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The Virginians’ defeat at Fort Necessity strengthened French control of the Ohio valley. The French had gambled that their expansion into the Ohio Valley would not provoke a reaction, since aside from a few fur traders, no English colonists lived there. They were wrong. When news of the defeat reached England in August, it supported the politicians who had been warning about increased French aggression, so the British government quickly agreed to send two regiments from Ireland to America under the command of Major General Edward Braddock, who left England in late December, followed several weeks later by his troops. Since it was impossible to keep this movement a secret the French would naturally send troops as well but Braddock had a head start since the ports in the French colony would be blocked with ice until spring. Anyway, no one in the French or British governments believed that some skirmishes in the colonies would lead to war.
Braddock reached America in late February and the troops arrived in early March.

Although Braddock had been given seven regiments on paper, in reality his force was much weaker, since two of the regiments were to be raised in America while the other five were all undermanned. In fact, the quality of the recruits provided by the colonies was so inadequate that they were used only as laborers and rangers. He also found that the governors would happily promise supplies but deliver them slowly if at all. However, the thought of defeat never crossed Braddock’s mind, since he knew that he greatly outnumbered the garrison of Fort Duquesne.

While there was no official declaration of war, there is no other way to describe the scale of the British response than all out war. The planned series of campaigns was designed to remove every French threat to the English colonies. Governor Shirley of Massachusetts was to lead the two American regiments against Fort Niagara on Lake Ontario. William Johnson, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, was to first persuade the Iroquois to cooperate with these campaigns and then attack Fort St. Frederic (called Crown Point by the English) on Lake Champlain, which was the home base of French and Indian raiding parties that had terrorized the northern part of New York. Governor Charles Lawrence of Nova Scotia was told to eliminate Fort Beausejour, which threatened the colony, and gain control of Acadie. The destruction of Fort Duquesne was left to Braddock.

When looking at a map in Europe, Fort Duquesne must have seemed to be an easy objective but Braddock soon encountered reality. Unable to grasp the logistical difficulties involved in moving an army through wilderness, Braddock had brought a massive baggage train and a huge artillery train because he felt that heavy cannon would be needed to break through Fort Duquesne’s solid structure. The British regulars were not prepared for the harsh conditions and supplies never arrived on schedule, which did little to boost morale. Braddock’s obvious contempt for Indians ensured that they were only able to recruit eighty Indian scouts, so he tried to compensate by posting flanking parties, but any soldier who strayed from the main column or camp was caught and the mutilated bodies left as warnings spread fear among the soldiers. Indian raids on his rear were so effective that over a hundred settlers were killed or captured and people refused to send supplies unless they were provided with an escort.

Braddock found out the hard way that the terrain in North America was not as smooth as in Europe and by early June he was a month behind schedule, even though his heaviest cannon had been sent back. The four mile long column crawled at a rate of two miles per day, which was not just frustrating, the snail-like pace imperiled the mission since supplies were limited. After consulting with George Washington, who had experienced similar problems the previous year, Braddock decided to leave the main column to struggle forward under Colonel Thomas Dunbar, and advance with half of the troops towards Duquesne.

As soon as he had learned of the British intention to retake the Ohio Valley, Louis XV had dispatched 3,000 men to Quebec but they would not arrive until mid to late June, so only two hundred reinforcements under Captain Daniel-Hyacinthe-Marie Lienard de Beaujeu were sent to Fort Duquesne. Fortunately, the Indian tribes of the Ohio Valley had already been persuaded to ally with the French. When Beaujeu reached Duquesne at the end of June, he agreed with Contrecoeur, the fort’s commander, that the wooden walls would not last long against cannon, so it had to be abandoned and they should ambush Braddock to cover their retreat to Fort Niagara. The Indian allies only agreed to join the ambush when they learned that Braddock was marching to the fort with only 1,300 men, so Beaujeu’s 300 French regulars and Canadian militia were supplemented by 650 Indians when he launched his attack on July 9.

Although he was in a hurry to reach Fort Duquesne before the end of summer, Braddock had no desire to experience an ambush. Flanking parties marched on each side of the column and engineers worked behind the advance guard to clear the way for the rest of the column, which stretched a mile long. The advance guard initially repelled the French force and killed Beaujeu but instead of retreating, the second-in-command, Jean-Daniel Dumas, rallied the troops, and sent the Indians to attack the British from the sides. The ambush was so effective because Lt. Colonel Thomas Gage, the commander of the advance guard, had neglected to occupy a hill to the right of the column and Braddock sent the troops under Colonel Ralph Barton forward without waiting for a report from Gage, although given the speed with which the Indians moved through the forest, there may not have been enough time.

