that respect, the British general was simply unfortunate-a term that contemporaries routinely employed to describe his fate.

He was unfortunate in having been ordered to begin his expedition in a colony that was unprepared for war and often unwilling to cooperate. The colonists were largely responsible for the horrendous state of British-Indian relations, which made it so difficult for the general to gain Indian allies. He was unfortunate in that his force was deployed in a column, one of the most difficult tactical formations from which to fight a battle, when he made contact with a highly mobile enemy force.

Franklin wrote in his autobiography that the general expected to make quick work of Fort Duquesne. Franklin, however, cautioned the general that he was badly underestimating the rigors of the American wilderness and the dangers therein — especially the French-allied Indians.

There, Braddock would suffer one of the worst defeats in British military history. The French, however, had already staked their claim to the same frontier region. As early as the s, France had sought the region to unite its Canadian colonies with New Orleans at the southern terminus of the great Mississippi River transportation artery. Therefore, the French endeavored to establish a string of forts along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and the Great Lakes.

From these forts France could control the lucrative fur trade, which was expanding westward as game was depleted in the East. By , a number of the French forts had been completed, including Fort Duquesne, which occupied the strategic point where the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers meet to form the Ohio River.

Notably, this included an engagement on May 28, , about 50 miles south of Fort Duquesne. In that action, a British force of 40 Virginia militiamen under colonial Lieutenant Colonel George Washington, along with 12 Indians, ambushed and killed or captured 35 French Canadian militiamen commanded by Joseph Coulon de Jumonville.

Braddock had served in the British army since , although he took 26 years just to reach the rank of captain. On April 2, , he was promoted to major general. However, Braddock lacked command experience. Despite his nearly half-century in uniform, he had served outside of London only twice and had never commanded troops in combat. After Braddock landed in Virginia in February , further recruiting among British citizens in the Colonies increased the strength of his two regiments to a total of 2, regulars.

See map. Braddock was planning to follow the wilderness route that militia colonel Washington had blazed a year earlier. The distance, which the British mistakenly believed to be only 70miles, was actually miles. From the beginning, Braddock had trouble trying to move his cumbersome force through the difficult terrain. An advance detachment of men, sent ahead to clear and widen the road, made six miles of progress the first day of its march and three miles the second day, with men at a time swinging axes while another stood guard over them.

The first 30 miles took a week. Two dozen female camp followers cooks and laundresses and a herd of beef cattle also accompanied the column. A week later,the main body and the advance detachment met at a place called Little Meadows, near the Maryland-Pennsylvania line. An advance detachment of men and two companies of Virginia rangers along with two 6-pounder guns preceded the flying column, cutting a road through the wilderness.

Braddock led the next in line element of the flying column with two companies of grenadiers, handpicked infantrymen, four howitzers, four pounders and three mortars. Soon, Indians were seen slipping through the woods around the long, strung-out column. Occasionally, shots were fired.

Excellent article! If you love history, particularly that of Western PA, you really do not want to miss this event. Please help support our event so we can continue to bring it to you for years to come!

We invite you to take a weekend journey back into the early frontier of Western Pennsylvania and witness history come alive! It was a critical juncture in the western frontier. In addition to the battle reenactments on Saturday and Sunday, there will be many scheduled and ongoing demonstrations. Additional highlights include Women of the Frontier Program, live horses, cannon and musket firing, cooking, primitive skills, blacksmithing, pottery, woodworking, live tactical engagements, and native camps and delicious home cooked food available for purchase.

Buy Now. By David L. Preston July 9 th On 9 July , British troops under the command of General Edward Braddock suffered one of the greatest disasters of military history. Who was the real Edward Braddock?

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