Washington left Great Meadows about eight o’clock. It was not until sunrise that Half-King’s sentries at “Washington’s Spring,” saw the van-guard file out on the narrow ridge, which, dividing the headwaters of Great Meadow Run and Cheat River, made an easy ascent to the summit of the mountain. The march of five miles had been accomplished, with great difficulty, in a little less than two hours—or at the rate of one mile in two hours.

Forgetting all else for the moment, consider the young leader of this floundering, stumbling army. There is not another episode in all Washington’s long, eventful, life that shows more clearly his strength of personal determination and daring. Beside this all-night march from Great Meadows to Washington’s Spring, Wolf’s ascent to the Plains of Abraham at Quebec, was a past-time. The climb up from Wolf’s Cove (all romantic accounts and pictures to the contrary notwithstanding) was an exceedingly easy march up a valley that hardly deserved to be called steep. A child can run along Wolfe’s path at any point from top to bottom. A man in full daylight today, can walk over Washington’s five mile course to Laurel Hill in half the time the little army needed on that black night. If a more difficult ten-hour night march has been made in the history of warfare in America, who led it and where was it made? No feature of the campaign shows more clearly the unmatched, irresistible energy of this twenty-two-year-old boy. For those to whom Washington, the man, is “unknown,” there are lessons in this little briery path today of value far beyond their cost.

MAP OF FORT NECESSITY IN LOWDERMILK’S “HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND”, FROM FREEMAN LEWIS’ SURVEY.
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Whether Washington intended to attack the French before he reached Half-King is not known; at the Spring a conference was held and it was immediately decided to attack. Washington did not know and could not have known that Jumonville was an embassador. The action of the French in approaching Great Meadows and then withdrawing and hiding was not the behavior of an embassy. Half-King and his Indians were of the opinion that the French party entertained evil designs, and, as Washington afterwards wrote, “If we had been such fools as to let them (the French) go, they (the Indians) would never have helped us to take any other Frenchmen.”

Two scouts were sent out in advance; then, in Indian file, Washington and his men with Half-King and a few Indians followed and “prepared to surround them.”

Laurel Hill, the most westerly range of the Alleghenies, trends north and south through Pennsylvania. In Fayette county, about one mile on the summit northward from the National Road, lies Washington’s Spring where Half-King encamped. The Indian trail coursed along the summit northward fifteen miles to Gist’s. On the eastern side, Laurel Hill descends into a valley varying from a hundred to five hundred feet deep. Nearly two miles from the Spring, in the bottom of a valley four hundred feet deep, lay Jumonville’s “embassy.” The attacking party, guided by Indians, who had previously wriggled down the hillside on their bellies and found the French, advanced along the Indian trail and then turned off and began stealthily creeping down the mountain-side.

Washington’s plan was, clearly, to surround and capture the French. It is plain he did not understand the ground. They were encamped in the bottom of a valley two hundred yards wide and more than a mile long. Moreover the hillside on which the English were descending abruptly ended on a narrow ledge of rocks thirty feet high and a hundred yards long.

Coming suddenly out on the rocks, Washington leading the right division and Half-King the left, it was plain in the twinkling of an eye that it would not be possible to achieve a bloodless victory. Washington therefore gave and received first fire. It was fifteen minutes before the astonished but doughty French, probably now surrounded by Half-King’s Indians, were compelled to surrender. Ten of their number, including their “Embassador” Jumonville, were killed outright and one wounded. Twenty-one prisoners were taken. One Frenchman escaped, running half clothed through the forests to Fort Duquesne with the evil tidings.

“We killed,” writes Washington, “Mr. de Jumonville, the Commander of that party, as also nine others; we wounded one and made twenty-one prisoners, among whom were M. la Force, and M. Drouillon and two cadets. The Indians scalped the dead and took away the greater part of their arms, after which we marched on with the prisoners under guard to the Indian camp.... I marched on with the prisoners. They informed me that they had been sent with a summons to order me to retire. A plausible pretense to discover our camp and to obtain knowlege of our forces and our situation! It was so clear that they were come to reconnoiter what we were, that I admired their assurance, when they told me they were come as an Embassy; their instructions were to get what knowledge they could of the roads, rivers, and all the country as far as the Potomac; and instead of coming as an Embassador, publicly and in an open manner, they came secretly, and sought the most hidden retreats more suitable for deserters than for Embassadors; they encamped there and remained hidden for whole days together, at a distance of not more than five miles from us; they sent spies to reconnoiter our camp; the whole body turned back 2 miles; they sent the two messengers mentioned in the instruction, to inform M. de Contrecoeur of the place where we were, and of our disposition, that he might send his detachments to enforce the summons as soon as it should be given. Besides, an Embassador has princely attendants, whereas this was only a simple petty French officer, an Embassador has no need of spies, his person being always sacred: and seeing their intention was so good, why did they tarry two days at five miles distance from us without acquainting me with the summons, or at least, with something that related to the Embassy? That alone would be sufficient to excite the strongest suspicions, and we must do them the justice to say, that, as they wanted to hide themselves, they could not have picked out better places than they had done. The summons was so insolent, and savored of so much Gasonade that if it had been brought openly by two men it would have been an excessive Indulgence to have suffered them to return.... They say they called to us as soon as they had discovered us; which is an absolute falsehood, for I was then marching at the head of the company going towards them, and can positively affirm, that, when they first saw us, they ran to their arms, without calling, as I must have heard them had they so done.”