Washington’s First Battle – Part II

The OTHER shot heard round the world

The “shot heard round the world” is a reference to the Battles of Lexington and Concord, which sparked the American War of Independence. In that war, command of the Continental Army fell to George Washington, a colonel from Virginia. Washington’s actions in the war earned him eternal acclaim and the first presidency of the newborn United States of America. 

Washington’s career, however, also includes another world-changing shot, one fired over 20 years earlier. The first part of our article (Washington’s First Battle – Part I), written in honor of Presidents’ Day, described how the French and British Empires came into conflict over control of the Ohio River Valley, and how a young provincial officer called George Washington acted as a diplomat in a failed attempt to prevent the escalation of hostilities. This time, we’ll look at the ambush in which Washington’s musket shot became the start signal for a global war that indirectly led to the American War of Independence two decades later.

A French encounter

Prince George Fort, located at the confluence where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rives form the Ohio, fell into French hands before Washington could reinforce it. Washington’s force was now encamped in what the French considered their own territory, and the stage was set for a violent confrontation that led to events none of the participants could imagine at the time. 

On May 23, the commander of Fort Duquesne sent out one Ensign Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville with 35 French Canadian soldiers on a patrol to check if Washington had entered French territory (as judged by the French). Jumonville was carrying a written summons addressed to Washington ordering him out, a document similar to the one Washington himself delivered to the French the previous year. 

On May 27, Washington received word of the French force, and dispatched 75 men to their supposed location to intercept them. Later that day, in the evening, he got another message, this one from his old ally, the Iroquois chief Tanaghrisson. Tanaghrisson, the “Half King,” reported that he had found the actual encampment of the French force. The bulk of Washington’s force was away chasing a false lead based on the earlier incorrect report. Washington gathered up some 40 men he had left and went to meet Tanaghrisson and another seven or eight Iroquois near the French camp. They marched five miles (8 km) and climbed 700 ft (210 m) up the steep eastern face of Chestnut Ridge, losing seven soldiers who got lost in the rain and dark. 

The Battle of Jumonville Glen

The French were encamped in a small glen. Washington led his men in single file up to a short scarp overlooking the camp to surprise them from above, while his Indian allies split up in two groups and took the low ground in a pincer movement to the right and left of the French to prevent them from fleeing. The battle began at around 7 a.m. on May 28 in what is today called Jumonville Glen after the French commander.

What happened next is impossible to ascertain with absolute authority, as several different accounts exist. What’s certain is that the French were surprised, and the one-sided battle took about 15 minutes, with both sides apparently struggling with their muskets due to the damp, rainy conditions. 10 French soldiers fell including Jumonville, and somewhere between 21 and 30 or so were captured. Most of the fallen French were killed by the Iroquois. Two or three Virginians were wounded, and one died when he advanced too far ahead and wandered into the line of fire of his comrades, an incident Washington left out from his report. 

Here are the parts surrounded by uncertainty. One French soldier who escaped but did not personally see Jumonville’s death said that Jumonville had his interpreter call for a ceasefire because he had something to say, and Washington agreed to stop fighting, allowing the French letter to be read out loud. An Iroquois warrior claimed that Jumonville was shot in the head by the Virginians while the letter was being read, and Tanaghrisson’s men had to stop Washington’s bloodthirsty men from slaughtering the French.

A third account paints a different picture. It came from a man in Washington’s regiment who wasn’t present at the fight, but has probably talked to eyewitnesses, and accurately related several verifiable details, such as the number of combatants. In his version, the French were still asleep when they were attacked, and only one of them woke up in time to fire a warning shot. 

This account, along with a fourth one made by a Virginian deserter to the French, claims that Jumonville, the French commander, was actually captured wounded but alive, and was killed by Tanaghrisson, who ran up to him, killed him with his tomahawk, washed his hands in the Frenchman’s brains and scalped him in what was apparently a ritual slaying. 

At least one historian had since suggested that the battle was the result of a fatal misunderstanding. Tanaghrisson was concerned about another French officer, one Michel Pépin, also known as La Force, who had previously threatened him and his people, and was a member of Jumonville’s patrol. It would appear that the Half King thought Jumonville and La Force were there to hunt him and the Iroquois. The French considered themselves to be on a peaceful diplomatic mission. Washington, acting on incorrect information from Tanaghrisson, assumed the French had hostile intentions. 

The first shot

One interesting detail about the battle that has little historical but plenty of symbolic importance, came from a speech delivered by an unidentified Native American warrior at a meeting later that year. The man was one of Tanaghrisson’s men, and said that Washington was the very first one in the ambush to fire his musket. We don’t know if he was aiming at anyone in particular or just ordered the attack by firing in the air, but his was the first shot of the ambush – and the war that ensued as a consequence. (Later in his career, Washington reportedly had the habit of starting battles by firing his gun, so doing so in this particular case would fit the pattern.)

