With the 4th of July weekend upon us, many of us are surely looking forward to family gatherings, cookouts, parades, and fireworks. In the back of our minds, distracted though we might be by our festivities, is the reason for the celebrations – our country’s independence from Great Britain. For Washington, though, July 4th brought back memories of the hardships and victories of the War of Independence, and also some more somber memories of his early military failings.
A little more than twenty years before the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, Washington spent one particular July 4th trudging away from his first military defeat and debacle. The year was 1754, when George Washington had reached the tender age of twenty-two, and was just beginning his military career.[1] Unfortunately, he began his career with a degree of complicity in the start of the French and Indian War, a war that reverberated throughout much of the world and ultimately led to the American Revolution.[2] As we’ll see throughout the story, this early defeat was due to mismanagement, inexperience, and unfortunate circumstances. However, through Washington’s determination, as well as his military and moral failings, we can draw lessons for our own lives and inspiration to trust in the workings of Providence.
This story of the ignoble start of Washington’s military career begins in the mid-18th century when the Ohio River Territory was anything but peaceful. Both the French and the British were trying to claim the land in various ways to further their individual trading interests, creating tensions between the rival powers.[3] Eventually, tensions escalated enough that the lieutenant governor of Virginia, Robert Dinwiddie, was instructed to send the French a message “demanding that France abandon its forts and claims in the Ohio country.”[4] But who would deliver this message? None other than the young George Washington, whose ambition led him to eagerly take on this duty.[5] After a lengthy journey, Washington made it to the French fort, delivered his message, and was given a return letter to take back to Dinwiddie which rebuffed his demand.[6] The French refused to leave.[7]
Now, more serious action was needed to enforce British claims to the Ohio Territory, and Washington once again was chosen as a significant player in this mission. With British authorization to remove the French from the region, Dinwiddie sent a regiment into the territory.[8] Serving as second in command, the newly minted Lieutenant Colonel Washington was sent to protect British interests and to build a road to a place called the Forks of the Ohio.[9] To his credit, Washington did successfully build this road (a fact often overlooked in light of the blunders to follow).[10] After a slow, laborious journey, Washington and his men reached a damp valley surrounded by hills, called Great Meadows.[11] Here, in late May of 1754, the young officer determined to set up camp, believing he and his men could easily defend the area from a potential French attack (alas, he would be wrong).[12] But the French had already set out to confront the small, untested group of men under the leadership of the inexperienced officer, Washington. He was alerted to their presence by a message from Tanaghrisson, a Seneca Indian working with the Iroquois, who would play a large role in the events to follow.[13] Though night had fallen and rain was pouring down, Washington was determined to find the French.[14] With less than fifty of his men, he set off to meet Tanaghrisson, or the Half King, and what he had hoped would be a large group of warriors.[15] Tanaghrisson however, brought only several of his own men with him.[16] Undeterred by their numbers, the two men and their respective forces continued on their way to find the enemy.
By dawn, the men had found the French. Carefully and quietly peering down into a glen, Washington and Tanaghrisson heard the sounds of an encampment just beginning to rise for the day – muffled voices, breakfast preparations, and the snores of late sleepers.[17] Surveying the situation as quickly as possible, Washington and Tanaghrisson prepared to attack the small force. On that fateful morning of May 28, the shots that reverberated throughout the glen would soon echo around the world.[18] But, who fired first – Washington, who was protecting British interests, or the French, trying to assert their authority, or the Iroquois warriors, caught between competing world powers?
