Old Orchard Camp was site where Braddock died
One of the most important but possibly the least appreciated of Fayette County’s historic sites is the Old Orchard Camp. Few today would likely recognize the name of the round hillock near Braddock’s Grave, where gnarled crabapple thickets once ringed the campsite of the advance guard of the largest European army deployed in the New World to that time.
The Old Orchard Camp was the site of Braddock’s ninth camp after his army’s departure from Fort Cumberland.
It was the first camp made after dividing his army at the Little Meadows some 20 miles west of Cumberland, where Col. Dunbar remained behind and was placed in charge of the heavy wagons and supplies.
It was also at the Orchard Camp that the dying Braddock gave Washington his sash, his set of monogrammed pistols, his favorite charger and his manservant, Bishop.
Braddock’s 1,400 infantrymen accompanied by a light cavalry first camped on the hill near sundown on Wednesday, June 25, 1755. There must have been a sense of relief among the men as they set up camp amid the clumps of crabapples.
The army had expected a French resistance at the Great Meadows earlier that day.
But the army passed by the scene of Washington’s first battlefield without incident.
A British officer with the Braddock Expedition recorded this historic description of the ruins of Fort Necessity less than one year after Washington’s only surrender:
“There are about 150 Acres of Meadow-land entirely clear. In ye middle of this spot is Fort Necessity; built by Mr. Washinton (sic) last Year when he retreated from the French; it was a small fourside figure, with a trench dug round it; they had some very good Swivells wch: (sic) when they retreated from thence the french entirely disabled, but left them in the ditch. There are many human bones all round ye spott; but at present every thing is entirely pulled down.”
The “very good Swivells” referred to in the officer’s original words are mounted swivel guns, a small light cannon.
Swivel guns of that type are today mounted inside the reconstructed trenches at Fort Necessity National Battlefield and so add to the authenticity of the battlefield.
Despite passing the ruins of Fort Necessity without incident the day prior, an ominous event took place that afternoon of June 26 just miles from the Orchard Camp.
After the men broke camp, they advanced four miles to the northwest, scaling Chestnut Ridge only to come upon a French and Indian camp, this one so fresh that its fires were still burning.
The enemy had numbered with marks on trees in red war paint the number of scalps and prisoners they had taken and boldly carved their names and – in the words of Braddock’s aide de camp, Capt. Robert Orme – written “many insolent expressions.”
Scalps had already been taken from Braddock’s men and from the area’s English settlers.
So the order was given at the Orchard Camp that five pounds would be paid by the general to any soldier or Indian for every Indian scalp taken.
One report printed in the Maryland and Pennsylvania Gazette after the rout of the expedition at the Battle of the Monongahela stated that many of Braddock’s Indian allies deserted him because he would not allow the scalping of Frenchmen killed or taken captive. This may not have been entirely true as Braddock did later pay a bounty for a French scalp taken near Fort Duquesne.
Camp security was tightened to the extreme under orders also issued at the Orchard Camp.
Constant danger from French and Indian marauders and fear of ambush caused a directive that any commissioned officer who strayed from the line of march was to have his commission revoked and that any noncommissioned officer or soldier who fell from the line was to receive “1,000 lashes.”
So the army wound its way northwest toward the objective of the French stronghold of Fort Duquesne, where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers meet to form the Ohio at modern day Pittsburgh.
Cresting the last ridge of the Allegheny Mountains at the top of Chalk Hill, the army veered right from its westward track, making a northwest dogleg near the today’s intersection of Route 40 and the Jumonville Road (the modern Summit Inn graces the left side of this intersection).
With 600 axemen leading the vanguard, Braddock’s route crossed the Youghiogheny River northwest of Connellsville at a point known as “Stewart’s Crossing.”
Interestingly, this was the second time the army forded the Yough. Somewhere under the reservoir at the border of Fayette and Somerset counties lies the site of the “Great Crossing.”
Special caution was taken whenever the army forded a river.
In the day of the flintlock musket, it was an impossibility to reload and fire from such an exposed position.
Scouts carefully explored the dense woods on either riverbank that could be used as an ambush. Such care was taken at the Monongehela crossing just prior to the disastrous defeat of July 9, 1775.
The track of the great army passed through modern day Mount Pleasant and continued northwestward through the beautiful rolling hills of today’s Westmoreland County.
Dunbar’s contingent lagged behind, burdened down with extra supplies, heavy cannon and the less serviceable wagons.
There had been dissent among the British troops when the force was divided. Soldiers expected loot and booty from Fort Duquesne and the men following in Dunbar’s force were disappointed. As fate would have it, they were to be the lucky ones.
On the evening of July 8, just prior to the river crossing, Braddock called a council of war.
Only one leader offered a plausible course of direction and that was Monacatootha, a friendly Mingo, who argued that Braddock should fortify his position on the east bank of the Monongahela waiting for Dunbar to arrive with the remainder of the army.
Dunbar was then 40 miles away, camped at the knob that bears his name at today’s Jumonville Methodist Youth Camp.
Monacatootha’s lone counsel went unheeded and the next morning the greatest European army fielded in the New World was to plunge ahead to its doom.
Coming soon: The Battle of the Monongahela and Braddock’s burial at the Old Orchard Camp.
Franklin LaCava is the author of, “Bake Slow and Sure: Heirloom Recipes of the National Road Era.”
Westmoreland County Historical Society has recently published a magazine dedicated to the old Braddock Road. Copies of the September 2002 issue of “Westmoreland History” may be ordered for $5 by contacting the Society at 724-836-1800 or visiting the group’s office on the Old Salem Road in Greensburg.