GW | Gen. Braddock, Mentor (Updated April 22, 2018)

The road to Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh) had to be hacked out
through a frequently thick and treacherous forest.

George Washington was loyally by his side when his mentor died, unpopular Scottish General Edward Braddock.

William Pitt the Elder (the first Earl of Chatham) is often given the main credit for clearing the French out of the colonies. Fair enough, because he championed troops' being sent over for this purpose.

Pitt understood that George III was foolishly obsessed with a sideshow in Europe while much greater opportunities for future gain awaited in the British colonies.

But Pitt himself never set foot in the colonies. The dirty work was done by teamwork between leaders that emerged in the colonies, and the troops and officers that were sent over by King George III

General Braddock

One of the high-level officers sent over from England was General Braddock. Born in 1695 in Perthshire (north of Edinburgh), Scotland, Edward Braddock was the son of a general. At 15, he joined up in Coldstream (south of Edinburgh), Scotland with the military unit that was the antecedent of the Coldstream Guards. He reached the rank of lieutenant colonel and in 1774 served under the Prince of Orange in Holland. After seven years' service and friendship to King George III, he became a major general.

In February of 1755, he arrived in Virginia to join forces with the English generals there bent on taking Fort Duquesne back from the French. General Braddock hacked through the woods to bring his army from Cumberland, Maryland, to what is now called Pittsburgh but was then Fort Duquesne, in the hands of the French and some allied Indians.

The story is told that Col. George Washington advised Gen. Edward Braddock to disperse his superior army and fight behind trees as the Indians did. It is an odd story, because Braddock was a Scotsman and if anyone knew how to engage the enemy in what the Scots called "a secret war" (guerrilla warfare), they did. Kings Edward I and Edward II had a similar problem with the Scottish rebels. They refused to come out and fight, but attacked in unexpected ways at unexpected times. The British troops on their way to Fort Duquesne were walking into an ambush.

But Braddock was reportedly firm believer in the British army mode of fighting, disciplined and in the open.

When Braddock's troops crossed the Monongahela River, they faced troops that didn't stand in formation waiting for them, but hid behind trees, the standard Scottish "secret war" response to invasion. Braddock's ranks, hostile to their arrogant British commander, broke in confusion. Two hours later, Braddock had lost two-thirds of his 2,000 troops at the hands of a much smaller force. One-third of Braddock's men were dead, one-third were wounded and the rest were demoralized and hostile to Braddock. His only remaining aide was Col. George Washington, who carried Braddock back to camp after the general had been fatally wounded. Braddock had a reputation of being bad-tempered; he was resentful of the poor training and equipment of the American troops.

Benjamin Franklin says of Braddock:

This general was, I think, a brave man, and might probably have made a figure as a good officer in some European war. But he had too much self-confidence, too high an opinion of the validity of regular troops, and too mean a one of both Americans and Indians.

He records an exchange between him and Braddock:

I ventured only to say, "...The only danger I apprehend of obstruction to your march is from ambuscades of Indians, who, by constant practice, are dexterous in laying and executing them. ... "  He smiled at my ignorance, and replied, "These savages may, indeed, be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia, but upon the King's regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible they should make any impression." Source: Kennedy, Bailey, & Bailey, The American Spirit: United States History As Seen by Contemporaries, Vol. 1, Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010, p. 110.

Braddock rode four different horses that were shot out from under him. Finally, on his fifth horse, he sustained a bullet that went through his chest and hit one of his lungs. He died four days later, on July 13, 1755.

Comment (updated April 22, 2018)

The long Wikipedia entry on Braddock notes, in defense of the general, that Braddock was not ambushed and in fact took careful steps to make sure that he was not. It also notes that Braddock was promised more resources than he was delivered by the colonial governments. The Wikipedia entry does not emphasize Braddock's unpopularity but does note the respect that Washington had for his former commanding officer for the rest of his life, and the pride he took in the sash that Braddock handed on to his rescuing colonel on his deathbed.

