Historic Highways of America

Volume 4: Braddock's Road (And three relative Papers)

A series of monographs on the History of America as portrayed in the evolution of its Highways of War, Commerce, and Social Expansion. Comprising the following volumes: Paths of the Mound-Building Indians and Great Game Animals. Indian Thoroughfares. Washington's Road: The First Chapter of the Old French War. Braddock's Road. The Old Glade (Forbes's) Road. Boone's Wilderness Road. Portage Paths: The Keys of the Continent. Military Roads of the Mississippi Basin. Waterways of Westward Expansion. The Cumberland Road. Pioneer Roads of America (two volumes). The Great American Canals (two volumes). The Future of Road-Making in America. The French were invariably defeated by the British on this continent because the latter overcame natural obstacles which the former blindly trusted as insurmountable. The French made a league with the Alleghenies — and Washington and Braddock and Forbes conquered the Alleghenies; the French, later, blindly trusted the crags at Louisbourg and Quebec — and the dauntless Wolfe, in both instances, accomplished the seemingly impossible. The building of Braddock's Road in 1755 across the Alleghenies was the first significant token in the West of the British grit which finally overcame. Few roads ever cost so much, ever amounted to so little at first, and then finally played so important a part in the development of any continent.