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Illustrated Episode · Volume II, chapter 37 · 9 July 1755

The general rides into the smoke

A stout general in a red coat and a young officer in dark blue sit their horses in a forest road among red-coated soldiers firing across it, with white smoke in the trees and a dead horse in the dust.
On the road to Fort Duquesne, 9 July 1755, General Edward Braddock rides through his bunched regulars while fire pours from the trees, and young George Washington reins in beside him. Rothbard calls the march a grab for Ohio land that the colonists would not supply. A French and Indian force of little more than eight hundred cut the army to ribbons. Chapter 37 of Conceived in Liberty.

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Adapted from Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Mises Institute, 2011), CC BY 3.0.

What happened

In the summer of 1755 General Edward Braddock led some twenty-five hundred men, in Rothbard's count, out of Virginia toward Fort Duquesne, a road of his own cutting through the Allegheny forest. Rothbard charges the whole scheme to the Ohio Company and to a war party in London, and notes that Pennsylvania and Maryland refused to vote the money and that the frontier people would not feed the army. On 9 July, a few miles from the fort, the column ran into a French and Indian force of little more than eight hundred. The regulars bunched in the twelve-foot road and fired at the trees while Odawa, Ojibwe and other warriors shot from the ravines and woods. Braddock rode forward to rally them and had horses shot under him, and Washington, his young aide, rode through the smoke with his orders. Three hours in, a ball through the arm and lung brought the general down. Washington wrote to his brother that he had four bullets through his coat and two horses shot under him. Rothbard puts it in a line: the mighty army was "cut to ribbons" and Colonel Dunbar did not stop until Philadelphia (CiL, p. 733). Braddock died four days later.

Sources

  1. Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2011 single-volume ed.), vol. II, ch. 37, pp. 724-735. CC BY 3.0. Rothbard
  2. George Washington to Robert Dinwiddie, Fort Cumberland, 18 July 1755, Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series vol. 1 (Founders Online, document 02-01-02-0168), read only through a search summary. Primary source
  3. George Washington to John Augustine Washington, Fort Cumberland, 18 July 1755 ('four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me'), Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series vol. 1; also to Mary Ball Washington, 18 July 1755, Founders Online 02-01-02-0167; read only through search summaries (Mount Vernon and Encyclopedia Virginia print it). Primary source
  4. Winthrop Sargent, ed., The History of an Expedition against Fort Du Quesne, in 1755 (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1856), containing Captain Robert Orme's journal; the passage on Braddock's horses is Sargent's own narrative as quoted in a search summary (four horses shot, a fifth mounted), not opened in full. Secondary source
  5. 'Battle of the Monongahela', Wikipedia (accessed 2026-09-30): the flying column of about 1,300, tight formations, Braddock rallying and several horses shot, the provincials behind trees, the warriors in ravines and woods, Braddock shot in the lung after three hours. Secondary source
  6. 'Battle of Monongahela 1755', britishbattles.com (accessed 2026-09-30): about 1 pm; two crossings; the seven-mile approach; a twelve-foot road; the men forming a mass; Indians fanning down the flanks; Washington present in spite of illness. Secondary source
  7. 'Braddock, Edward', Dictionary of National Biography 1885-1900, Wikisource (read through a search summary, accessed 2026-09-30): born 1695; rather short and stout in his later years; no portrait known. Secondary source