Reply to Dinwiddie's Letter: Jumonville and Mingo

Colonel Fry had not yet joined the advance. The young lieutenant-colonel assumed the responsibility of pressing forward with his handful of raw recruits--not more than one hundred and fifty in number--and a few pieces of light artillery. Leaving the borders of civilization on a cool morning in April, these pioneers penetrated the wilderness in the direction of the Ohio. Without shelter from cold and rain; in scanty clothing and with a small supply of provisions, they dragged the cannon over the great wooded hills; felled trees; bridged streams; made causeways over marshes, and removed rocks, to make the march of the main army easier; and late in May they stood on the banks of the Youghiogany, within forty miles of Fort Du Quesne. There Washington received a message from Half-King, saying: "Be on your guard. The French are near, and intend to strike the first English whom they shall see." On the same day this report was confirmed. Ignorant of the number of the French, Washington fell back to a fertile plain which he had crossed, called the Great Meadows, and there built a stockade and named it Fort Necessity. It was near the modern national road between Cumberland and Wheeling, in the southeastern part of Fayette county, Pennsylvania. There Mr. Gist, who had a settlement near, came to him and reported that he had discovered the tracks of the French within five miles of the Great Meadows.

At about nine o'clock in the evening of the same day, a message came from Half-King, who was about six miles distant, saying that a party of armed Frenchmen were lying in ambush not far away. Notwithstanding the night was intensely dark and the rain was falling copiously, Washington immediately set off with forty men, in single file, for the camp of the friendly Mingo Chief, with whom he made arrangements to surprise the common foe and jointly strike him. The night had been consumed in the difficult journey to the Mingo camp, and it was after sunrise when the English and Indians, each marching in parallel lines, in single file, sought the hiding-place of the foe. It was found among some rocks. Washington, who was at the head of the party and carried a musket, when he saw the Frenchmen, shouted Fire! and at the same moment discharged his own gun among them. The volleys of the assailants were returned with spirit. After a fight for about fifteen minutes, when Jumonville, the commander of the French party and ten of his men were killed, the conflict ceased. Only one Virginian was killed. Twenty-two Frenchmen were made prisoners, taken to Fort Necessity, and then sent over the mountains into Eastern Virginia. Of the fifty followers of Jumonville, only fifteen escaped.

This was the first blood shed in the French and Indian war. So was opened by young Washington, who fired the first gun, that long and bitter contest for the rights of man which, like an earthquake, shattered into fragments the institutions of feudal ages which had been transplanted in our country, and shook the foundations of society in Europe.

This skirmish, which occurred on the 28th of May, 1754, made a profound impression. It was exaggerated by French publicists and diplomats. France and England were then at peace, and were saying sweet things to each other, disguising bitterest hatred with a cloak of false professions of friendship. The attack on Jumonville was denounced as an outrage by the French. It was alleged that Jumonville was a civil messenger, bearing a peaceful despatch, and therefore Washington was a murderer. This fiction passed into French history, and has never been expunged. There is no clearer point in national annals than the fact that Jumonville was the bearer of a hostile summons, and his skulking in ambush is proof of his hostile intention. Contrecoeur had begun war by capturing the fort at the Forks; and every circumstance justified the conduct of Washington.

Two days after this event, Colonel Fry died at Will's Creek, leaving Washington in chief command. A few troops pressed forward to join him, and he was burdened at Fort Necessity with about forty families of friendly Indians, among them those of Half-King and Queen Aliquippa. With his little army swelled to about four hundred men, he moved toward Fort Du Quesne, when news came that M. de Villiers, brother of Jumonville, had marched with some Frenchmen and more than a thousand Indians to avenge the death of his kinsman. Washington fell back to Fort Necessity and strengthened it. There he was attacked on the 3d of July by six hundred Frenchmen and about three hundred Indians, a reserve being concealed in the woods. After a conflict for about nine hours, De Villiers, finding his ammunition to be failing, proposed a parley. It was now twilight. Washington, whose force was much inferior, agreed to surrender the fort and troops on the condition that he and his men should retire from the stockade with the honors of war and return to the inhabited portion of the country; the Virginians agreeing to restore the prisoners taken from Jumonville's party, and not to erect any establishment west of the mountains for the space of a year.