Braddock’s Defeat: The Battle of the Monongahela and the Road to Revolution by David Preston (review)

In the early afternoon hours of July 9, 1755, an advance column of several hundred British soldiers and colonial militia found themselves engaged in a desperate struggle for their lives in the dense western Pennsylvania wilderness. The British force, the vanguard of a larger army that had spent weeks crossing the Appalachian Mountains from Virginia, was just twelve miles from its objective, the French Fort Duquesne, situated at the forks of the Ohio River (modern-day Pittsburgh). The overwhelmed British fought valiantly but soon fell back, crashing headlong into the advancing main column under the command of Maj. Gen. Edward Braddock. Ignoring the advice of his aides, including a young George Washington, Braddock failed to adapt to the conditions of the battle and stubbornly refused to withdraw, at least until the ill-fated general was incapacitated by a mortal wound. The army, already falling to pieces, collapsed with its general as desperate British soldiers and colonial militia fled from Braddock’s Defeat, one of the worst military disasters in the history of the British army.

Or so the conventional historical narrative would have us believe. Braddock’s arrogance, imperiousness, and incompetence are often cited by historians as major factors in the failure of his campaign. But is he truly deserving of their negative attention? These and other questions figure prominently in David Preston’s Braddock’s Defeat: The Battle of the Monongahela and the Road to Revolution. Preston, Westvaco Professor of National Security Studies at the Citadel, has produced the most comprehensive study of Braddock’s campaign yet published. While acknowledging the important work of earlier historians, Preston convincingly demonstrates that the battle, as well as the campaign that produced it, was far more complex and challenging than earlier accounts have acknowledged. His summation is that “the battle was not lost by one man’s arrogance or bluster,” and, borrowing an allusion from British historian J. F. C. Fuller’s classic study of eighteenth-century light infantry, he argues any revered general from history “could not have done more than Braddock did, and he would have suffered a similar fate” (8).

That conclusion is debatable, as is the degree to which Preston or any historian can hope to resuscitate Braddock’s historical reputation. To be certain, Preston holds Braddock in higher esteem than do most historians, and his analyzes Braddock’s culpability for the disaster at the Monongahela more holistically than does any other account. He concludes that Braddock was both experienced and competent, a commander far more astute than the arrogant bungler he has often been portrayed as. Citing Braddock’s successful tenure as military governor of Gibraltar, where Braddock “dealt with daily logistical challenges…, frequent engagements with civilian authorities, merchants, and contractors, and inter-cultural negotiations with Gibraltar’s multiethnic population,” Preston argues that Braddock’s military career had “equipped him for precisely the kinds of situations that he faced in America, ranging from logistical challenges, to negotiating with potential Indian allies and colonial officials, to besieging French outposts” (52). Yet these were precisely the issues that Braddock struggled with in the colonies, as constant haranguing with colonial officials, unfruitful diplomacy with Indian leaders, and near constant logistical difficulties plagued his command and certainly contributed to his defeat. Preston acknowledges Braddock’s shortcomings in these areas, but seems to minimalize them as “a powerful reflection of how weak the British empire in America really was in 1755” (8). There is no doubt that the British Empire was fraying badly at its periphery by the 1750s, but one could argue that Braddock was part of the systemic failure of imperial authority, not merely a victim of it. As such, Preston’s argument that “the British general was simply unfortunate” to have faced so many severe difficulties seems overly apologetic (8). The greatest generals of history have rarely been handed all the advantages, and it has been those...