Washington's bad day

The Fourth of July is America's Independence Day, but it is also the anniversary of a signal event that set the stage for the American Revolution.

On July 4, 1754, Lt. Colonel George Washington of the Virginia Militia surrendered Fort Necessity in the frontier land of southwestern Pennsylvania to an overwhelmingly superior force of French regulars and their Indian allies. It was the culmination of a series of chaotic events in which a young and green George Washington almost single-handedly touched off a world war.

In the early 1750s, the British and the French were sparring over their respective claims to the western Pennsylvania area - the Forks of the Ohio that marked the route into the vast, rich interior of North America.

Virginia's Colonial Lt.

Governor Robert Dinwiddie had already sent the youthful Washington to Fort LeBouf in the Ohio Country to tell the French that they were trespassing on Virginia territory and must leave.

The French were polite and hospitable, but not inclined to acquiesce to the Virginians' request.

Dinwiddie sent out a construction party to build a fort at the Forks of the Ohio, but they were sent packing and the French began construction of Fort Duquesne (now Pittsburg).

Washington was ordered back to the frontier with orders to act on the defensive but to restrain anyone who attempted to obstruct colonial settlement activities. Dinwiddie was acting on his own authority, without any authorization from London, and putting such orders in the hands of an ambitious, aggressive young militia colonel was a good way to start a war.

That's just what happened. Getting wind of an apparently belligerent scouting party composed of French Marines (their elite forest fighting force), Canadiens and Indians in the area, Washington determined to attack their camp, with the aid of some Indian auxiliaries led by the western Seneca sachem Tanacharison. Tanacharison's presence was another handful of dry tinder to toss on the fire: he had been insulted by the French and was seething for revenge.

Washington and about 40 of his troops struck the camp, killing several of the French soldiers. Most significantly, Tanacharison tomahawked the French commander, Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville, who had in his possession a summons ordering the British trespassers to leave the territory. The French considered de Jumonville to be on a diplomatic mission. His killing was what you call an international incident.

Washington knew the French would likely counterattack him, so he retreated to Great Meadows and built a log palisade, which was completed on June 3. A month later, a force of about 700 French regulars, militia and Indians came down on him and his 400 men, which included a hundred British regulars under a Captain James McKay, whose regular commission put him on an equal footing with the Virginia militia colonel.

Fort Necessity, as it was called, was poorly situated, with the French holding ground high enough to fire into the fort and the surrounding earthworks. When rain drenched the meadow and dampened the soldiers' powder, Washington had little choice but to surrender the hapless fort. The British departed the fort on July 4.

The commander of the French force was the brother of the slain de Jumonville, and he was in a chippy frame of mind. One of the surrender documents contained an admission from Washington that he had "assassinated" the emissary de Jumonville. Washington later insisted that the translation he was given acknowledged responsibility for "the death of" or "the killing of" the French officer, not "assassination."

It was all a terrible mess. These skirmishes in the forest of western Pennsylvania would have world-shaking consequences. Within a year, the British and the French would be at war in earnest, in a conflict that spanned the globe. The British victory in the Seven Years War left the Empire ascendant, especially in India, but it had profound unintended consequences in North America. The colonists learned to assert themselves, and by July 4, 1776, that self-assertion included a Declaration of Independence. And it would be Washington who would make that declaration good.

One imagines that Washington was well satisfied to have something to remember July 4 by other than the humiliating episode of his youth.

The fallout from defeat in the French and Indian War would fundamentally damage the Bourbon monarchy in France, which would ultimately fall in the French Revolution of 1789.

And so the hinge of fate swung at the impetus of a young militia officer, an angry Iroquois diplomat and a handful of frontier partisans in the deep backwoods of North America.

Author Bio

Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief

Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.

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