On June 25, 1755, the largest army assembled in North America up to that time passed this spot as British Maj. Gen. Edward Braddock led the first 1,400 soldiers of his 2,400-man army along a 12-foot-wide road while Lt. Col. Thomas Dunbar lagged behind with 1,000 men and the army's supplies. Braddock sought to expel the French from Fort Duquesne, present-day Pittsburgh, but his advance troops collided with a force of French and Indians. On July 14, what remained of the once proud British army hobbled past this point in retreat from its disastrous defeat at the Battle of the Monongahela, returning in defeat and burying its fallen leader along Braddock Road.