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 perpendicular rocks thirty feet high and a hundred yards long.
Coming suddenly out on the rocks, Washington leading the right division of the party and Half King the left, it was plain in the twinkling of an eye that it would be impossible 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 the “ambassador” Jumonville, were killed outright and one wounded. Twenty-one were taken prisoners. 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, 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 pretence to discover our camp and to obtain knowledge 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 Gasconade, 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.”[9]
In a letter to his brother, Washington wrote: “I fortunately escaped without any wound; for the right wing where I stood, was exposed to, and received all the enemy’s fire; and it was the part where the man was killed and the rest wounded. I heard the bullets whistle; and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound.” The letter was published in the London Magazine. It is said George II. read it and commented dryly: “He would not say so if he had been used to hear many.” In later years Washington heard too much of the fatal music, and once, when asked if he had written such rodomontade is said to have answered gravely, “If I said so, it was when I was young.” Aye, but it is memorials of that daring young Virginian, to whom whistling bullets were charming, that we seek in the Alleghanies today. We catch a similar glimpse of his ardent, boyish spirit in a letter written from Fort Necessity later. Speaking of strengthening the fortifications, Washington writes: “We have, with nature’s assistance, made a good intrenchment, and by clearing the bushes out of these meadows, prepared a charming field for an encounter.” Over and above the anxieties with which he was ever beset, there shines out clearly the exuberance of boyish zest and valor—soon to be hardened and quenched by innumerable cares and heavy responsibilities.
Thus the first blow in the long bloody seven years’ war was struck by the red-uniformed Virginians under Washington at the bottom of that Alleghany valley. He immediately returned to Great Meadows, sent eastward to the belated Fry for reinforcements, and westward a scouting party to keep watch of the enemy. On the 30th, the French prisoners were sent eastward to Virginia and the construction of a fort was begun at Great Meadows, by erecting “small palisades.” This was completed by the following day, June 1st. Washington, in his Journal under the date of June 25th, speaks of this fort as “Fort-Necessity.”[10] The name suggests the exigencies which led to its erection: lack of troops and provisions. On June 2nd, Washington wrote in his Journal: “We had prayers in the Fort;”[11] the name Necessity may not have been used at first.
On the 6th, Gist arrived from Wills Creek, bringing the news of Colonel Fry’s death by injuries sustained from being thrown from his horse. Thus the command now devolved upon Washington who had been in actual command from the beginning. On the 9th, the remainder of the Virginian regiment arrived from Wills Creek, with the swivels, under Colonel Muse. On the day following, Captain Mackaye arrived with the Independent Company of South Carolinians.
The reinforcements put a new face on affairs and it is clear that the new colonel commanding secretly hoped to capture Fort Duquesne forthwith. Washington’s road was finished to Great Meadows. For two weeks, now, the work went on, completing it as far as Gist’s, on Mount Braddock. In the mountains a sharp lookout for the French was maintained, and spies were continually sent to Fort Duquesne to report all that was happening there. Among all else that taxed the energies of the young colonel was the management of the Indian question. At one time he received and answered a deputation of Delawares and Shawanese which he knew was sent by the French as spies. Yet the answer of this youth to the “treacherous devils,” as he calls them in his private record of the day, was as bland and diplomatic as that of Indian chieftain bred to hypocrisy and deceit. He put little faith in the redskins but made good use of those he had as spies, did all in his power to restrain the nations from joining the French, and offered to all who came or would come to him a hospitality he could ill afford.
On the 28th, his road was completed to Gist’s and eight of the sixteen miles from Gist’s to the mouth of Redstone creek. On this day the scouts brought word of reinforcements at Fort Duquesne and of preparations for sending out an army. Immediately Washington summoned Mackaye’s company from Fort Necessity and the building of a fort was begun by throwing up entrenchments on Mount Braddock. All outlying squads were called in. But on the 30th, fresher information being at hand, it was decided at a council of war to retreat to Virginia rather than oppose the strong force which was advancing up the Monongahela.
The consternation at Fort Duquesne upon the arrival of the single, barefoot fugitive from Jumonville’s company can be imagined. Relying on the pompous pretenses of the embassadorship and desiring to avoid an indefensible violation of the Treaty of Utrecht—though the spirit and letter were “already infringed by his very presence on the ground”—Contrecœur, one of the best representatives of his proud king that ever came to America, assembled a council of war and ordered each opinion to be put in writing. Mercier gave moderate advice; Coulon-Villiers, half-brother of Jumonville, burning with rage, urged violent recrimination. Mercier prevailed, and an army of five hundred French and as many, or more, Indians, among whom were many Delawares, formerly friendly to the English, was raised to march and meet Washington. At his request the command was given to Coulon-Villiers—Le Grand Villiers, so-called from his prowess among the Indians. Mercier was second in command. This was the army before which Washington was now slowly, painfully, retreating from Mount Braddock toward Virginia.
It was a sad hour—that in which the Virginian retreat was ordered by the daring colonel, eager for a fight. But, even if he secretly wished to stay and defend the splendid site on Mount Braddock where he had entrenched his army, the counsel of older heads prevailed. It would have been better had the army stuck to those breastworks—but the suffering and humiliation to come was not foreseen.