The defense of Fort Necessity

Washington returned to his campsite at the Great Meadows after the battle and began building a small palisade fort he named Fort Necessity, ignoring Tanaghrisson’s advice to fortify some other location. The Iroquois departed after much quarreling, but reinforcements arrived from Virginia. By June 9, Washington was in command of about 300 Virginian provincial and 100 British regular soldiers. He was promoted to colonel after the commander of the provincial troops, Colonel Joshua Fry, fell from his horse, broke his neck and died.

The inevitable French attack on Fort Necessity came on July 1, when 600 French soldiers and 100 of their Indian allies arrived to besiege the fort. They were led by one Captain Louis Coulon de Villiers, half-brother to Ensign Jumonville. Washington was caught in a bad situation. His stores were depleted, heavy rainfall filled his trenches with water, and the edge of the forest was 100 yards (90 m) away from the fort, allowing the French to fire from the cover of trees. Washington ordered the construction of makeshift wooden breastworks as a desperate measure. Meanwhile, Coulon was horrified to find the scalped bodies of the Frenchmen killed in Washington’s ambush. 

Coulon launched his attack at 11 a.m. on July 3. Washington sallied forth to engage the French on the field, and the two sides exchanged volleys. The Virginian provincial soldiers quickly fled back to the fort, leaving Washington and the British regulars greatly outnumbered, forcing them to withdraw as well. The French kept up heavy fire on the fort in the afternoon, while rain got Washington’s powder wet.

Coulon was running low on ammunition and was concerned that the British might have reinforcements coming, so he sent an officer under a white flag at midnight to ask for Washington’s surrender. After considering his options, Washington agreed. The act of surrender, however, resulted in complications.

Not reading the small print

The surrender document was written in French, since the French were the victorious side – and Washington couldn’t read French. One of his two translators was badly wounded, and the other one apparently didn’t provide a very accurate translation, causing Washington to miss something he otherwise would not have signed. A clause in the text stated that the French only attacked Fort Necessity to “avenge the assassination of one of our officers, bearer of a summons, and of his escort, and also to prevent any establishment being made on the lands of my King.” (The “assassinated officer” referring to Jumonville.)

By signing the surrender, Washington effectively admitted he was guilty of the murder (not combat death) of an officer of a country Britain was not at war with, and did so while that officer was acting in a diplomatic capacity. The French turned Jumonville into a martyr; Washington’s actions drew some muted scrutiny in Virginia. Governor Dimwiddie supported him publicly but criticized him in private. He eventually reorganized the Virginia Regiment so that it had no officers above the rank of captain; Washington decided to resign rather than accept a demotion.

Unforeseen consequences

The attack on Jumonville’s patrol and the French capture of Fort Necessity in response let the spirit of violence out of the bottle. The conflict known as the French and Indian War was on. Next year, in 1755, British Major General Edward Braddock led a major expedition to drive the French out of Ohio Country. Washington served as Braddock’s aide, but the expedition turned to disaster with Braddock’s death in battle. 

Diplomatic relations between the great powers of Europe were already tense, and the conflict in North America became the spark in the tinderbox. The Seven Years’ War began in 1756 and pit Britain and France, as well as their respective allies, against each other. It was a global conflict, sometimes referred to a “World War Zero,” fought on numerous fronts around the world, most notably in Europe, the Americas and the Indian subcontinent. 

The war ended in 1763 with the Treaty of Paris, which involved a complex series of land exchanges between the belligerent nations. Britain gained significant holdings in North America, but victory came at a heavy price: the empire was almost completely bankrupted. Britain now ruled over a large number of new, unhappy French-Canadian subjects; the British colonists were suffering from economic hardship; many Native American tribes were unhappy with British rule, and some started a war that resulted in Britain temporarily losing land in the Great Lakes region. 

Towards the Declaration of Independence

The British government had to make some hard choices to stabilize the empire. In order to prevent another war with the Indians, one which Britain didn’t have the money to fight, the Thirteen Colonies were forbidden to expand westwards across the Appalachians. The Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts of 1767 raised (previously very low) taxes so that the colonies would pay at least some of their fair share of the costs of maintaining the empire, especially after the empire’s coffers were drained dry by a war that was started by one of the colonies. These decisions, however, were naturally unpopular among the American colonists, and their resentment and resistance set them on a course that led to the Declaration of Independence in 1776. 

Is it fair to say that George Washington’s first shot at French soldiers in the Pennsylvania wilderness caused the Seven Years’ War, the subsequent conflict between Britain and colonies, and eventual independence for the United States? That might be going a bit too far. Even if that ambush had never taken place, it’s likely that Britain and France would have gone to war over some other incident, anyway. But we think it’s nevertheless interesting, perhaps even destiny-like, that Washington, the future commander of the Continental Army and the first President of the nation, just happened to be the man who fired that first shot.