The Battle Of Monongahela And General Braddock's Buried Gold

In late spring of 1755, General Edward Braddock moved his army of over two thousand men north from Virginia towards Fort Duquesne.

By July 9th the troops arrived at the Monongahela crossing, six weeks behind schedule .
Expecting an ambush to occur during the river crossing, Braddock took precautions to see that all was secure before sending the troops through the shallows.

With the last man safe on the other side, Braddock and his men moved forward into the forest canopy with a renewed sense of confidence.

Within the next few hours, their confidence would be replaced by panic and terror.
General Braddock himself had four horses shot out from under him, he fell with the fifth, mortally wounded. The battle was lost.

Tattered remnants of Braddock’s army fled back across the river.
Braddock, badly bleeding, was loaded with two other wounded officers and taken from the battle ground, He died within days of the battle...

“We marched to that place, without any considerable loss, having only now and then a straggler picked up by the French and scouting Indians. When we came there, we were attacked by a party of French and Indians, whose number, I am persuaded, did not exceed three hundred men; while ours consisted of about one thousand three hundred well-armed troops, chiefly regular soldiers, who were struck with such a panic that they behaved with more cowardice than it is possible to conceive. The officers behaved gallantly, in order to encourage their men, for which they suffered greatly, there being near sixty killed and wounded; a large proportion of the number we had.” ~ George “Hero of the Monongahela” Washington

So here is the treasure story ...

June arrived as General Braddock's army sat in Alexandria, Virginia collecting troops for his journey westward into the wilderness. 

Through the Shenandoah Valley lies the then fur trading town of Winchester. 

With 2,500 men, 4 howitzers, 4 12-pounders and 4 6-pounders, Braddock began building a road to reach Fort Duquesne starting from Alexandria toward Winchester, this became an agonizingly slow undertaking through the heat and mud. In less then two weeks, traveling about 2 miles a day, Braddock’s army had only reached “Newgate” (renamed Centreville in 1798). His hopes of going North or any further where deluded as the wagons and cannons became bogged down in the moist Virginia clay.

Desperate, Braddock gave orders that included a split of his troops into a “flying column” and gave additional orders to bury the artillery, reportedly two of the brass 6-pounders (weighing 1,500 pounds each) pointing skyward in the ground.
He dismissed all but a few trusted officers and these cannons soon became treasure vaults.

According to papers that had found their way back to England, later discovered by an archivist, Braddock and his officers poured $30K in gold coins that was to be used to pay troops and war efforts.
The cannons where plugged and sealed.

“50 paces east of a spring where the road runs north and south” – Braddock carefully noted the location of the treasure. Yes – Braddock Road where the road runs North to intersect RT 29-211 in Centreville, VA!

General Braddock’s demise: Marching on to Western Pennsylvania with his remaining 1,300 men to what is know as the Battle of the Monongahela on July 9, 1755, both armies came upon each other about 10 miles south of the fort.
The engagement lasted from 1-3 hours. As the sun fell, the surviving army of American and British forces was able to fallback but lost many infantry and officers – as well as the only living witnesses to the cannons filled with gold coin's!