Braddock Road

By John Kennedy Lacock


Of Braddock’s relations with the Indians there are many conflicting stories; but a careful examination of the most trustworthy accounts will convince an impartial investigator that there is no basis in fact for the charge, often made, that his conduct toward them was impolitic and unjust. On the contrary, it is difficult to find a single fair criticism that can be made against him on this score. However one may account for the circumstance that but eight of them accompanied the expedition, it seems to be practically certain that this small number was not due to the fact that the Indians had not received every reasonable consideration from the English general.
From Fort Cumberland westward Braddock had to make a road for his troops across mountains divided by ravines and torrents, over a rugged, desolate, unknown, and uninhabited country. The history of the construction of this road and a description of its course it is the purpose of this paper to set forth; for the growing interest with which the routes of celebrated expeditions are coming to be regarded, and the confusion that attends the tracing of such routes after a lapse of years, make it altogether fitting that the road by which the unfortunate Braddock marched to his disastrous field should be surveyed, mapped, and suitably marked while it is yet possible to trace its course with reasonable definiteness.
Although the ground between these two obstructions to the Narrows on its right bank might have afforded a good roadbed, yet undoubtedly they proved to be obstacles that Braddock’s engineers, with the appliances which they had at hand, could not easily surmount. It is well known to the older residents of Cumberland that as late as 1873 the mass of boulders at the eastern end of the gap, lying along the right bank of the stream, were in their primitive condition when a wagon road was constructed by George Henderson, Jr., to join the Cumberland road on that side of Wills Creek. On the contrary, the left bank presented no such difficulties in the way of road-building; and a careful examination of the ground through the entire length of the gap cannot fail to convince one that in Braddock’s day there was opportunity for the easy construction of a road on that side.