French and Indian War

The Battle of Fort Necessity, or the Battle of the Great Meadows took place on July 3, 1754 in what is now the mountaintop hamlet of Farmington in... Fayette County, Pennsylvania. The engagement was one of the first battles of the French and Indian War and George Washington's only military surrender. The battle, along with the May 28 Battle of Jumonville Glen, contributed to a series of military escalations that resulted in the global Seven Years' War. Washington built Fort Necessity on an alpine meadow west of the summit from the pass through the Allegheny Mountains. Another pass nearby leads to Confluence, Pennsylvania, and to the west Nemacolin's Trail begins its descent to Uniontown, Pennsylvania and other parts of Fayette County along the relatively low altitudes of the Allegheny Plateau. Throughout the 1740s and early 1750s, British and French traders had increasingly come into contact in the Ohio Country, including the upper watershed of the Ohio River in what is now western Pennsylvania.
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The Braddock expedition, also called Braddock's campaign or, more commonly, Braddock's Defeat, was a failed British military expedition which... attempted to capture the French Fort Duquesne in the summer of 1755 during the French and Indian War. It was defeated at the Battle of the Monongahela on July 9, and the survivors retreated. The expedition takes its name from General Edward Braddock, who led the British forces and died in the effort. Braddock's defeat was a major setback for the British in the early stages of the war with France and has been described as one of the most disastrous defeats for the British in the 18th century. Braddock's expedition was just one part of a massive British offensive against the French in North America that summer. As commander-in-chief of the British Army in America, General Braddock led the main thrust against the Ohio Country with a column some 2,100 strong. Braddock's command consisted of two regular line regiments, the 44th and 48th with about 1,350 men with about 500 regular soldiers and militiamen from several British American colonies and artillery and other support troops.
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The Kittanning Expedition, also known as the Armstrong Expedition or the Battle of Kittanning, was a raid during the French and Indian War that led... to the destruction of the American Indian village of Kittanning, which had served as a staging point for attacks by Delaware warriors against colonists in the British Province of Pennsylvania. Commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John Armstrong, this raid deep into hostile territory was the only major expedition carried out by Pennsylvania militia during a brutal backcountry war. Early on September 8, they launched a surprise attack on the Indian village. Although it eventually became a worldwide conflict known as the Seven Years' War, the French and Indian War began on the Pennsylvania frontier as a struggle for control of the Ohio Country. With the surrender of George Washington at Fort Necessity in 1754 and Braddock's defeat in 1755, the settlers on the Pennsylvania frontier were without professional military protection, and scrambled to organize a defense. The French-allied Indians who had defeated General Edward Braddock at the Monongahela were primarily from the Great Lakes region to the north.
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The Battle of Fort Duquesne was a British assault on the eponymous French fort that was repulsed with heavy losses on 14 September 1758, during the... French and Indian War. The attack on Fort Duquesne was part of a large-scale British expedition with 6,000 troops led by General John Forbes to drive the French out of the contested Ohio Country and clear the way for an invasion of Canada. Forbes ordered Major James Grant of the 1st Highland Regiment to reconnoiter the area with 850 men. When Grant proceeded to attack the French position, his force was outmanouevred, surrounded, and largely destroyed by the French and their native allies led by François-Marie Le Marchand de Lignery. Major Grant was taken prisoner and the British survivors retreated fitfully to Fort Ligonier. After repulsing this advance party the French, deserted by some of their native allies and vastly outnumbered by the approaching Forbes, blew up their magazines and burnt Fort Duquesne. In November the French withdrew from the Ohio Valley and British colonists erected Fort Pitt on the site.
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