Fascinatingly, different accounts of the encounter in what is known as Jumonville’s glen exist and many contradict each other. The historians Fred Anderson and Colin Calloway provide excellent analyses of these different, often competing accounts in their books Crucible of War: The Seven Year’s War and the Fate of the Empire in British North American, 1754-1766 and The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, The First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation, respectively. But, in an attempt to simplify a complicated event, the French insisted that their commander, Jumonville, was on his way to Washington to deliver a diplomatic mission asking Washington to leave the area.[19] He attempted to read his orders to Washington during the events in the glen, but suffered a shot to the head mid-sentence.[20] He was by no means the only casualty; ten other Frenchmen perished in the fight, and twenty-one more were wounded or taken prisoner after only a fifteen minute engagement.[21] By some accounts, the Iroquois warriors, who had circled around to the other side of the glen to prevent the French from escaping, turned the short exchange of fire into a massacre.[22] Calloway and Anderson both conclude that the number of ten deaths in a short fight does indeed indicate a close range attack with tomahawks, since musket fire was usually too inaccurate to produce such casualties in a short amount of time.[23] Furthermore, other Indians themselves claimed responsibility for the French deaths (if you find this interesting, please see the footnotes).[24] John Shaw, a man who heard an account of the event from eyewitnesses, (an account historians rely on heavily) reported that Tanaghrisson saw Jumonville lying wounded and said to the injured man, “”Thou are not yet dead, my father.””[25] These bone chilling words were followed by a swift blow to Jumonville’s skull with his tomahawk; then, Tanaghrisson knelt down, reached into the split head, and “took out his Brains and washed his hands with them and then Scalped him.””[26]
Washington, who would insist in his reports that the French were really spies, not simply messengers, watched in horror as his Iroquois allies butchered Jumonville and the other wounded Frenchmen.[27] As Anderson states, “The effect upon Washington of seeing Jumonville’s cranium shattered is impossible to calculate, but it seems likely that the sight would have unmanned him long enough to allow the Indians to kill most of the wounded prisoners.”[28] The truth was, Washington had lost control of the situation.[29] However, eager to control the narrative of the encounter, Washington kept his official report that he sent to Dinwiddie as brief as possible, while urging the governor to pay no mind to whatever the soon arriving French prisoners might say.[30] Washington could not dwell for long on what Dinwiddie might think. He knew that one member of the French party in Jumonville’s glen had managed to escape.[31] Surely, this escapee had returned to the larger French force at Ft. Duquesne with news of the massacre, which would almost certainly mean that another French force would set out to exact revenge on Washington.
Wasting no time, Washington led his men back to Great Meadows to strengthen the fortifications there. Though he was confident that he could easily repel any attack the French might launch, the location was less than ideal. As Anderson states, Fort Necessity was nothing more than a fifty foot circle bound by split logs with the only small shelter inside the enclosure built for holding ammunition and supplies.[32] True, there were at least trenches around the “fort,” but those would actually prove problematic during the coming encounter with the French.[33] Plus, the fact that the fort was surrounded by hills and woods meant that the French could easily fire down onto the fort from a protected position.[34] “So poorly sited and so dubiously constructed was this fort that only an amateur or a fool would have thought it defensible; the Half King, who was neither, tried to explain the ways in which “that little thing upon the Meadow” could prove a death trap.”[35] But, Washington was set in his course building what he would call Fort Necessity, believing in youthful, inexperienced confidence that his fort could “withstand “the attack of 500 men.””[36] To his advantage, reinforcements arrived during the month of June, raising his total number of men to about four hundred.[37] Even this, though, could not save Washington from what was about to happen.
On July 3rd, the long-awaited French attack began. The deceased Jumonville’s brother led a force of at least six hundred French and Native American men into the hills and woods surrounding Fort Necessity.[38] Washington sent a group of soldiers out into the open field beyond the fort to form a neat line of battle.[39] However, this position made the men easy targets, and thus, as ill-timed rain poured down on them, Washington’s men retreated to the trenches around Fort Necessity, which were miserable, muddy pools of water by this point.[40] From late morning until about eight in the evening, the colonials and the French fought until the French commander suggested a halt in the action “to discuss the defenders of Fort Necessity’s surrender.”[41] Washington really had no other choice than to surrender, given that about one third of his force was either dead or wounded,[42] and his “gunpowder was wet, ammunition exhausted, and many of the men had gotten into the alcohol supply and become drunk.” [43] I should note that the historians Brian Reedy and Dr. David Preston point out that while Washington was in a tight spot by the evening of the third, the French too were eager for an end to the action, given their own dwindling supplies and belief that reinforcements were on their way to Washington.[44] Nonetheless, it was Washington, not the French, who was essentially pinned down in a miserable little fort with little choice but to surrender.
Though the terms of the surrender were not ungenerous, one of Washington’s greatest blunders came when he signed the surrender document. Likely thanks to poor translations of the French document, Washington was unaware that it stated that he, Washington, had assassinated Jumonville, an act that would count as an act of war.[45] Washington put his name to this fateful document on July 4th before he and his force marched away in defeat from their tiny, now burning, fort.[46] Unfortunately for the British, Washington’s unwitting acknowledgement of assassinating a French ambassador, plus the actions at Jumonville’s Glen and Fort Necessity, heightened the tensions between the British and French to the point of war.[47]
The French and Indian War would ultimately contribute powerfully to creating the conditions for the American Revolution. The British, needing to find a way to earn more money to finance all they had spent in the defense of the colonies during the seven years of the French and Indian War levied taxes on the American colonists. Of course, the colonists sharply opposed these taxes, leading to rebellion, revolution, and eventually independence. As we all know, it was a battle-tested and more mature George Washington who led the Continental Army to victory against the British.
