Considering the time and the place, the first army seen in Cumberland County was of quite respectable size. Made up entirely of British regulars, it comprised two foot regiments, a detachment of artillery, and three independent (or unregimented) companies. With these units at less than full strength, the whole force numbered about twelve thousand.
The army appeared here at an opportune time. In the wake of General Edward Braddock's defeat, near the present Pittsburgh, on July 9, 1755, Pennsylvania was apprehensive of an invasion by the victorious French and their Indian allies; and the Provincial government, under Quaker influence, was ill prepared to oppose such an attack. Cumberland County, in particular, lay directly in the path of the threatened invasion. Unfortunately, the British army that made so timely an appearance here was Braddock's army, and it was marching in the wrong direction.
From the start, Pennsylvania had made no military contribution, either of troops or of munitions, to Braddock's expedition. In its unwillingness to make such a contribution, the Assembly had at first argued that it could not be proved that the new French forts lay within Pennsylvania's boundaries. Braddock's two regiments, the 44th and the 48th, brought from Ireland, had disembarked at Alexandria, Virginia, and then marched to western Maryland, where Fort Cumberland (the present city of Cumberland, Maryland) became the base for the expedition. The three independent companies (two from New York, one from South Carolina) had been sent there earlier; and there, too, the provincial soldiers of Virginia and Maryland and a few Indians and some volunteers from Pennsylvania joined Braddock's army.
Pennsylvania had agreed, however, to make a contribution in the form of provisions to feed Braddock's soldiers; and, faithful to this promise, had undertaken the two-fold task of collecting stores into the Cumberland Valley and of opening a road westward from the Valley so that the provisions could be delivered.
Edward Shippen of Lancaster, the founder and owner of Shippensburg, took a particular interest in the shipment of supplies. He made the practical suggestion that cattle for the expedition be collected at the Penns' Manor of Lowther in eastern Cumberland County; Tobias Hendricks, caretaker for the Manor, could look after them, and they could be grazed on the Penns' own pastures. More generously, Shippen offered his own buildings for storing supplies at Shippensburg. Charles Swaine was put in charge there, until the supplies could be moved on to a fortified magazine at McDowell's Mill (the present Markes, Franklin County, southeast of Fort Loudon).
The new road, running west from McDowell's Mill, was opened by workmen under the supervision of James Burd, Shippen's son-in-law, who lived at Shippensburg. It ran by way of the Sugar Cabbins (now Fort Littleton) west to Raystown (present Bedford), and then veered somewhat southward to join the line of Braddock's march. The workmen on this road were guarded by a company of Virginia troops under Captain Peter Hogg; so, though the road is referred to usually as Burd's Road, it was sometimes called Hogg's Road.
Braddock, meanwhile, pushed toward Fort Duquesne, advancing slowly over rough country. To avoid still further delay, he built no further forts or bases on the way and divided his army, pushing ahead with the main force while Col. Thomas Dunbar (of the 48th Regiment) followed with the slower supply train.
With the news of Braddock's defeat, on July 9, all proceedings in the campaign of course stopped. Dunbar heard the news the same day, from fugitives; and following the General's death on July 13, he commanded on the retreat to Fort Cumberland, where he arrived on July 21. Governor Morris of Pennsylvania, in Cumberland County to oversee the removal of the supply depot from Shippensburg to McDowell's Mill, heard the news on July 15; he marked the site for a fort at Carlisle," in the middle of this town," ordered another built at Shippensburg, and hurried back to Philadelphia. James Burd, on the summit of the Allegheny Mountain, heard the news two days later, on July 17, but was still able to get to Fort Cumberland, with Captain Hogg, a day or two ahead of Colonel Dunbar.
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