Poor Sad General Braddock

This newbie is into the military thing a bit. (See yesterday's miserable post.) Have been reading about the life of General Braddock and a couple things are clear. First, does the man even have a first name? Poor guy is always referred to as simply "Braddock". And not fondly either.

Poor guy: he landed with his two regiments of British regulars at Alexandria Virginia on 20 February 1755 and the guy was dead and buried in the road by 13 July of that same year. That's just 5 months for pitty's sake! Plus, consider that he spent a lot of time at Fort Cumberland in western Maryland, drilling the life out of his troops so that they could march smartly into battle in formation in the British way. Guess they were trying to impress the French and Indians;)

The story goes that Braddock was "hampered" by lack of support from the colonials, mainly supplies. On the plus side, he did have George Washington as a field officer. They crossed the Monongahela River on 9 July and ran smack into the French and Indian force. Yikes! So they back-tracked, got confused and got caught in cross-fire. In a short four days Braddock met the opposition, retreated, was cut down and died.

Interestingly, Benjamin Franklin included a bit about the Braddock Campaign events in his Autobiography, and not in a flattering way. Franklin warned Braddock that his plan would be disastrous.

See, I'm wrapping my arms around this military stuff:)

Mom's Uncle Jimmy Whetstone,

in his WWI uniform.
Mom says that Uncle Jimmy suffered gassing during his service.