Battle of the Monongahela

Overview

The Battle of the Monongahela took place on July 9, 1755, at the beginning of the French and Indian War at Braddock's Field in present-day Braddock, Pennsylvania, 10 miles (16 km) east of Pittsburgh. A British force under General Edward Braddock, moving to take Fort Duquesne, was defeated by a force of French and Canadian troops under Captain Daniel Liénard de Beaujeu with its American Indian allies.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Significance

The Battle of the Monongahela, fought on July 9, 1755, was one of the opening engagements of the French and Indian War and resulted in a decisive defeat for British forces under General Edward Braddock. The British column, numbering approximately 1,300 men, was moving to seize Fort Duquesne — the French stronghold at the forks of the Ohio River in present-day Pittsburgh — when it was intercepted near Braddock's Field in present-day Braddock, Pennsylvania. The defeat halted the British advance on Fort Duquesne and preserved French control of the Ohio Country at a critical early juncture of the wider Seven Years' War. The engagement demonstrated the vulnerability of conventional European formations to the tactics employed by French and Canadian troops alongside their American Indian allies, a lesson that reverberated through subsequent British operations in the North American theater. Among the British officers present was George Washington, whose presence at this engagement became a notable episode in his early military career.

Forces & casualties

Commanders (11)