John Hoge (1730 - 1755)

Born 1730 in Frederick Co, Virginia

Ancestors

Died 1755 at about age 25 in Fort Dusquene, Pennsylvania

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Biography

This biography is a rough draft. It was auto-generated by a GEDCOM import and needs to be edited.

Sources

• WikiTree profile Hoge-100 created through the import of Miller1.ged on Dec 1, 2011 by George Miller. See the Changes page for the details of edits by George and others.

Notes

Note NI467He served in the Colonial Forces and was killed with Major General Braddock in the

Fort Duquesne Expedition during the French and Indian (aka Seven Year) War.

Story of that battle was written by F. LaCava and is posted on the web site for the Inne at Watson's Choice (http://www.watsonschoice.com/GuideBook/Themes/GeoWahingtonSleptHere.html] Part of which is excerpted here.

"Historians often remark that the youthful Washington, "made his first mistakes here," certainly he received an unforgettable lesson in warfare. When the French and their Indian allies arrived on July 3, they were able to rain shot and arrows on the colonials from the surrounding high ground under the protection of dense forests.

Washington and his officers had expected the French to fight like Europeans of the day - assembling in formation on the open plain of the Great Meadow. Instead, they fought "Indian style" from the protection of rocks and trees. Such tactics were to bear even more dire consequences for the British the next year when Maj. Gen. Edward Braddock was routed in the Pennsylvania wilderness. In fact, the lesson learned by the young Virginian at Fort Necessity was to be of great advantage to the American colonists in the Revolutionary War against the British and their Hessian hirelings.

A driving rain hampered the little army through the day and into the evening of July 3, 1754. That night they parleyed with the French and surrendered July 4, to retreat back into Virginia with full military honors. Although the engagement ended in defeat for the colonials - and marked the only time in his military career that Washington surrendered - the event marked a second important lesson in the young leader. Historians ascribe much of Washington's success in the subsequent Revolution to his abilities in keeping an army together despite setbacks and defeats.

He was to return the next year as an officer in the ill fated expedition of British Major General Edward Braddock, commander of two regiments of the Cold Stream Guards - some 2000 of the finest fighting men the empire could field.

The army advanced over the trail improved by Washington and his men the year before, inspected the burned ruins of Ft. Necessity and the surrounding breastworks. Braddock then divided his army, with 1,000 men camping nearby the glen where the small contingent of French including the emissary Jumonville had been ambushed by Washington the year before. Col. Thomas Dunbar was placed in command of the camp, the site today known as Dunbar's Knob, where a sixty foot high concrete and steel cross towers over a Methodist retreat.

Braddock, Washington, and some 1400 English and colonial militia men proceeded north to meet the French at Fort Dusquene, then situated in what is today's "Golden Triangle" in the heart of Pittsburgh. Only miles from what would have been certain victory, Braddock and his men were met by a contingent of French and Native Americans whose "backwoods" tactics enabled them to inflict terrible losses on the army. Routed headlong, the army could easily have disintegrated had not Washington assumed command, bringing the mortally wounded Braddock to Dunbar's camp.

The dying Braddock lingered four days. Washington had his remains interred in the middle of the road near Ft. Necessity and the wagons run over the spot so as to obscure it from desecration. Braddock's remains were lost until the early 1800's when unearthed by a road contractor. They were removed to a nearby spot commemorated in 1909 by a large stone marker. Major General Edward Braddock, Cold Stream Guards, a Scot, born into a military family in Ireland, is to this day the only English army commander buried on foreign soil.. "