But what if Washington had walked away from Fort Necessity on July 4, 1754, and determined to never take up the sword again? He had shown himself untested in battle and perhaps a bit naïve (though some historians believe his inexperience is actually overstated in most accounts of the event).[48] He was unable to defend Fort Necessity, he put his name to a surrender document without fully understanding what he was signing, and he failed to control his Virginians and his Native allies. Washington also failed to give Dinwiddie a full account of the event at Jumonville Glen.[49] Moreover, he essentially lied to his Native allies, and he refused to listen to them, a fact which Tanaghrisson stated as the reason why he left Fort Necessity before the battle began.[50] Upon his return to Virginia, Washington actually did give up his military position, but that was due to Dinwiddie’s restructuring of the militia, which would have resulted in a demotion for Washington.[51] However, Washington very possibly could have permanently given up on a military career, believing that his first, initial failure was a pretty good sign that the military was just not for him. Giving up, though, was not in the character of the man who would lead the Continental Army to victory more than twenty years later. Instead, Washington learned from his mistakes, and resumed his military career in time to play a significant role in other engagements during the French and Indian War, and, of course, as the revered leader of the Continental Army.[52] Never again would Washington surrender to an enemy.[53]
We all have surely faced doubt, discouragement, and failure in our own lives, just like Washington did at Jumonville Glen and Fort Necessity. But we can learn a great deal from Washington’s resolve and determination. Just as Washington refused to let one failure dictate the rest of his military career, so we too can find inspiration to continue to press forward during difficult times and learn from our mistakes. Writing in 1776, shortly after the colonies declared independence, Washington said, “I did not let the Anniversary of the 3d. or 9th. of this Instt. pass of with out a grateful remembrance of the escape we had at the Meadows and on the Banks of the Monongahela. the same Providence that protected us upon those occasions will, I hope, continue his Mercies, and make us happy Instruments in restoring Peace and liberty to this once favour’d, but now distressed Country.”[54] So too, we can find peace in trusting the workings of Providence in our own lives as we confidently move forward from times of discouragement, determined to learn and grow from our failings.
Notes:
[1] William R. Griffith, ““Assassins” and “Avengers”: The Battle of Fort Necessity, July 3, 1754,” American Battlefield Trust, “Assassins” and “Avengers”: The Battle of Fort Necessity, July 3, 1754 | American Battlefield Trust (battlefields.org), accessed July 1, 2021.
[2] Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of the Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 (New York: Vintage Books, 2001), xvii; National Park Service, “Foundation Document Overview: Fort Necessity National Battlefield, Pennsylvania,” U.S. Department of the Interior, accessed July 1, 2021, fone-fd-overview.pdf (npshistory.com).
[3] National Park Service, “Prelude to war in North America,” National Park Service, accessed June 28, 2021, Prelude to war in North America (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov); Logan Davis, “Fort Necessity,” George Washington’s Mount Vernon: Center for Digital History; Digital Encyclopedia, Fort Necessity · George Washington’s Mount Vernon, accessed June 22, 2021.
[4] Colin Calloway, The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, The First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 66.
[5] Anderson, Crucible of War, 43.
[6] Calloway, The Indian World of George Washington, 67-80.
[7] Davis, “Fort Necessity,” George Washington’s Mount Vernon.
[8] The American Revolution, “Fort Necessity,” Colonial Williamsburg, accessed, June 28, 2021, The American Revolution (ouramericanrevolution.org).
[9] The American Revolution, “Fort Necessity,” Colonial Williamsburg; Anderson, Crucible of War, 45.
[10] Anderson, Crucible of War, 51-52; Brady J. Crytzer, interview with Dr. David Preston and Brian Reedy, “WARTIME: A History Series: BPA S03E02: The Battle of Fort Necessity: Washington’s First Surrender,” podcast audio, May 31, 2018, BPA S03E02: The Battle of Fort Necessity: Washington’s First Surrender (podbean.com).
[11] Anderson, Crucible of War, 51-52; Davis, “Fort Necessity,” George Washington’s Mount Vernon.
[12] Davis, “Fort Necessity,” George Washington’s Mount Vernon.
While many scholars have criticized Washington for choosing a poor location, and perhaps rightly so, Great Meadows did have some advantages, such as fresh water and grass for his horses, Anderson, Crucible of War, 51-52; Crytzer, Preston, Reedy, “BPA S03E02: The Battle of Fort Necessity,” WARTIME: A History Series.
