ORDER OF BATTLE // July 9, 1755
Battle of the Monongahela
Estimated force strength by side, with confidence labels per surviving record.
Forces engaged
1 sides catalogued · combined 1,300 estimated
Great Britain
1,300
Medium-confidence figure
Battle context
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.
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