Braddock Road

On September 24, 1754, Major-General Edward Braddock was appointed by the Duke of Cumberland, captain-general of the British army, to the command of the British troops to be sent to Virginia, with the rank of generalissimo of all his Britannic Majesty’s forces on the American continent. Before the expedition could start, however, many weeks had to be spent in extensive preparations, a delay which became so irksome to Braddock that he determined to wait no longer on the tardy movement of the transports. Accordingly, on December 21, 1754, accompanied by Captain Robert Orme, one of his aides, and William Shirley, his military secretary, he set sail for Virginia with Commodore Augustus Keppel, and on February 20, 1755, anchored in Hampton Roads. It was not till January 14, 1755, that the rest of the ships were actually under sail, and not till about March 15 that the entire fleet arrived at Alexandria, Virginia, where the troops were disembarked and temporarily quartered.