[13] Davis, “Fort Necessity,” George Washington’s Mount Vernon; Anderson, Crucible of War, 12.
[14] Anderson, Crucible of War, 53.
[15] Anderson, Crucible of War, 53.
[16] Calloway, 87; Anderson, Crucible of War, 53.
[17] Anderson, Crucible of War, 55.
[18] Griffith, ““Assassins” and “Avengers”,” American Battlefield Trust.
[19] Calloway, The Indian World of George Washington, 89.
[20] Calloway, The Indian World of George Washington, 89.
[21] Griffith, ““Assassins” and “Avengers”,” American Battlefield Trust.
[22] Griffith, ““Assassins” and “Avengers”,” American Battlefield Trust; Anderson, Crucible of War, 54.
[23] Calloway, The Indian World of George Washington, 88-89; Anderson, Crucible of War, 58-59.
[24] Calloway, The Indian World of George Washington, 88.
Interestingly, Calloway sites one historian, David Dixon, who holds that the Native Americans were largely responsible for orchestrating events that led to both the incident at Jumonville Glen and the encounter at Fort Necessity (94-95). As Calloway quotes Dixon, “”It was Tanaghrisson who goaded young Washington into the fateful encounter at what become known as the Battle of Jumonville Glen,”….”and, it was Tanaghrisson who ended any chance of reconciliation between the two European adversaries by killing the hapless Ensign Jumonville.”” Calloway, The Indian World of George Washington, 90.
[25] Affidavit of John Shaw,” in William L. McDowell Jr., ed., Colonial Records of South Carolina: Documents Relating to Indian Affairs, 1754-1765 (Columbia, S.C., 1970), 4-5, quoted in Anderson, Crucible of War, 55.
[26] “Affidavit of John Shaw,” in William L. McDowell Jr., ed., Colonial Records of South Carolina: Documents Relating to Indian Affairs, 1754-1765 (Columbia, S.C., 1970), 4-5, quoted in Anderson, Crucible of War, 55.
[27] Calloway, The Indian World of George Washington, 89, 91; Anderson, Crucible of War, 58.
[28] Anderson, Crucible of War, 58.
[29] Calloway, The Indian World of George Washington, 91.
[30] Anderson, Crucible of War, 59.
[31] Anderson, Crucible of War, 53.
[32] Anderson, Crucible of War, 59.
[33] Anderson, Crucible of War, 59.
[34] Anderson, Crucible of War, 60.
[35] Anderson, Crucible of War, 60.
[36] Anderson, Crucible of War, 61.
In fairness to Washington, Anderson notes that he did plan to push forward to Fort Duquesne, rather than wait for the French to find him at Fort Necessity, Anderson, Crucible of War, 60.
[37] Calloway, The Indian World of George Washington, 92.
[38] Griffith, ““Assassins” and “Avengers”,” American Battlefield Trust.
[39] Griffith, ““Assassins” and “Avengers”,” American Battlefield Trust.
[40] Anderson, Crucible of War, 63; Griffith, ““Assassins” and “Avengers”,” American Battlefield Trust.
[41] Griffith, ““Assassins” and “Avengers”,” American Battlefield Trust.
[42] Anderson, Crucible of War, 63.
[43] Griffith, ““Assassins” and “Avengers”,” American Battlefield Trust.
[44] Crytzer, Preston, Reedy, “WARTIME: A History Series: BPA S03E02: The Battle of Fort Necessity,” podcast audio.
[45] Griffith, ““Assassins” and “Avengers”,” American Battlefield Trust.
[46] Griffith, ““Assassins” and “Avengers”,” American Battlefield Trust; Calloway, The Indian World of George Washington, 96.
[47] Davis, “Fort Necessity,” George Washington’s Mount Vernon.
[48] Crytzer, Preston, Reedy, “WARTIME: A History Series: BPA S03E02: The Battle of Fort Necessity,” podcast audio.
[49] Anderson, Crucible of War, 58.
[50] Calloway, The Indian World of George Washington, 87, 98.
[51] Calloway, The Indian World of George Washington, 100.
[52] National Park Service, “Foundation Document Overview,” U.S. Department of the Interior.
[53] National Park Service, “Foundation Document Overview,” U.S. Department of the Interior.
[54] George Washington to Col. Adam Stephen, New York, July 20, 1776, in The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1932), 5: 313, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3499107?urlappend=%3Bseq=363.
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