Historian Michael McConnell discusses the French and Indian War in western Pennsylvania in his virtual presentation “The Disjointed Empire: Coalition Warfare and the Forbes Campaign.” In 1758, British General John Forbes’s campaign attempted to capture the French Fort Duquesne, and make peace with the Delaware Indians who accounted for the majority of local natives in the Ohio Valley at the time. His army consisted of hundreds of American provincial soldiers and British regulars as well. Forbes’s situation raised interesting issues—not least of which was his run-in with a young George Washington. Geography also played a role: the army was moving through territory that colonists, especially Virginians and Pennsylvanians, coveted. McConnell also points to the huge logistical challenge of fighting a war on the distant frontier.

Michael McConnell is a native of western Pennsylvania and earned his Ph.D. in Early American history in 1983 from the College of William & Mary. He retired in 2008 as associate professor after 24 years with the Department of History, University of Alabama-Birmingham.

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