Source:Fleming-braddocks-story
George T. Fleming. "Gen Braddock's story still lives: History of general in Pittsburgh region is called to mind in many ways: His signal of defeat." Pittsburgh Gazette Times, July 25, 1915, sec. 6, p. 2. Newspapers.com 85379347.
BEFORE closing the history of our region during the years of French dominion there should be some mention more or less in detail of Maj. Gen. Edward Braddock. We have Braddock avenue and the now world-famous borough of that name.
In fact few names in the history of our colonial days have filled more pages in the recording of that history than Braddock's.
Old-timers here will tell you of the little village for years known as Braddock's Fields, and of the Braddock's Fields plank road, the former developing into the great industrial community it now is and the latter long since gone the way of the Fall road.
This plank road was the extension of Second street, now Second avenue, from the city line at the river opposite Miltenberger street on the Bluff.
The great industrial community surrounding the famous wilderness battlefield on the hills there July 9, 1755, comprises the boroughs of Braddock, North Braddock and Rankin. These, with their suburbs, comprise in fact a bustling, booming city.
Streets in Braddock.
In the borough of Braddock commemorating the name of the unfortunate British general, there are also a few street names that are commemorative of individuals who participated in the battle, Washington for instance, and Talbot avenue, and there was once Burton street in the borough, now Library.
In Pittsburgh we have another reminder of Braddock in Halket street in Oakland, a most melancholy story, too.
The impression grows that to write of the French domination of the Ohio country and omit the story of Braddock would be a case of Hamlet without the title role. But what shall the story of Braddock be?
Appalled at the voluminous history that confronts one at the outset, there is also the reasonable presumption that the story is well known—so well known, in fact, that its heading may obtain but a glance and the main and essential facts, considered stale and their relation hackeneyed [sic], to be passed over without even the glance betsowed [sic] upon the headline.
But who knows the whole story or could pass an examination upon these facts if necessary for any purpose? Who can relate Washington's part, Franklin's, Horatio Gates', George Croghan's, Thomas Gage's, Daniel Morgan's, Monacatoocha's [sic], Sir Peter Halket's and Col. Dunbar's?
Why the expedition? What composed of? What co-operative expeditions at the same time and where? Who commanded the French? How many were engaged on each side? Where is the exact ground on which the battle occurred?
An Historic Spot.
One may go on and write a complete list of examination questions and pause to reflect when he thinks of the thousands who frequent Kennywood Park and ask himself:
"How many know that Braddock's little army crossed the river here with all the pomp and pageantry of a dress parade and review?"
How many can remember the old-time coal tipple that stood on the river bank marking the crossing and known as Green Springs mines, owned by Thomas Fawcett? How many will remember that John Frazier, the English trader, had his cabin nearly opposite at the mouth of Turtle Creek and that Washington had been there before and at Aliquippa town at the site of McKeesport?
Vast history is opened up by the name Braddock. Vast not only in significance, but in results. The disaster of July 9, 1755, served but to incense and made more determined the British ministry to drive the French out of the "Debatable Land about the Ohio."
There was a far cry, too, for vengeance and though slow in coming, it arrived November 25, 1758, with John Forbes the "Head of Iron" and that day was the natal day of Pittsburgh.
In the voluminous history of those eventful years as written by great historians, Bancroft, Parkman, Winthrop, Sargent, John Fiske, Justin Winsor, Lossing, et al, what is material to any that should be culled for the purposes of a newspaper article?
Then, too, we have had the ground covered ably by local historians, Neville B. Craig, James Veech, William M. Darlington, Charles McKnight, James Hadden and others who have gone into every detail, some seemingly trivial, and have sought out every phase of the march, behavior and conduct of the troops and given us rare history.
Orme Tells Story.
We can refer also to the succinct account of Robert Orme, one of Braddock's aides, severely wounded, writing Gov. Dinwiddie from a bed of pain.
Artists have touched the pencil and the brush to give us divergent and somewhat impossible views of the battle and have more or less, as imagination dictated, depicted the fall, the death and burial of the brave but stubborn general in command.
