After the defeat of General Edward Braddock at the Battle of the Monongahela (9 July 1755), the white settlers of the Allegheny Mountains were largely unprotected from a series of Shawnee and Delaware Indian raids. In October, in an effort to provide some respite, two forts were raised in the South Branch Valley. By the end of the year, the Virginia Regiment had increased its numbers by several hundred troops and began to temporarily man some of these settler forts. Shortly after the new year, a new commander of the Regiment — the 24-year-old Colonel George Washington — ordered Captain Thomas Waggener to leave Fort Cumberland with his company and proceed up the South Branch. His orders directed him to construct two forts in the area above the rugged gorge known locally as The Trough and to station detachments accordingly to best protect the settlers on the upper South Branch.