Wednesday, September 27 (7pm) – Saturday, September 30, 2017 (5:00pm)
Tour Leader: David Preston
HQ: Coal Center, PA
Tour Registration Fee: $475
The astute observer of 18th century events and British Whig politician, Horace Walpole observed, “The volley fired by a young Virginian in the backwoods of America set the world on fire.” Walpole’s words ring true. The Virginian he was referring to was a 22-year old militia major named George Washington. Washington’s actions in western Pennsylvania are credited with starting the French and Indian War in America. Besides Washington, Braddock’s Campaign of 1755 will introduce many personalities who became famous during the American Revolution: Daniel Morgan, Daniel Boone, Thomas Gage, Charles Lee, Adam Stephen and Horatio Gates.
Our first day will start at Jumonville Glen, a seldom visited site where Washington’s militia and his “ally,” a Seneca chief named “Half King” ambushed a sleepy French force under Ensign Joseph Coulon de Jumonville. This site is truly pristine and the story of Washington’s first military action will unfold at this off-the-beaten track locale. Our next stop will be the reconstructed palisades of Fort Necessity which Washington built after defeating the French. Fort Necessity has a very fine museum and book store. In the afternoon we will visit the ruins of Fort Cumberland located at the Emmanuel Episcopal Church where the fort’s walls are visible within the church’s basement. After Fort Cumberland, we’ll visit Big Savage Mountain to see scars of Braddock’s Road. We’ll also visit the Casselman River Bridge (site of the “Little Crossings of the Youghiogheny River and the Great Crossings of the Youghiogheny River.
On our second day we’ll visit Braddock’s Grave and Dunbar’s Camp. Next we’ll see a segment of the Braddock’s Road on Chestnut Ridge and visit the Braddock Road Preservation Association Museum. We’ll stop at Stewart’s Crossing of the Youghiogheny. After lunch we’ll visit the reconstructed Fort Ligonier built during General John Forbes’ 1758 campaign to take Fort Duquesne. Fort Ligonier will be used to explain the construction of Fort Duquesne since it is a reasonable example of what the latter fort looked like in 1755. Fort Ligonier also has a premier 18th century artillery train on display for educational purposes and excellent museum.
On our third day we will again follow parts of Braddock’s route, including Blunder Camp—where Braddock’s army lost a day’s march. We’ll also stop at Long Run Narrows to see how Braddock’s column secured itself while marching through a defile. We’ll visit the First Crossing of the Monongahela at McKeesport and the site of Braddock’s defeat, although the battlefield has been largely obliterated by urban growth. We visit the Braddock’s Battlefield History Center. It has excellent exhibits and a long-range goal to educate future generations about the importance of the key players in the Battle of the Monongahela. After lunch we’ll go into Pittsburg where we’ll take a walking tour of Point Park at the Forks of the Ohio and the site of Fort Duquesne and later Fort Pitt. We’ll visit the Fort Pitt Blockhouse, the only original remaining structure associated with the French and Indian War at the Forks. A short walk will put us at the Fort Pitt Museum.
What’s included: Motor coach transportation, three lunches, beverage and snack breaks, a map and materials package, all admissions and gratuities, and the services of an experienced tour leader. Our headquarters hotel will provide a hot and cold breakfast buffet. Tour participants are responsible for transportation to the headquarters hotel, and securing a room reservation, if necessary. Dinner is on your own. Tour goes out rain or shine. Please see our policy page for information about cancellations.
Hotel: We have arranged with the headquarters hotel for a group rate of $79.00 per night plus tax (single or double occupancy.) Please call the Hampton Inn and Suites-California University-Pittsburgh, 200 Technology Drive, Coal Center, PA 15423 at 724-330-5820 or 1-800-Hiltons and ask for the America’s History group rate. This rate will be guaranteed until August 27, so please make your reservations soon.
Our Tour Leader and Historian: David Preston is the Westvaco Professor of National Security Studies at The Citadel and author of the award-winning Braddock’s Defeat: The Battle of the Monongahela and the Road to Revolution which won the prestigious Gilder-Lehrman Prize for Military History. He has won four book prizes. His first book, The Texture of Contact: European and Indian Settler Communities on the Frontiers of Iroquoia, 1667-1783 (2009), was hailed as an innovative study of how French, British, and Indian communities coexisted near the Iroquois Confederacy. The Texture of Contact received the 2010 Albert B. Corey Prize, for best book on American-Canadian relations.
Register Online
Tour Registration – $475.00
Register by phone, e-mail or postal mail:
- Phone: 1-703-785-4373
- Email us at: info@AmericasHistoryLLC.com
- Postal mail: America’s History LLC, P. O. Box 1076, Goochland, VA 23063
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New Jersey has been called the Cockpit of the Revolution, with more battles and encampments occurring here than in any other state. Trenton, Princeton, and Monmouth are familiar names of New Jersey battlefields. This tour will provide an opportunity to visit some of the other important, but less well known, sites in this state. This is not a campaign tour as such, but rather a survey of important places and critical events that impacted both the state and the Revolution.
The Sullivan-Clinton campaign against the Iroquois in 1779 has been described as implementing a “scorched earth” policy for no useful purpose other than eradicating Indians, or a failed attempt to capture Fort Niagara. No campaign of the American War for Independence has been more inaccurately described or remains more controversial than the Continental Army’s invasion of the Iroquois Confederacy in 1779. This tour is designed to follow the main effort of that offensive as conducted by troops commanded by Major General John Sullivan. Sullivan’s troops took the war to the very heart of the territory controlled by the Six Nations of Iroquois who had allied themselves with the British Crown. At the tour’s end you’ll decide if the campaign was a success or a well-executed failure.
On paper, Union Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick’s plan, approved directly by Lincoln, to release some 13,000 Federal prisoners, “burn the hateful city” of Richmond and capture or kill Confederate President Jefferson Davis, had all the earmarks of success. As one Michigan officer recalled, “The rationale of the raid was a hurried ride, timely arrival, great daring, a surprise, a sudden charge without a moment’s hesitation – success.” Even Confederate cavalry commander Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton felt “the enemy could have taken Richmond” except for some rebel luck. But in execution the Kilpatrick–Dahlgren Raid was a dismal failure; and a major embarrassment to Lincoln when controversial orders were found on the dead body of the expedition’s subordinate commander, the dashing and well-connected Col. Ulric Dahlgren.
America’s History’s bus tour for the Company of Military Historians’ annual meeting will focus on the Civil War’s first major campaign in the East. The call was “On to Richmond” when Union and Confederate armies collided near Manassas Junction, the battle that became known as First Manassas or First Bull Run as it was known in the North.
Our tour this summer will continue the study of Benedict Arnold as one of the foremost combat commanders of the Revolutionary War. Last year we investigated Arnold’s career in Connecticut as both a patriot and a traitor. This year’s tour will follow his career in the first two years of the war when he excelled on land and water. We will also learn about his enterprising relationship with the wily Ethan Allen during their joint venture to capture Fort Ticonderoga and how he handled Horatio Gates when he served under the Northern army commander on two separate occasions during the war.