The Battle of the Trough (March or April 1756) was a skirmish of the early French and Indian War (1754–63) fought between Native Americans and Anglo-American settlers in the valley of the South Branch Potomac River in what is now northern Hardy County, West Virginia,[1] USA.

[2][3] After the defeat of General Edward Braddock at the Battle of the Monongahela (9 July 1755), the white settlers of the Allegheny Mountains were largely unprotected from a series of Shawnee and Delaware Indian raids.

By the end of the year, the Virginia Regiment had increased its numbers by several hundred troops and began to temporarily man some of these settler forts.

Shortly after the new year, a new commander of the Regiment — the 24-year-old Colonel George Washington — ordered Captain Thomas Waggener to leave Fort Cumberland with his company and proceed up the South Branch.

His orders directed him to construct two forts in the area above the rugged gorge known locally as "The Trough" and to station detachments accordingly to best protect the settlers on the upper South Branch.

Jeremiah Smith at the head of the Capon (Cacapon) River, were passing through the upper South Branch (somewhere near the present site of Cabins, West Virginia) when they encountered two white women.

Years later, the battle was described by a then-teenaged participant, James Parsons of Hampshire County:[9] [The Indians] ...divided into small squads and appointed a time and place of combining their force at a large spring at the lower end of the valley, a few miles below Fort Pleasant....

They soon dismounted and divided into two parties for a "pincer" approach and moved north behind the Indians into the rugged gorge known as "The Trough" for its steep and impassable slopes.

The battle soon commenced, and raged with great fury for some time on both sides, but the whites found that they were outgeneraled as well as largely outnumbered; they were soon beat back and compelled to force their way through the enemy in their rear.