Two hundred and fifty years ago today a British officer and 850 soldiers tried to sneak up on the French and their Indian allies at Fort Duquesne.

Someone must have heard them coming.

British Major James Grant was captured and more than 300 of his men were killed, wounded or made prisoners.

Grant's Defeat on Sept. 14, 1758, was the only major battle to take place in what is now Pittsburgh. David Preston, an assistant professor of history at The Citadel, yesterday told participants in a "Hinge of History" program at Fort Pitt Museum that the military disaster was well named.

Grant was eager for glory, contemptuous of his Colonial troops and unable to adapt to changing battlefield conditions, Mr. Preston said. He underestimated the size of the force he faced, and he went far beyond the bounds of what was to be a reconnaissance mission.

Grant repeated some of the same mistakes during the American Revolution, when British forces faced Colonial soldiers as enemies rather than allies, Mr. Preston said. In December 1776 Grant ignored warnings from a New Jersey commander about hostile troop movements, calling the Colonials "skulking peasants." On Christmas night, George Washington's Continental Army surrounded and killed or captured about 1,000 Hessian mercenaries at Trenton.

Yesterday's seminar focused on the Forbes expedition of 1758, which ended with the French being driven from Fort Duquesne and the Forks of the Ohio being renamed Pittsburgh.

Daniel Barr, an associate history professor at Robert Morris University, talked about the importance of the route Gen. John Forbes selected across the Pennsylvania wilderness.

Both Pennsylvania and Virginia claimed the region, he noted, and Virginians like George Washington lobbied hard for Forbes to follow the 1755 Braddock Road that came northwest from what is now Cumberland, Md.

Had Forbes taken Washington's advice, southwestern Pennsylvania likely would have become a part of West Virginia, he said.

While Professors Barr and Preston concentrated on military decisions, re-enactor Barbara Bockrath, "Auntie B in the 'Burgh," gave a first-person account of the hardships faced by the half-dozen women at Fort Duquesne. The Bethel Park resident portrayed a traumatized English settler captured in an Indian raid during which her husband was killed.

Reading from the Fort Duquesne parish register kept by Father Denys Baron, the French priest assigned to the garrison, she described daily life that included baptisms followed too often by burials.

Yesterday's seminar included a parallel children's program that gave several dozen youngsters a chance to "take the king's shilling" and learn the rudiments of an 18th-century soldier's life.

"Face forward and cease talking," re-enactor Chris Kubiak ordered. Mr. Kubiak portrays a red-coated corporal in the 60th Royal American Regiment. "I think we have a good group here," he advised recruiting Sgt. Douglas MacGregor after his troops completed drilling basics.

The daylong seminar was sponsored by the Fort Pitt Associates, a volunteer organization that supports the state museum.