Then there is the story of Thomas Fausett, known throughout Fayette county for generations as the man who killed Braddock because he regarded Braddock as a madman and to save the few who were permitted to escape after Braddock's fall.
This is some story and properly told would take up columns and then it is old, but thoroughly believed throughout Fayette county, for Fausett confessed more than once that "he gloried" in his act—his "alleged act," rather:
It is not to be denied that Fausett fought in the battle, that he was a hard character who lived for years afterward in the neighborhood of Wharton township, Fayette county, and that 57 years after Braddock's death he pointed out the exact spot where Braddock had been hastily interred. Upon digging the bones were found and this was done in 1812 by Abraham Stewart, father of the elder Andrew Stewart, member of Congress from the district and widely known as "Tariff Andy."
Mr. Stewart, William Darby, a historian; Judge James Veech, his assistant, Freeman Lewis and various old residents of Fayette county attest this story. It is well authenticated, for others were present with Mr. Stewart when the bones were disinterred.
The Fausett Story.
Winthrop Sargent endeavors to disprove the story that Fausett shot Braddock. It is known that Braddock had five horses shot under him. He was conspicuous enough mounted and in full uniform, so that it is evident he was "under a heavy fire," and it took a good eye to follow the bullet that brought him low.
Sundry country newspapers and magazines published in the early part of the last century were wont to publish the statements pertaining to be those of eyewitnesses to Braddock's fall.
Some of these narrators were Revolutionary heroes, and hence worthy of belief and all lived to advanced ages, so that in our great-grandfathers' days the question, "who killed Gen. Braddock?" could be as readily answered as "who killed Cock Robin?"
Fausett is alleged to have lived to be 109 years old and for some years previous to his death was a public charge. A variation of the reason for killing Braddock is that the General struck down—some say killed—a brother of Fausett's named Joseph.
The last mention of Fausett in Fayette county records is in 1820, when the overseers of the poor of Wharton township claimed credit for sundry amounts for his keeping.
Pausett [sic] lived in his last years about two miles from Ohiopyle. His grave is near there, the stone attesting he died March 23, 1822, "aged 109 years 9 mos." It is regularly decorated on Memorial Day.
Fausett was a large, ungainly, illiterate man of great strength and rude habits and strong passions, a veritable lout. In Braddock's army he and his brother served as privates in Capt. Cholmondely's [sic] company of the Forty-eighth Regiment. They had been enlisted at Shippensburg by Capt. William Polson, sho had served under Washington the preceding year.
Basis for Story.
If you try to pronounce the name of their captain, you will stumble, so just call it Chumley, in good English style.
There is no doubt that Braddock died and that his name is eternal; also his fame and sorrowful enough it is.
It is reasonable to conclude that Fausett was the type of a man to have shot Braddock. We have equally vengeful creatures today of greater mentality—to lay aside any references to personal bravery. Fausett's untutored mind and brutal instincts must be taken into consideration in the contemplation of the act alleged.
For the above recited facts we are indebted to that painstaking and appreciated historian of Fayette county, James Hadden of Uniontown.
Like as not someone will say:
"We are familiar with Braddock's name, but what more of him than disaster can be said?"
Braddock, like Forbes and Grant, was a Scotchman, born in Perthshire, about 1695. He was, therefore, 60 years old at the time of his defeat. He entered the British service in the celebrated Coldstream Guards as an ensign, at the age of 15 and served in Flanders—that war-torn land we know as Belgium.
If veracious historians are to be believed in their accounts of Braddock's lurid language on his expedition, he was one of that renowned army in Flanders that gave it its ever-memorable reputation for profanity. His private life was not above reproach but he was a brave man and a good soldier—in Europe.
He was made a brigadier in 1746, hence had had a general command for nine years before coming to America. He was made a major general in 1754.
Comes to America.
He arrived at Alexandria, Va., in February, 1755, and spent five months in preliminary operations waiting on stores, horses, wagons and other necessaries. Had it not been for Franklin, who furnished 150 wagons and 2,000 horses from Pennsylvania, the delay would have been months longer.
