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surprised a sleeping French colonial militia. (It’s still debated whether the Frenchmen were a hostile force or only emissaries sent to warn Washington that he was in their territory.) No one knows who fired the first shot, but when the musket smoke cleared, 10 French soldiers were dead and 21 others, including the commanding officer, Ensign Joseph Coulon Sieur de Jumonville, were British prisoners. Then, according to most reports, Tanaghrisson took revenge on the French and scalped Jumonville.
That Little Thing Upon the Meadow
    Jumonville had been under Washington’s protection as an officer and prisoner of war, though, and Washington expected French reprisals for his death. So in the low-lying, marshy clearing of the Great Meadows, Washington’s men hastily constructed Fort Necessity, whose stockade fence was made of white oak posts driven into the ground. Inside the fence were swivel guns—small cannons mounted on posts that could be turned in various directions—along with a shed to hold provisions. Washington notified Dinwiddie about the fort and claimed that it would hold off at least 500 attackers.
    Tanaghrisson, however, was unimpressed with Fort Necessity, which he called “that little thing upon the meadow.” Ringed in by higher ground and dense forest, the fort seemed vulnerable to attack. So even though Washington got reinforcements from Virginia and South Carolina on June 12, Tanaghrisson and his men refused to defend the fort. Without their Indian allies, the Virginians had less than 400 men to hold off the enemy.
    On the morning of July 3, 600 French troops and 100 other American Indians led by Captain Louis Coulon de Villiers—the half-brother of Jumonville—fired on the fort from the cover of trees. Holding the higher ground, the French and their allies were able to take deadly aim on the troops trapped in the meadow. Washington soon knew he’d made a mistake. Even the weather worked against Fort Necessity: heavy rain swamped the Great Meadow, making it nearly impossible for the militiamen to keep their gunpowder dry and their muskets firing.
Lost in Translation
    By nightfall, almost a third of Washington’s troops were dead or wounded. Others raided the fort’s supply of rum and becametoo drunk for battle. That evening, when the French sent a surrender offer, Washington knew he couldn’t refuse.
    A Dutchman who was fluent in both French and English translated the French terms, and Washington wearily signed the surrender document.
    On July 4, 1754, Washington and his men retreated from the Great Meadow and left Fort Necessity to the victorious French, who burned it down. It was a bleak day for Washington, but it would have been worse if he’d known that the Dutchman had missed translating an important clause: that Washington had assassinated Jumonville.
The Jumonville Affair
    That charge of assassination haunted Washington, who resigned from the militia before he could be demoted. The French government used the signed surrender as propaganda, and the “Jumonville affair” ignited passions that led to the Seven Years’ War in Europe (known as the French and Indian War in North America). The conflict eventually involved all the major powers of Europe—France, Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, the Russian empire, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands—as well as their colonies. The theaters of the conflict spanned the globe from Virginia and Canada all the way to India. British statesman Horace Walpole later wrote, “The volley fired by a young Virginian in the backwoods of America set the world on fire.”
    The British won the French and Indian War in 1763, but the conflict still influenced history. The American colonists who’d fought for King George’s lands wanted their rights as British citizens. Meanwhile, the king found the defense of the territories to be a drain on the treasury, and imposed high taxes on