Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/165

Braddock

Papers in possession of R. D. Darbishire, Manchester (the verses on the London ministers are given in Notes and Queries, 1st ser. i. 454, by A. B. R., i.e. Robert Brook Aspland).] 

BRADDOCK, EDWARD (1695–1755), major-general, was son of Major-general Edward Braddock, regimental lieutenant-colonel  of the Coldstream guards in 1703. After serving with credit in Flanders and Spaint the elder Braddock retired from the service in 1715 and died on 15 June 1720 at Bath, where he was buried in the Abbey Church. Braddock the younger entered the army as ensign in Colonel Cornelius Swann's company of his father's regiment on 29 Aug. 1710, and became a lieutenant in 1716. He is said to have fought a duel with swords and pistols with a Colonel Waller in Hyde Park on 26 May 1718. Both battalions of the Coldstreams were then encamped in the park. He became lieutenant of the grenadier company in 1727, and captain and lieutenant-colonel in the regiment 1736. Walpole (Letters, ii. 460–2) has raked up some discreditable stories of him at this period of his life, which possibly need qualification; Walpole is, at any rate, distinctly wrong in stating that Braddock was subsequently 'governor' of Gibraltar. He became second major in the Coldstreams in 1743, major in 1746, and lieutenant-colonel 21 Nov. of the same year. His first recorded war service is in September 1746, when the second battalion of his regiment, under his command, was sent to join, but did not actually take part in Admiral Lestock's descent on L'Orient, after which the battalion returned to London. He embarked in command of it again in May 1746, and proceeded to Holland, where he served under the Prince of Orange in the attempt to raise the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, and was afterwards quartered at Breda and elsewhere until the battalion returned home in December 1748. On 17 Feb. 1763 Braddock was promoted from the Guards to the colonelcy of the 14th foot at Gibraltar, where he joined his regiment, as then was customary; but there is no record of his having exercised any higher command in that garrison. He became a major-general 29 March 1754, and soon after was appointed to the command in America, with a view to driving the French from their recent encroachments. The warrant of appointment, of which there is a copy in the archives at Philadelphia, appoints Braddock to be 'general and commander-in-chief of all our troops and forces yt are in North America or yt shall be sent or rais'd there to vindicate our just rights and possessions.' Braddock, who must have been then about sixty, was a favourite with William, duke of Cumberland, to whom he probably owed the appointment, although his detractors alleged that his sturdy begging for place under pressure of his gambling debts was the real cause. He arrived at his residence in Arlington Street from France on 6 Nov., and left for Cork, where his reinforcements were to rendezvous on the 30th. Before leaving he executed a will in favour of Mr. Calcraft, the army agent, and his reputed wife, better known as Mrs. George Anne Bellamy [q. v.] This lady, a natural daughter of an old brother officer, had been petted from her earliest years by Braddock, whom she calls her second father, and who, she admits, was misled as to her relations with Calcraft (, Apology, iii. 306). Delays occurring at Cork, Braddock returned and sailed from the Downs with Commodore Keppel on 24 Dec. 1754, arriving in Hampton Roads, Virginia, 20 Feb. 1755. He found everything in the utmost confusion. The colonies were at variance; everywhere the pettiest jealousies were rife; no magazines had been collected; the promised provincial troops had not even been raised, and the few regulars already there were of the worst description. Braddock summoned a council of provincial governors to concert measures for carrying out his instructions. Eventually it was resolved to despatch four expeditions — three in the north against Niagara, Crown Point, and the French posts in Nova Scotia; one in the south against Fort Duquesne, on the present site of Pittsburg. The troops for the latter rendezvoused, under Braddock's command, at Fort Cumberland, a stockaded post on the Potomac, about halfway between the Virginian seaboard and Fort Duquesne, a distance of two hundred and twenty miles; and after delays caused by what George Washington, then a young officer of provincials and a volunteer with the expedition, termed the 'vile mismanagement' of the horse-transport, and the desertion of their Indian scouts, arrived at a spot known as Little Meadows on 18 June, where a camp was formed. Hence Braddock pushed on with twelve hundred chosen men, regulars and provincials, who reached the Monongahela river on 8 July, in excellent order and spirits, and crossed the next morning with colours flying and music playing. During the advance on the afternoon, 9 July 1765, when about seven miles from Fort Duquesne, the head of the column encountered an ambuscade of French and Indians concealed in the long grass and tangled undergrowth of the forest openings. Flank attacks by unseen Indians threw the advance into wild disorder, which communicated itself to the main body coming up in support, leading to terrible slaughter, 