[2] Appointed shortly afterward to command against the French in America, Braddock landed with two regiments of British regulars on 20 February 1755 in Hampton, in the colony of Virginia.

After some months of preparation, in which he was hampered by administrative confusion and want of resources previously promised by the colonials, the Braddock expedition took the field with a picked column, in which George Washington served as a volunteer officer.

[1] Although the initial exchange of musketry favored the British, felling the French commander and causing some Canadian militia to flee, the remaining Indian/French force reacted quickly.

[1] He was buried in the middle of the road that his men had just cut through and wagons were rolled over top of the grave site to prevent his body from being discovered and desecrated by the Indians.

He also describes a conversation with Braddock in which he explicitly warned the General that his plan to march troops to the fort through a narrow valley would be dangerous because of the possibility of an ambush.

This is sometimes cited as advice against the disastrous eventual outcome, but the fact remains that Braddock was not ambushed in that final action, and the battle site was not, in any case, a narrow valley.

Braddock had in fact taken great precautions against ambuscade, and had crossed the Monongahela an additional time to avoid the narrow Turtle Creek defile.

In 1804, human remains believed to be Braddock's were found buried in the roadway about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) west of Great Meadows by a crew of road workers.

During his 1755 expedition, he is assassinated by Haytham with the help of several Native American tribes, who sought to see Braddock eliminated because his men ravaged their villages.