Braddock's Defeat on the Monongahela

July 9, 1755

General Edward Braddock marched 1,400 British regulars into the Pennsylvania forest in parade order. French and Indians shredded them from behind trees. Braddock was mortally wounded; Washington, his aide, had two horses shot from under him and buried his general in the road so wagons would hide the grave. The disaster taught the colonies that European tactics could fail catastrophically in American wilderness.