BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT ... Battle of the Wilderness ... 
... Inspiration for LOTM's Massacre Valley?  A large force of British regulars tramps down an old Indian trail which serves as their roadway. Resplendent in their bright red uniforms and polished steel accoutrements, they provide a rich visual counterpoint to the lush greenery of the surrounding virgin forest. Accompanying this arm of the Crown are many colonial militia, women, sutlers, and the like. But for the tramping of feet, the jangle of equipment, the songs of the birds ... there is silence.
Robert Griffing painting Suddenly, near the rear of the column, a small band of Indian warriors emerges from the darkness of the woods. They cut down several of the British. They disappear. A grenadier company - the cream of each British regiment - forms up and fires at a nearly invisible enemy. The march resumes. There is firing upon the right flank. A party of Rangers & Indian allies pursues the unseen foe into the forest. To no avail. Confusion & panic begins to permeate the ranks ... Seemingly, the above description is right out of Michael Mann's The Last of the Mohicans, and its depiction of the Fort William Henry massacre. But is it? Fast forward to ... Hidden in the forest within the depths of the trees, and on both sides, are hundreds of Indian warriors. They begin a fusillade of fire which tears into its increasingly terrified targets. The British fire blindly. As comrades fall, and their attempts of their own defense prove futile, panic spreads. Troops huddle in a mass, desperately attempting to reach the safety of the center. Gunfire, women's shrieks, smoke, war whoops ... it all equals death to the bewildered British. All sense of order is lost. Officers desperately attempt rally, or even orderly retreat. It is useless. Warriors swoop upon the mass. Proud British might has been reduced to rubble in the unfamiliar confines of the wilderness ... Still think we're speaking of The Last of the Mohicans? It is easy to see why. These two portions of our account of an historical event, though separated in time by 3 days, very closely approximate the filmmakers' vision of the Fort William Henry massacre. [Please see our FORT WILLIAM HENRY ... The Siege & Massacre for the true story!] In some respects, as pointed out in our On the Trail of the Last of the  Mohicans guide booklet, it resembles James Fenimore Cooper's version, largely based on the panic-stricken refugees' early reports of the affair ... people like Jonathan Carver of Massachusetts. Yet, it isn't. It precedes the Fort William Henry siege by two years. It does not occur in the colony of New York, but rather in that of the Penn's Woods, Pennsylvania, in the early stages of the great French and Indian War. Call it what you will, the Battle of the Wilderness, the Battle of the Monongahela, or simply Braddock's Defeat, as it is popularly known, it is very much not any scene from The Last of the Mohicans. It centers not around Fort William Henry, guarding the passage way of the Lake George/Lake Champlain corridor, but rather about a great French fortress, Fort Duquesne, standing guard at the confluence of two mighty rivers, the Allegheny and the Monongahela - joining forces to form one grand river way, the Ohio. It was a critical juncture in the frontier. Holding this point meant control of the Ohio River Valley and the fur trade & Indian alliances that came with it. 
View of Fort Duquesne as it must have looked in 1755 ... Diorama photo courtesy of Table Top Studios
Chains of forts sprouted up around the frontier extending the lines of communication from New York to Fort William Henry, from Quebec to Fort Duquesne. Each little garrison became an isolated outpost serving not only as frontier guardians, but as supply depots and campaign launching points. Thus, destruction of links in these communication lines severely hampered, if not crippled, operations of the enemy. So it was that Major General Edward Braddock, then 60 years old, led an expedition against the French strategic stronghold, Fort Duquesne. Though well versed in military tactics, Braddock had never before led troops in battle. Carrying huge siege cannon with him, this didn't figure to be much of a battle anyway. The fort would fall. The French, too, knew this. They had neither the manpower or supplies to survive an extended siege by the British firepower being lugged their way from Maryland's Fort Cumberland, over 100 miles of wilderness away. Duquesne, very near the location of a previous, short-lived, structure originally constructed by the British, before being driven off by superior French forces and rebuilt, would be only the first to fall, for surely a domino effect would occur throughout the region. The other forts were smaller in size and garrison. It was simple. To maintain dominance in the area, to strengthen alliances with the native population, Duquesne could not be allowed to fall. Manning the fort was a recently swollen garrison of some 600 or more French & Canadians, with plenty of artillery in its massive bastions. Yet, it was readily accepted that it could not stand against the columns of British now known to be creeping, ever so slowly, their way ... numbers that were falsely reported to be as high as 4,000 men. So it was that a body of men comprised of 36 officers, 72 Regulars, 146 Canadian militiamen, and 637 Indians, from the assorted allied tribes of Hurons, Potawotomis, Ottawas, Shawnees, Missisaugas, Iroquois, Delaware, and Mingos, all under the command of Captain Daniel-Hyacinthe-Marie Lienard de Beaujeu, were dispatched from Duquesne on the morning of July 9, 1755 rushing to intercept the approaching British as they were fording the Monongahela at one of two crossings. For reasons not fully known, they were late. The British crossed both fords, in force, unmolested. 
The column of British meandering their way through unfamiliar wilderness to lay siege to Fort Duquesne read like a who's who of Colonial British America - George Croghan, Horatio Gates, Robert Orme, Sir John St. Clair, George Washington, Thomas Gage, Daniel Boone. These, and others, made their uncertain way through the forest with Braddock. They lugged both field and siege cannon, as well as a train of supply wagons, further slowing the progress. All in all, perhaps 1600 men were in the field, consisting of 2 Regiments of British regulars, the 44th, under the command of Colonel Sir Peter Halket, and the 48th, commanded by Colonel Thomas Dunbar. Accompanying these regiments were 200 sutlers, wagoners, and other armed "hands," a group of volunteers, 40-50 women, and a few Oneida Indian allies. One private in the group bore the name - a wonderful LOTM tie-in - of Duncan Cameron. Continued on Page 2 |