Braddock was at Cumberland June 10, 1755. Anxious to get to Fort Duquesne speedily, he left Dunbar behind with 1,000 men and the wagon train, containing the extra ammunition and provisions.
It was a toilsome and laborious march. Gist and his son Nathaniel were guides, but much of the road had to be cut through a wilderness. This has since gone into history as Braddock's road, most parts of it long since abandoned.
Slow progress was made. However, the army was at Aliquippa's town, now McKeesport, on July 8. It crossed the river there and marched down the western banks until opposite the pond below Turtle Creek.
The river was low and the crossing easy. It was made with all the pomp and show possible and Washington records that it was a grand sight, such as he had never seen.
The wary foe had full knowledge of the trend of events. Contrecoeur was in command at Fort Duquesne.
Consternation prevailed, for Braddock's numbers had been overestimated. A young officer at the front, Capt. Leonard Daniel Sieur de Beaujen [sic], whom we must regard as something of a mad-cap, persuaded Contracoeur [sic] to permit the ambuscade with his small force of less than 300 regulars and Canadians. The Indians were uncertain and it took much persuasion on Beaujen's [sic] part to win them over. Pontiac is said to have been one of the chiefs.
Strength of Indians.
These Indian allies have been variously estimated—probably about 500. Dumas and Lignery were subordinates to Beaujeu.
The world has long known what happened. Capt. Orme in his letter to Dinwiddie tells an interesting story. Some extracts are as follows:
Fort Cumberland, July 18, 1755.
My Dear Governor,
I am so extremely ill in bed with the wound I have received that I am under the Necessity of employing my friend Capt. Dobson as my scribe. I am informed that Governor Innes has sent you some account of the Action near the Banks of the Monongahela about seven miles from the French Fort. As his Intelligence must be very Imperfect, the Dispatch he sent to you must consequently be so too; you should have had more early Account of it, but every Officer whose business it was to have informed you was either killed or wounded and our distressful Situation put it out of our power to attend to it so much as we would have otherwise have done. The 9th Instant we passed and repassed the Monongahela by advancing first a party of 300 men which immediately followed by another of 200, the general with the column of Artillery, Baggage and the Main Body of the Army passed the river the last time about one o'clock.
Heavy Firing Starts.
As soon as the whole had got on the Fort side of the Monongahela we heard a very heavy and quick fire on our front; we immediately advanced in order to sustain them but the Detachment of the 200 and 300 gave way and fell back upon us, which caused such confusion and panic into our men that afterwards no military Expedient could be made use of that had any Effect upon them, the men were extremely deaf to the exhortations of the General and the Officers that they fired away in the most irregular manner all their ammunition and then ran off leaving to the enemy the Artillery, Ammunition, Provisions and Baggage, nor could they be persuaded to stop till they got as far as Gist's plantation, nor there only in part, many of them proceeding even as far as Col. Dunbar's Party who lay six miles on this side.
Gist's plantation was on the western slope of the Laurel Ridge, about Mount Braddock. Dunbar's camp, it may be noted, was within 400 yards of where Washington had his skirmish with Jumonville, May 28, 1754, more than a year previous, an engagement that brought on the war, and in which engagement Jumonville was killed.
Orme's letter resumed states:
The officers were absolutely sacrificed by their unparalelled [sic] good behavior. Advancing before their men sometimes in bodies and sometimes separately, hoping by such an example to engage the soldiers to follow them, but to no purposes. The General had five horses shot under him and at last received a wound through his lungs of which he died the 13th instant at night. Captain Monies and myself very much wounded. Mr. Washington had two horses shot under him and his clothes shot through in several places, behaving the whole time with the greatest courage and resolution.
Death of Halket.
Sir P. Halket was killed on the spot and according to the best calculation we can yet make about 28 officers were killed.
Col. Burton and Sir John St. Clair, with 35 officers wounded and out of our whole number of officers not above 16 came off the Field unhurt. We imagine there are killed and wounded about 600 men. I have the pleasure to acquaint you that Captain Polson (who was killed), and his Company behaved extremely well, as did Captain Stuart and his light horse, who I beg to recommend to your protection and to desire you will be so kind to use your best endeavors to serve him as he has lost by the death of the general the rewards he really deserved by his gallant and faithful attendance on him.
