1. For a discussion of GW’s difficulties in obtaining a guard at Winchester, see GW to John Augustine Washington, 28 May 1755, n.1.

2. Richard Peters of Pennsylvania, who conferred with Braddock at Fort Cumberland in late May, reported to the Pennsylvania Council on 2 June 1755 that “the General was perpetually complaining of a Failure of every Body with whom the Government of Virginia had contracted for Provisions, Forage, Waggonage and Horses, and said, that unless the Province of Pennsylvania would hearken to his Applications to them . . . , the army could not stir this Summer, and he would complain to the King of the Remissness of the contiguous Provinces” (Pa. Arch., Col. Rec. description begins Colonial Records of Pennsylvania. 16 vols. Harrisburg, 1840–53. description ends , 6:395–97). Braddock wrote Sir Thomas Robinson on 5 June 1755: “It would be endless, Sir, to particularize the numberless Instances of the want of publick and private Faith, and of the most absolute Disregard of all Truth, which I have met with in the carrying on of his Majesty’s Service on this Continent” (P.R.O., C.O. 5/46, ff. 21–24). On 8 June 1755 he complained to the adjutant general in London, Robert Napier, of “the Difficulties and Disappointments I have met with from the want of Honesty and Inclination to forward the Service in all Orders of people in these Colonies” (Pargellis, Military Affairs in North America description begins Stanley Pargellis, ed. Military Affairs in North America, 1748–1765: Selected Documents from the Cumberland Papers in Windsor Castle. 1936. Reprint. Hamden, Conn., 1969. description ends , 84–85, 92).

3. GW in later years described Braddock as “a man, whose good & bad qualities were intimately blended. He was brave even to a fault and in regular Service would have done honor to his profession. His attachments were warm—his enmities were strong and having no disguise about him, both appeared in full force. He was generous & disinterested—but plain and blunt in his manner even to rudeness” (GW Biographical Memorandum, c.1786, ViMtvL, photostat). See also GW to John Augustine Washington, 6 May 1755, GW to Robert Orme, 28 July 1755, and Robert Orme to GW, 25 Aug. 1755.

4. At the insistence of Braddock and Sir John St. Clair, the Pennsylvania government was having a new road cut from Shippensburg west through Raystown to Turkey Foot on the Youghiogheny River, near which it was to join the Braddock Road. “No General,” St. Clair explained to Gov. Robert Hunter Morris on 14 Feb. 1755, “will advance with an Army without having a Communication open to the Provinces in his Rear, both for the Security of his Retreat and to facilitate the Transport of Provisions, the supplying of which we must greatly Depend on your Province.” On 24 April 1755 Braddock warned Governor Morris that “it is . . . of such Importance to have a free Communication with your Province to facilitate the march of any Assistance or Convoys I may require from thence, that I dont see how I can with Safety move from Fort Cumberland till that Work is finished or in great Forwardness” (Pa. Arch., Col. Rec. description begins Colonial Records of Pennsylvania. 16 vols. Harrisburg, 1840–53. description ends , 6:300–301, 377–78). Construction, however, did not begin until 6 May. After a month of work the road was still less than half finished. The 150–man working party had only recently completed the difficult crossing of Sideling Hill and was now near the Juniata River about 15 miles east of Raystown. By the middle of July when news of Braddock’s defeat halted work on the road, the party, then about 200 strong, was laboring on the steep slopes of the Allegheny Mountains about 20 miles west of Raystown.

5. The agreement that Braddock made with Benjamin Franklin at Frederick, Md., on 22 or 23 April 1755 called for Pennsylvania to provide 150 wagons with horses and drivers at 15s. each per day and 1,500 packhorses at 2s. each per day with saddles or 1s. 6d. without saddles. The economic benefit to be derived from these terms was great, a fact that Franklin took pains to stress in his advertisement of 26 April addressed to the inhabitants of Lancaster, York, and Cumberland counties: “You have now an Opportunity of receiving and dividing among you a very considerable Sum; for if the Service of this Expedition should continue (as it’s more than probable it will) for 120 Days, the Hire of these Waggons and Horses will amount to upwards of Thirty thousand Pounds, which will be paid you in Silver and Gold of the King’s Money” (Labaree and Willcox, Franklin Papers description begins William B. Willcox et al., eds. The Papers of Benjamin Franklin. 42 vols. to date. New Haven, 1959–. description ends , 6:20–22). Braddock, who had consistently condemned Pennsylvania’s Quaker-dominated assembly in harsh terms for its refusal to approve vigorous military steps for colonial defense, found it increasingly desirable, nevertheless, to establish a close relationship with the Pennsylvanians. Pennsylvania’s geographical location and its many productive farms made the colony his best source of provisions. Furthermore, Braddock was convinced that the Pennsylvanians were “exact in their Dealings, and much more industrious than the others,” especially the Virginians and Marylanders (Braddock to Robert Napier, 8 June 1755, in Pargellis, Military Affairs in North America description begins Stanley Pargellis, ed. Military Affairs in North America, 1748–1765: Selected Documents from the Cumberland Papers in Windsor Castle. 1936. Reprint. Hamden, Conn., 1969. description ends , 84–92).

6. The main body of the army marched from Fort Cumberland in three divisions between this day and Tuesday, 10 June. See GW Memorandum, 30 May–11 June 1755, nn.7, 11, 13.

7. “Bloody Flux” was a term for dysentery. Of the 2,293 rank and file reported present at Fort Cumberland on 8 June 1755, 203 were sick, of whom 77 were in hospitals. All soldiers who were too ill to march were to be sent to the fort’s general hospital before the army’s departure. See also GW to John Augustine Washington, 7 June 1755, n.5.

8. Col. James Innes, campmaster general at Wills Creek since the previous fall, was appointed governor of Fort Cumberland by General Braddock on 2 June 1755. His new duties included commanding the garrison of about 50 men that was to remain at the fort after the army marched for Fort Duquesne, superintending the commissaries during Braddock’s absence, and dispatching convoys to the army. “Instructions were given to him,” says Robert Orme, “and money was left with him for contingent expences, lest the service should for want of it meet with any checks” (“Captain Orme’s Journal,” in Sargent, Braddock’s Expedition description begins Winthrop Sargent, ed. The History of an Expedition against Fort Du Quesne, in 1755; under Major-General Edward Braddock, Generalissimo of H.B.M. Forces in America. Philadelphia, 1856. description ends , 326). Innes’s title as general was connected with the position, briefly held in 1754, of commander in chief of the Ohio expedition and not with any change in commissioned rank. See Dinwiddie to GW, 4 June 1754. Innes retained the rank of colonel at Fort Cumberland and was usually referred to as colonel. For hints of GW’s developing antagonism toward Innes, see William Fitzhugh to GW, 4 Nov. 1754, and GW to William Fitzhugh, 15 Nov. 1754.

9. The erased word may be “the.”

10. Between 23 April and 28 May 1755 the French commandant at Montreal dispatched 766 French and Canadians and 170 Indians to the Ohio country in a series of small parties, but low water on creeks and rivers delayed their arrival at Fort Duquesne. See GW to John Augustine Washington, 28 June–2 July 1755, n.11. Gov. Robert Hunter Morris forwarded further intelligence about these reinforcements to Braddock on 16 June. The general apparently continued to discount all such reports in the belief that the threat posed by Shirley’s, Johnson’s, and Monckton’s forces to the north would prevent the French from sending many troops south.