Washington continued to wear the piece of clothing decades later, after the American Revolutionary War was won. It is in in several paintings of him.

Washington's veneration of his unpopular commanding officer says something important, I think, about the character of our first President.

Notes

Hacked His Way Through the Forest: Russell Shorto, "Into a New Land", The New York Times, Travel Section, July 19, 2014, p. 1.

June 14 - Thoughts for Flag Day on the Origins of the Stars and Stripes

The Stars in the Stars and Stripes are more of a puzzle to
explain than the Stripes. Why five points on the Stars?

Today is Flag Day in the United States. The stars and stripes flag was adopted in 1777 by resolution of the Second Continental Congress. Two years earlier, the U.S. Army was born on the same day. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed June 14 as Flag Day and in August 1949, an Act of Congress made it statutory.

On Flag Day it is appropriate to consider the origins of the Stars and Stripes and their connection with the coat of arms of America's first president, George Washington. The various occurrences of the Washington coat of arms are readily found, but their influence on the American stars and stripes is denied. I would like to restate the case against the connection and then why I believe the case against the connection is biased and unproven.

The Case against the Connection

• In a 1914 letter to the NY Times, a self-certified heraldry expert considers the connection unproven, based on a trip around England looking for evidence of a connection between the coat of arms and the flag. 
• The American Heraldry Society website features an article written in 2006 by Joseph McMillan, Director of Research for the Society, who says: "there is not a shred of evidence that the one [coat of arms of George Washington] had anything to do with the other [U.S. stars and stripes flag]."
• The five-pointed star on the American flag is an invention of Betsy Ross - unrelated to the fact that the Washington coat of arms morphed from six-pointed to five-pointed stars (originally pierced mullets, later unpierced mullets or stars in Scottish heraldry).
• The 1876 play by UK poet Martin Farquhar Tupper features Benjamin Franklin explaining that friends of George Washington were behind the stars and stripes, is said to have been based on a excess of imagination to give greater importance to the stars and stripes.
• George Washington was a modest man who professed disdain for the trappings of office.

The Case for the Connection

• The "shred of evidence" for the connection between the flag and the Washington coat of arms is that both have stars (or mullets) and stripes (or bars) in them, and George Washington was leader of the country when the flag was created. Whether the influence came from Washington or his many supporters, the visual resonance is satisfying.
• The opponents of the connection may have a bias against the connection with the Washington family coat of arms because of its English origins, or its basis in aristocratic English heraldry, or in their distaste for the personalization of the American Revolution.
• The 1914 letter may have been written by someone wishing to keep the United States out of the War in Europe by minimizing the historical ties between the United States and Britain.
• Evidence of the attachment of George Washington to his family coat of arms is that he includes it on his correspondence and on silver items used in the house.
• Gilbert Stuart's 1796 "Lansdowne" portrait of George Washington, for example, has an inkwell below his right hand with the family coat of arms on it. It did not imply that a family was in the nobility, just that it owned property and was thereby entitled to a coat of arms. English heraldry wasn't regulated until centuries later.
• Whatever Washington said about the trappings of office, he used his coat of arms a great deal, certainly more than any later president. He actively incorporated changes in the coat of arms - substituting a griffin for the traditional raven. Article 1, Sections 9-10 eschews titles, but says nothing about use of coats of arms.
• The two red stripes on the Washington coat of arms are alleged to represent the English king's honoring of a soldier who slew a great Dane in battle, by dipping two fingers into a wound on the Dane, and drawing two lines across the shield of the soldier. That became the soldier's coat of arms. (I could not verify the story, but it is so appealing I leave it for future research.)
• A more plausible explanation than the Betsy Ross story is that George Washington's family was attached to the five-pointed pierced mullets, which over time lost their pierce (and thereby became stars in Scottish heraldic terms). 
• The Washington family once had a stars-and-stripes coat of arms with six-pointed pierced mullets (star-like spurs), based on records from County Durham that I have seen in the British Library on two separate visits. The change to five points may have been a matter of family pride, since it has prevailed and distinguishes British from French heraldry.