Annotation:General Braddock's March

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GENERAL BRADDOCK'S MARCH. American, March (2/4 time). USA, southwestern Pa. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. Braddock was an English general of the French and Indian Wars, but this fife tune could have been derived either from a popular song, a country-dance tune, or from a camp-meeting spiritual, according to Bayard. In 1755 British Major General Edward Braddock assemble British and Colonial troops in an effort to secure the Pennsylvania frontier by seizing Fort Duquesne at present-day Pittsburgh from the French. After a long march through the wilderness, he crossed the Monongahela River on July 9, and was just a few miles away from his target. Braddock was then a 60-year-old soldier, a veteran of the elite Coldstream Guards, and was confident that his army of 2,200 men would take the French fort at the confluence of the Allegheny, Ohio and Monongahela rivers. Near a steep ravine, Braddock ran right into French Capt. Daniel Beaujeu, who commanded 250 soldiers and 600 Native Americans. Three hours later, Braddock lay mortally wounded and his army was in retreat.

Source for notated version: Mount Pleasant Tablatures (fife ms.) [Bayard].

Printed sources: Bayard (Dance to the Fiddle), 1981; No. 22A-B, p. 26.

Recorded sources:

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