Braddock Road

In the summer of 1755, a British general led two thousand men into the Pennsylvania wilderness to build a road where no road existed. That road would become his grave. General Edward Braddock's expedition against Fort Duquesne was one of the most ambitious military undertakings in colonial America: carving a route through the Allegheny Mountains to strike at the French stronghold in the Ohio Valley. Benjamin Franklin helped provision the army. Native guides warned of ambush. Braddock listened to neither. John Kennedy Lacock's meticulous account traces every mile of this ill-fated march, the swollen rivers, the endless forests, the growing discord among officers, and the terrible confidence of a commander who believed European discipline could conquer American terrain. The result was one of the most devastating defeats in British military history, a lesson in hubris that still resonates. For readers who love military history, colonial America, or stories of ambition meeting its match in an unforgiving landscape.