History of Pittsburgh Volume 1 by George Thornton Fleming Juergen Beck

Author:George Thornton Fleming, Juergen Beck [George Thornton Fleming, Juergen Beck]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Geschichte
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2018-05-01T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XVI.

Edward Braddock, Generalissimo.

We come now to the narration of events that have placed the name of Braddock on many pages of American history—a disheartening narrative wherein contemplation of that veteran soldier of Europe in his pathetic end awakens only compassion. Braddock is immortal through defeat, but his name eternal as human things are because it has been applied to a great industrial community and in that application suggestive of mighty works and wonderful accomplishments. Vast history is opened up by the name Braddock. Vast not only in significance, but in results. The disaster of July 9, 1755, served but to incense and made more determined the British ministry to drive the French out of the "Debatable Land about the Ohio." There was a loud cry, too, for vengeance which though slow in coming, arrived on two most memorable occasions; first at the Forks of the Ohio, November 25, 1758, with John Forbes the "Head of Iron," and that day was the natal day of Pittsburgh.

It came again in all completeness September 13, 1759, in the grey dawn of morning on the Plains of Abraham. For one hundred and sixty-seven years able and accomplished writers of history have told, in several languages, the tragic story of Braddock's Field, and in varying veins, from compassionate to deeply incisive, have placed the character of Edward Braddock before the world. Able artists have touched the pencil and the brush to give us divergent and somewhat impossible views of the battle and have more or less, as imagination dictated, depicted the fall, the death and burial of the brave but stubborn general in command. The fame of the modern town of Braddock, that has spread far beyond the locus of the battle, is such that every detail of the strange contest maintains an absorbing interest. Across the Monongahela opposite the town there is a wooded hill known as Kennywood and beneath this hill the army of General Edward Braddock halted on its march from the mouth of the Youghiogheny on the fateful day, July 9, 1755, and from this hillside the army marched with all the pomp and pageantry of martial array—down to the river's edge and through the shallow waters of the Monongahela, past the deserted cabin of John Frazier, the trader, at the mouth of Turtle creek and debouching to the left, the veterans of many fields climbed the slight hill to the ravines in their front. A thousand rifles blaze out and the war whoops from 700 red throats sound as the crack of doom. Braddock is immortal through defeat. Three days later with dying breath the fated warrior murmured to his faithful attendants:

"Who would have thought it?"

Today from these same heights, gazing across the placid river towards the scenes of slaughter of 1755, one can repeat the inquiry of the contrite general. We may consider his last words also:

"Next time we shall know better," for the next time a British army came was November, 1758; then Forbes and Victory—and PITTSBURGH. With these remarks we may proceed to the story of Braddock's Expedition.

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