At this point General Braddock, after causing an examination of the country between the camp and Fort Duquesne to be made, abandoned his design of approaching the fort by the ridge route, being deterred by the deep and rugged ravines of the streams and by the steep and almost perpendicular precipices to the eastward of Circleville and Stewartsville.[75] Turning westward, therefore, at almost a right angle at or near Stewartsville, possibly at Charles Larimer's barn, the route strikes out in a shorter line coincident with the present county road, undoubtedly following the course of this road for about a mile; thence continuing in the same direction for a little over a mile along a ridge on either side of which is a narrow valley, it intersects the White Oak Level road about half a mile east of the boundary line between Alleghany and Westmoreland counties. From this point it follows naturally down the valley of Long Run, past what was Samson's old mill,[76] and across Long Run at or near the present bridge to a point about two and a half miles westward, where the army encamped at a very favorable depression now known as McKeesport, two miles north of the Monongahela River and about four miles from the battlefield. A magnificent spring of water marks the site of this encampment, which was called Monongahela Camp.[77] On the morning of July 9 the army turned into the valley of Crooked Run down what is now known as Riverton Avenue, fording the Monongahela to the north of the mouth of the run in order to avoid the narrow pass on the east side of the river.[78] The route follows down the western bank of the Monongahela through what is now Duquesne, fording the river a second time a short distance west of Turtle Creek. Here, on the eastern bank of the Monongahela, the battle took place. From a point about a mile southeast from Circleville to Braddock's Field there are no trustworthy scars of the road; but the topography of the country is such that the line between these two points can be readily determined. Some of the older citizens pointed out to the writer the place at which Braddock forded the Monongahela, for marks of the passage have been visible until within a few years.[79] Recently, however, the whole complexion of the ground on the west side of the river has been changed to so great a degree, not only by the erection of steel works with their large deposits of slag along the banks, but also by the improved methods of navigation, that all traces of Braddock's movements are forever obliterated. On the eastern side of the Monongahela and west of Turtle Creek, at what is now Braddock, where the battle occurred, encouraging efforts are now on foot that promise to lead to a satisfactory settlement of the point at which the fording actually occurred, as well as of the location of the route through the battlefield and of the ground on which the British and the French troops took position.[80] [Illustration: BRADDOCK'S GRAVE