What Forbes's Road was to Pittsburg and the West in the Old French War and in Pontiac's Rebellion it was in the Revolutionary days, 1775–83. For thirty years after it was built it was the main highway across the mountains. It is impossible to estimate the worth of this straight roadway to the Ohio; had Forbes followed Braddock's Road to Fort Pitt, western travel ever after would have been at the mercy of the two rivers, the Youghiogheny and Monongahela, which that road crosses. In the winter months it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to have kept open communication between a line of forts and blockhouses on Braddock's Road. This was done on Forbes's Road throughout the half century of conflict.
At the opening of the Revolutionary War, the continental war office being at Philadelphia, Forbes's Road became more strategic than ever in its history. It was now known as the "Pennsylvania Road," and was the direct route to the military center of the West, Fort Pitt. Braddock's Road—now known as the "Virginia Road"—was the main route from Vir-