No accurate list of the casualties was ever attained. Lists vary; of 89 commissioned officers 26 were killed and 37 wounded. Lassing says 714 in all were killed and wounded. Sparks adds to this 63 officers.
Judge Veech says 1,450 officers and men were engaged, of whom 456 were killed and 421 wounded. Mr. Hadden's total is 830; the killed in excess of the wounded. Veech gets his figures from Orme, who kept a journal and, though wounded, managed to save it.
The French casualties were trifling. Three officers, including Beaujeu, were killed, and four wounded, four regular soldiers were wounded. About 30 were killed of the Canadians and Indians—mainly Indians.
A battle where the losses were so disproportionate has had few equals in the annals of war. It was truly, as Halket put it, "A sorra day."
The Fatal Advance.
Orme tells of the advance. He says:
Upon our proceeding with the whole convoy to the Little Meadows we found it impractable to advance in that manner; a Detachment was therefore made of 1,200 men with the Artillery, necessary Ammunition, Provisions and Baggage, leaving the remainder with Col. Dunbar with orders to join us as soon as possible. With this Detachment we proceeded with safety and expedition till the fatal day I have just related, and happy it was that this disposition was made, otherwise the whole must have starved or fallen into the Hands of the enemy, as numbers would have been of no service to us and our provision was all lost.
Orme tells also in the letter of having £2,000 in his possession in bills and notes which he had received from Braddock, and asks advice as to its disposal. These securities were South Carolina's contribution to the cost of the expedition.
Orme tells further of events:
As our number of horses were so much reduced and those so extremely weak, and many carriages being wanted for the wounded men, occasioned our destroying the Ammunition and superfluous part of the Provision left in Col. Dunbar's Convoy, to prevent its falling into the Hands of the Enemy.
As the whole of the Artillery is lost and the Terror of the Indian remaining so strongly in the men's minds as also the Troops being extremely weakened by Deaths, Wounds and Sickness, it was judged impossible to make any further attempts; therefore Col. Dunbar is returning to Fort Cumberland with everything he is able to bring along with him. I propose remaining here till my wound will suffer me to remove to Philadelphia; from thence I shall make all possible Dispatch to England.
Orme had had enough of campaigning in the wilderness. He recovered and returned to England, and in 1756 resigned from the army. He married well and settled down to the easy life of an English gentleman. He died in 1781. He had in early youth entered the army as an ensign, in the Thirty-fifth Foot, in 1745 exchanged to the Coldstream Guards, becoming a lieutenant in 1751.
Some Other Officers.
He came to America with Braddock and assisted in removing the wounded General from the field. He was a typical English officer, serving as an aide to Braddock at the time of the expedition.
Halket's son also was killed, and Braddock's secretary, William Shirley, and Capt. Peyroney of Virginia, who had been with Washington the year previous.
Thomas Dunbar, colonel of the Forty-eighth Regiment, was superseded in November, 1755, because of his "injudicious conduct" and was sent "into honorable retirement" as lieutenant governor of Gibraltar. He was never again actively in service. He died in 1777.
Col. John St. Clair, also found spelled "Sinclair," remained a long time in service in America. In 1756 he was made a lieutenant colonel of the Sixtieth Regiment, and in 1762 became a colonel. In the battle he was shot through the body.
Lieut. Col. Thomas Gage was also wounded. He lived to become one of the most obnoxious of British commanders prior to and during the Revolution.
A local historian has justly observed that people at this day have very little idea of the terrible consequences of the defeat on the Monongahela. The whole line of border settlements from the north line of Pennsylvania to the Carolinas was left exposed and frightened inhabitants were obliged to flee eastward, abandoning most of their possessions. The merciless Indian war on the borders became more merciless.
Braddock as a name stands for calamity. When you go along that avenue in Pittsburgh or through the Braddock region, remember that calamity was preliminary to the birth of a wonderful city—our city.