The situation soon degenerated into chaos as the British regulars in the road fired blindly at anything that moved, often hitting the flanking parties as they tried to rejoin the main column. Firing from the safety of the woods the French and Indians soon picked off almost all of the officers, who were juicy targets since they were on horseback. The troops were not of the highest quality and they had lived in terror of Indian attack for the past month, so most of the men simply broke and fled to the rear where they ran into the reinforcements under Barton. At the same time, the destruction of the flanking parties allowed the French to move onto the hill that Gage had neglected to secure, and simply pour fire into the massed British troops standing in the middle of the open road. Barton was about to lead his men to evict the French from the hill when he was shot off his horse, which did nothing to restore calm.

Braddock refused to allow Washington to lead men into the woods to attack the French and Indians directly because his redcoats were trained to fight as a group in the open. While they were debating tactics, the retreating men and the advancing reserves became a tangled mess on the narrow road and died. Any officer who tried to restore order became an immediate target so within minutes all of Braddock’s staff except for Washington was dead or wounded. Braddock somehow managed to stay alive for an hour and a half, although four horses were not so lucky, but he suffered a fatal wound shortly after he finally accepted that the situation was hopeless and ordered a retreat. The retreat became a rout and the wagons, artillery and wounded were abandoned. After a brief chase, the Indians returned to scalp and strip the hundreds of British soldiers lying on the road. Aside from the huge amount of weapons and ammunition, the greatest prize was Braddock’s orders that detailed the plans for all four campaigns.

It had been a slaughter since roughly 500 English had died while French casualties were 28 French dead and 11 Indian dead. The ease of the French victory caused the Indians to believe that the English were weak, and this perception would affect the other campaigns, especially the campaign against Fort St. Frederic.

Braddock lived long enough to tell Dunbar, the commander of the main force, to retreat to Fort Cumberland, the original staging point for the expedition. He died on June 13 and after he was buried by the side of the road, the men marched over the grave to hide its location. Employing an odd interpretation of his orders, Dunbar left the wounded at Fort Cumberland guarded by a single company of Virginia militia, most of whom promptly deserted. Instead of regrouping for another attempt, he led the army back to Philadelphia, essentially leaving the frontier defenseless against Indian raids. However, Dunbar still had half of the original army, as well as the survivors of Braddock’s force. Admittedly, the main column was more than fifty miles from the fort but less than ten miles of road needed to be cleared to reach Fort Duquesne. Under a more determined commander the fort would have been captured but he was unwilling to risk battle with such a demoralized force. Instead, he went into winter quarters in July. Worse, his refusal to build a strong fort between Cumberland and Duquesne or even leave a proper garrison at Fort Cumberland, which was over a hundred miles from Duquesne, basically gave the French permission to use the road that had been carved out of the forest with so much effort, a strategic error that they would eagerly exploit.

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Further Reading:

Breaking the Backcountry: The Seven Years’ War in Virginia and Pennsylvania, 1754-1765-Matthew C. Ward, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003.

The effect of the Seven Years’ War on Virginia and Pennsylvania has received little attention even though the two colonies bore the brunt of Indian raids and economic destruction, while gaining little of the wealth that accompanied the war since both states lacked ports. This was especially true since the area suffered Indian raids from 1755 to 1758 following Braddock’s defeat and then again during Pontiac’s Uprising in 1763. Ward provides a good examination of the spread of settlers into the two colonies during the fifty years before the war started, as well as a detailed examination of how the two colonies handled Indian raids during the seven years’ war and how they were affected by the actions of other colonies. It is a well-written and well-researched book that is probably of more interest to the specialist than general readers, but it is extremely valuable for devotees of this period, since the majority of books on the Seven Years’ War seem to be general studies, rather than deal with individual campaigns.

The Old Dominion at War: Society, Politics, and Warfare in Late Colonial Virginia-James Titus, Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 1991.

As the title suggests, it focuses entirely on how Virginia reacted to the challenge it faced during the Seven Years War. To be specific, Titus explores how the different elements of society interacted, showing how the richer part of society provoked trouble and the middle and lower classes only rallied to the military when their homes were threatened by Indian raids. He also explains that while the middle class property owners did not have the time or resources to form parties and challenge the rich planters for control of the local government, their unwillingness to serve unless in self-defence makes it clear that they were not as deferential as previous historians have believed. It also contains a very in-depth look at Virginia’s military structure with several detailed tables presenting the makeup and origin of men serving in the regiment. To be honest, despite the impressive amount of research, it is probably of interest to academics only.

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