Braddock Road (Twelve Springs Camp)
Henry Clay Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
General Braddock's eighth camp, June 24, 1755, on the march to Fort Duquesne, was about half a mile SW. Chestnut Ridge, seen on the horizon to the west, was the last mt. range to be crossed. Axemen widened an Indian path for the passage of supply wagons and artillery over it.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
On June 24, 1755, General Braddock's army made its eighth camp here as it struggled toward Fort Duquesne, with Chestnut Ridge — the last mountain barrier before the descent toward the Ohio — looming on the western horizon. To move supply wagons and artillery over the ridge, Braddock's axemen widened an existing Indian path into a rough military road. It was slow, backbreaking work that set the army's crawling pace.
Why it matters
The camp shows the sheer engineering effort behind Braddock's march, as an Indian trail was hacked into a wagon road that would outlast the expedition itself.
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Related people
- · Edward Braddock
Related events
- · Braddock Expedition
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Great Crossings
Henry Clay Township, PA · est. 1947
This bend of the Youghiogheny had served as a fording place since Native peoples first traced paths through the mountains. In 1754 young George Washington's Virginia troops camped here on the eve of the frontier clashes that opened the French and Indian War, and the next year Braddock's ill-fated army tramped through on its march west. Decades later, in 1818, the National Road threw a bridge across the water at this very spot, cementing its role as a great gateway through the Alleghenies.
Braddock Park
Wharton Township, PA · est. 1946
In July 1755, British General Edward Braddock led a large expedition toward the French-held forks of the Ohio and met catastrophe near the Monongahela, where he was mortally wounded. His men buried him in the roadbed here so passing wagons would hide the grave from pursuing enemies. His remains were reinterred nearby in 1804, and a trace of the military road he cut through the wilderness can still be seen.
Braddock Road (Dunbar's Camp)
North Union Township, PA · est. 1952
In the summer of 1755, General Edward Braddock cut a military road westward through the Pennsylvania mountains toward the French stronghold of Fort Duquesne, and Colonel Thomas Dunbar's detachment made its last camp near this point while hauling the army's heavy baggage. When Braddock's main column was shattered in ambush near the Monongahela, the survivors streamed back to Dunbar's position. Rather than regroup, Dunbar destroyed his supplies and retreated, abandoning the frontier to the French and their allies.
Fayette County
Uniontown, PA · est. 1982
Formed from Westmoreland County in 1783, Fayette County honors the Marquis de Lafayette, the French nobleman who fought for American independence. Its rolling ground holds Fort Necessity, where a young George Washington fought an early engagement of the French and Indian War in 1754. Later the county's seat, Uniontown, incorporated in 1796, sat astride the National Road, the young republic's great federally built highway west that became U.S. Route 40.