British historian Stephen Brumwell didn't start college until he was 30.

He made up for his late start. The ex-newspaper reporter earned his doctoral degree in history from the University of Leeds, taught there and has published two books on 18th century military subjects.

He now lives in Amsterdam, working as an independent historian and lecturer.

	Newsmaker / Stephen Brumwell Age: 45 Residence: Amsterdam, The Netherlands Hometown: Portsmouth, England Occupation: historian and writer In the News: An expert on the British army in the 18th century, he is one of the featured speakers this weekend at the Ohio Country Conference on Pitt's Greensburg campus. His new book, "White Devil," is being published this month. It is the story of the "Rogers' Rangers" retaliatory raid on the Abenaki Indians in 1759. Family: wife Laura, a science journalist for Netherlands Radio; daughter, Milly, 2. Quote: "The French and Indian War is kind of the poor cousin of the Civil War ... the new [WQED] program, 'The War that Made America,' could make a big difference in how ordinary Americans view this part of their shared past."

Brumwell will be one of the featured speakers at this year's Ohio Country Conference. The 9th annual meeting of scholars, students and history buffs will be held Saturday and Sunday at the University of Pittsburgh Greensburg campus. The Ohio Country was the pre-Revolutionary name for the sprawling territory west of the Alleghenies and north of the Ohio River.

While this conference year's topic is "1755 -- War Spreads Across a Continent," several speakers will concentrate on the defeat of Gen. Edward Braddock's British and Colonial army. The battle was fought 250 years ago near the banks of the Monongahela less than 10 miles east of Pittsburgh. Braddock died of his battle wounds and was buried in the mountains outside what is now Uniontown.

The conference also will launch the "Season of Braddock," a series of re-enactments, museum exhibits and lectures leading up to commemorative events this July in the borough named for him.

Brumwell's first book, "Redcoats," was a reworking of his Ph.D. thesis published by Cambridge University Press. In it, he made use of letters, diaries and field reports to describe the soldiers who served in the British army during the French and Indian War. "It's basically an academic book that reached a wider audience," Brumwell said in a phone interview last week.

Scots and Irish were over-represented within the ranks, he found. By war's end they had been joined by many men born in the British colonies. Among those who had sought opportunity via the military was young George Washington.

"The great irony of Washington's life is that he wanted nothing more than to be a soldier of the King," Brumwell said. While Washington had several opportunities to command Virginia militia, he never got the more prestigious British commission he wanted.

While "Redcoats" was analytic, his new book, "White Devil," is a narrative. It tells the story of a 1759 revenge attack by Colonial troops on an Abenaki Indian village deep in Canada. That assault, led by Robert Rogers, followed the massacre of British prisoners after the fall of Fort William Henry in 1757.

"In telling this kind of a story I'm going back to my newspaper roots," he said. "But it is a yarn based on real evidence and research."

"Rogers' Rangers" are sometimes described as America's first Special Forces. Their exploits are the subject of "Northwest Passage," a 1940 movie directed by King Vidor and starring Spencer Tracy.

"Northwest Passage" and "Last of the Mohicans" are among the few movies set during the French and Indian War, he noted. The earlier conflict has never caught the public imagination the way the Civil War has.

Brumwell joined more than 2,500 people who came to Fort Necessity in July to mark the 250th anniversary of Washington's surrender there. More than 20,000 people came to Gettysburg for what was the seemingly minor 141st anniversary of that battle.

"The War that Made America," a four-hour television program airing this fall, may help change public perceptions, he said. WQED Multimedia and The French and Indian War 250, the organization coordinating the national commemoration of the conflict, produced the program.

A veteran at age 23 of multiple journeys through the wilderness of Western Pennsylvania, Washington was a volunteer member of Braddock's staff.

"Washington was one of the few [non-native] people who knew the territory," Brumwell said. "He was a surveyor and he had learned the terrain."

Braddock could have used a lot more people like Washington as he made his slow way north and west from Alexandria, Va., during the summer of 1755.

Commanding an army of British regulars and Colonial militia much larger than anything the French and their Indian allies could assemble against him, Braddock was sure that his trained soldiers could face down any enemy.

When a half dozen Indian chiefs offered to join his expedition in return for guarantees that they could continue to occupy and hunt in the Ohio Country, he rejected their offer.

Over-confidence and contempt for the Native Americans through whose lands he was moving helped seal Braddock's fate.

"He underestimated the opposition," Brumwell said. "Nothing had stood in his way until he was within a few miles of his final destination," -- the French Fort Duquesne at Pittsburgh's Point. "His own background was in conventional warfare ... and he wouldn't listen to local advice. He had confidence that the King's troops, because of training and discipline -- would overcome anything the enemy put in their way."

Lack of Indian allies hurt him further.

Indian scouts might have given him earlier warning of the enemy's approach, and Indian fighters would have been experienced in forest warfare. "That might have given him time to reorganize after the initial shock and start to fight back."

The Ohio Country Conference is co-sponsored by Bushy Run Battlefield Heritage Society and the Westmoreland County Historical Society.

Registration information, including conference costs, is available at the Bushy Run web site, www.bushyrunbattlefield.com. Visitors should click on "Bushy Run Battlefield Entrance," then on "Tours & Events." The phone number is 724-527-5584.