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BRADDOCK’S BATTLEFIELD
FROM PAINTING BY PAUL WEBER, 1854

At this point General Braddock, after causing an examination of the country between the camp and Fort Duquesne to be made, abandoned his design of approaching the fort by the ridge route, being deterred by the deep and rugged ravines of the streams and by the steep and almost perpendicular precipices to the eastward of Circleville and Stewartsville.[75] Turning westward, therefore, at almost a right angle at or near Stewartsville, possibly at Charles Larimer’s barn, the route strikes out in a shorter line coincident with the present county road, undoubtedly following the course of this road for about a mile; thence continuing in the same direction for a little over a mile along a ridge on either side of which is a narrow valley, it intersects the White Oak Level road about half a mile east of the boundary line between Alleghany and Westmoreland counties. From this point it follows naturally down the valley of Long Run, past what was Samson’s old mill,[76] and across Long Run at or near the present bridge to a point about two and a half miles westward, where the army encamped at a very favorable depression now known as McKeesport, two miles north of the Monongahela River and about four miles from the battlefield. A magnificent spring of water marks the site of this encampment, which was called Monongahela Camp.[77]

On the morning of July 9 the army turned into the valley of Crooked Run down what is now known as Riverton Avenue, fording the Monongahela to the north of the mouth of the run in order to avoid the narrow pass on the east side of the river.[78] The route follows down the western bank of the Monongahela through what is now Duquesne, fording the river a second time a short distance west of Turtle Creek. Here, on the eastern bank of the Monongahela, the battle took place.

From a point about a mile southeast from Circleville to Braddock’s Field there are no trustworthy scars of the road; but the topography of the country is such that the line between these two points can be readily determined. Some of the older citizens pointed out to the writer the place at which Braddock forded the Monongahela, for marks of the passage have been visible until within a few years.[79] Recently, however, the whole complexion of the ground on the west side of the river has been changed to so great a degree, not only by the erection of steel works with their large deposits of slag along the banks, but also by the improved methods of navigation, that all traces of Braddock’s movements are forever obliterated. On the eastern side of the Monongahela and west of Turtle Creek, at what is now Braddock, where the battle occurred, encouraging efforts are now on foot that promise to lead to a satisfactory settlement of the point at which the fording actually occurred, as well as of the location of the route through the battlefield and of the ground on which the British and the French troops took position.[80]

BRADDOCK’S GRAVE
FROM PAINTING BY PAUL WEBER, 1854

In the hope of finding some signs of the path through the battlefield, the writer made a somewhat careful examination and study of the place; but the contour of the ground over which the line of march extended was found to be so much altered that even the slightest traces of its course were not perceptible. From a study of the Mackellar maps,[81] however, it would appear that from a point a few rods west of Turtle Creek, eastward and northward of Frazer’s Cabin, the road veered away to the northwest,[82] evidently crossing the Pennsylvania Railroad at or near Thirteenth Street (where there was formerly a hollow way or ravine, it is said), and thence more than probably following the course of the railroad to Robinson Street, and on to a point northward of the old Robinson burying-ground. From here the line would seem to have kept east of the Pennsylvania Railroad and station until it reached a point about six hundred yards beyond the station, between Jones Avenue and Sixth Street. This street may be identified as the second ravine, through which Frazer’s Run flowed and in which the advance column of Braddock’s army was attacked by Captain Beaujeu[83] and his party.[84]