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Wednesday, March 19, 2003

Ann Belser, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

George Washington had a bad day in Braddock. He was an aide to Gen. Edward Braddock on July 9, 1755, when his British troops were overwhelmed by the enemy in the French and Indian War. Braddock was killed. Another 605 militiamen and civilian camp followers on the British side also were killed. The rest fled eastward away from Fort Duquesne, which they had hoped to seize.

It was the second-most-deadly frontier battle against the Indians.

That day, Washington was with the British, but he learned from the French and Indian soldiers.

Twenty-two years later, he was named commander of the Colonial army and employed the same tactics of wilderness warfare that had made the French and Indians so successful against the British Regulars.

While much was written about the battle from the British side, only one participant, Jean-Daniel Dumas, has written about it from the French side.

In a letter that was penned a year after the battle, Dumas, a French officer, described how he took command of the French and Indian forces after Lienard de Beaujeu, the commander of those forces, was killed.

Dumas was later hailed in Europe as the victor in the battle of the Monongahela River. Now, his manuscript about French military experiences in North America has been acquired by the Braddock's Field Historical Society.

Robert Messner, a society member, found that the manuscript was for sale from the estate of a Canadian collector. The handwritten book, entirely in French, is on display at the small French and Indian War Museum the society has on the second floor of the Braddock Carnegie Library.

The historical society also has agreements to buy two pieces of property in North Braddock where the British forces first encountered the French and Indian troops.

Those are the latest steps in the society's attempt to re-create the battlefield and establish a visitors center in time for the 250th anniversary in 2005.

In the Braddock battle, the 250 French and 900 Indian fighters were slightly outnumbered by the 1,200 British and Colonial militiamen. But the French and Indians spread down along the British column coming up the hill from the Monongahela River and forced the oncoming forces back, bunching them all together and killing as many as they could.

The only more deadly encounter in the westward expansion of the colonies was 36 years later, in 1791, when 832 militiamen and civilians were killed near the present site of Fort Recovery, Ohio, at the Wabash River.

The British forces suffered 338 more casualties in Braddock's defeat than the 7th Cavalry lost in 1876 at Little Big Horn under Gen. George Custer, where the death toll was 268.

On the French side at Braddock's defeat, "only Dumas lived to write the story," Messner said. "He becomes, in history, the victor over Braddock."

In a letter written by Dumas, he describes how, at first, 100 of the French militiamen turned and fled, followed shortly by many of the Indian fighters.

"It was then ... that by work and gesture, I sought to rally a few soldiers who remained. I advanced, with an assurance born of despair. My platoon gave forth with a withering fire that astonished the enemy. It grew imperceptibly and the Indians, seeing that my attack had caused the enemy to stop shouting, returned to me," Dumas wrote, according to a translation of one of his letters about the battle.

Messner said when he saw that Dumas' manuscript was for sale for $5,000, he jumped on it.

"This was such a one-time opportunity, and I knew it would disappear," he said.

Tributes to turning point

The manuscript, which has been placed in a specially built protective box with a glass cover, joins two priceless paintings, one by Emmanuel Leutze of Braddock's defeat (Leutze is best known for his painting "Washington Crossing the Delaware") and the other by Frederic James of Benjamin Franklin and Gen. Braddock. In the painting, Braddock is disregarding Franklin's advice on how to fight against the Indians.

Franklin wrote, in his autobiography, that Braddock's defeat "gave us Americans the first suspicion that our exalted ideas of the prowess of British Regulars had not been well founded."

In other words, the Colonists realized that the British could be defeated.

In addition to Washington, other participants in the battle included Daniel Boone, who was later a pioneer; Thomas Gage, who commanded the British at the Battle of Bunker Hill; and Horatio Gates, who led the Colonists against the British in the Battle of Saratoga.

Now that the society has three fine pieces to join the 250 artifacts from Braddock's expedition and the maps and pictures of the area, Messner said he hopes that, in addition to recreating the battlefield, the society can build a visitors center to house the collection.

The land the society is buying is located in North Braddock along Sixth Street and Baldridge Avenue.

Other battlefield sites from the French and Indian War include Fort Duquesne, which is now Fort Pitt in Pittsburgh; Fort Necessity National Battlefield, near Farmington, Fayette County; Fort Ligonier in Ligonier; and Bushy Run in Penn Township, Westmoreland County.

Money for the development of the Braddock's Field historic site is being contributed by U.S. Steel, which has awarded the society a four-year grant for $125,000 each year, and from the McCune Foundation.

"What we are trying to accomplish here has historical and economic development importance," Messner said. "If we are successful, the Braddock's Field area may be a very special place 10 years from now. ... We have to move promptly, though. The 250th anniversary of the battle is in mid-2005, and we have a lot to do before then."