Date Published:

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Battle of the Monongahela

Monongahela, Battle of (1755). As part of the British campaign against New France , Braddock led an expedition against Fort Duquesne, taking with him as one of his aides-de-camps Colonel George Washington. Fort Duquesne stood where the city of Pittsburg stands to-day. Braddock had about fourteen hundred men; the French leader Contrecoeur about nine hundred, of whom two-thirds were Indians. Contrecoeur having learned of Braddock's approach, it was determine to embuscade him at the ford of the Monongahela, about eight miles from the fort. The plans miscarried through the fikleness of the Indians, and the fight actually took place in the heavy forest. Beaujeu the French leader was killed early in the engagement, and for a time the British more than held their own. Dumas, however, rallied the French and Indians, who spread out on either side of the compact British column, and from the shelter of trees and rocks mowed down the defenceless red-coats. Braddock, with most of his officers, was mortally wounded, and the remnant of his veterans fled back to the river in wild disorder. Dunbar, with a few hundred men, retreated over the mountains to Fort Cumberland.

Return to the Seven Years' War home page

Source : Lawrence J. BURPEE and Arthur G. DOUGHTY, The Makers of Canada. Index and Dictionary of Canadian History, Toronto, Morang & Co., Limited, 1912, 446p., p. 431