Braddock's Grave

This is the lonely roadside grave of the once-famous General Edward Braddock, who was killed in the summer of 1755 in the earliest days of the French and Indian War.  The grave is along US Highway 40, also known as "The National Road," in the mountains just above Uniontown, PA.

The Scottish general was ambushed and turned back at the Battle of the Monongahela, at the present-day location of the equally ill-fated town bearing the man's name: Braddock, PA.  He and his decimated army retreated, but Braddock died the next day.  His body was buried here, beneath the road, for fear that Indians would find it and dismember it.  A young George Washington officiated at Braddock's interment, reading the graveside burial service from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.   

The French and Indian War is really the formative narrative of Western Pennsylvania.  It's deep in our identity.  Long before coal, or steel, or Andrew Carnegie, there was just this lane through the trees, a place where empires clashed.  In several places, short segments of Braddock's Road can still be traced out.  Much of US 40 runs more or less parallel to the old road that Braddock and his English forces carved out of the wilderness en route to attack the French forces garrisoned at Pittsburgh.  Click on any photo to enlarge it.