George Washington was a raw and ambitious 21-year old when he was first sent to the Ohio Valley to confront the growing French presence in the region. His actions sparked the French and Indian War. George Washington as First Colonel in the Virginia Regiment, Charles Willson Peale, oil on canvas, 1772 [U1897.1.1]. Gift of George Washington Custis Lee, University Collections of Art and History, Washington & Lee University, Lexington, Virginia
Control of the expansive Ohio Valley region, especially near the joining of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers (modern-day Pittsburgh), was of great interest to both the British and their French rivals. Rivers like the Ohio, which connected to the Mississippi, were essential transit corridors for goods produced in this fertile region.
Concerned by reports of French expansion into the Ohio Valley, Virginia Lt. Governor Robert Dinwiddie sent 21-year-old Major George Washington of the Virginia Regiment on a mission to confront the French forces. Washington was to deliver a message from the governor demanding that the French leave the region and halt their harassment of English traders. Washington departed Williamsburg, Virginia in October 1753 and made his way into the rugged trans- Appalachian region with Jacob Van Braam, a family friend and French speaker, and Christopher Gist, an Ohio company trader and guide. On December 11, 1753, amidst a raging snowstorm, Washington arrived and was politely received by Captain Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre at Fort LeBoeuf. After reviewing Dinwiddie's letter, Legardeur de Saint-Pierre calmly wrote a reply stating that the French king's claim to the Ohio Valley was "incontestable.” Washington's return to Virginia during the winter of 1753 was a perilous one, but the group safely returned to Williamsburg after traveling almost 900 miles in two and a half winter months. Shortly after his return to Williamsburg in January 1754, George Washington sat down and wrote a detailed account of his journey to the Ohio Valley and a description of all that he had seen. This account was so well received by Lt. Governor Robert Dinwiddie that he had Maj. Washington's journal published in both Williamsburg and in London. The Journal of Major George Washington included not only Washington's careful account of his experiences in the Ohio country, but also Dinwiddie's letter to the French and the French reply. The Journal of Major George Washington appeared in monograph form and was published in various newspapers in both Britain and America. The account not only helped to inform the American and British populations of the perceived growing French threat in the Ohio River Valley but also made young George Washington a celebrity on both sides of the Atlantic. Eager to send their own diplomatic directive demanding an English withdrawal from the region, a French force of 35 soldiers commanded by Ensign Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville camped in a rocky ravine not far from Washington's encampment at the Great Meadows (now in Fayette County, Pennsylvania). Accompanied by Tanacharison, a Seneca chief (also known as the Half-King) and 12 native warriors, Washington led a party of 40 militiamen on an all night march towards the French position. On May 28, 1754, Washington's party stealthily approached the French camp at dawn. Finally spotted at close range by the French, shots rang out and a vigorous firefight erupted in the wooded wilderness. Washington's forces quickly overwhelmed the surprised French force and killed 13 soldiers and captured another 21. Washington later wrote of his first military engagement with a certain amount of martial enthusiasm. "I fortunately escaped without any wound, for the right wing, where I stood, was exposed to and received all the enemy's fire, and it was the part where the man was killed, and the rest wounded. I heard the bullets whistle, and, believe me there is something charming in the sound." Both sides claimed that the other fired first, but what neither side disputed was that this event deep in the American wilderness helped spark a war that would ultimately spread to places as far away as Europe, Africa, and India. In the aftermath of the British defeat at the Battle of Monongahela, George Washington helped to lead the defeated remnants of Braddock's army back towards Colonel Thomas Dunbar's camp and the army's reserve. Braddock who had been severely wounded in the battle, succumbed to his wounds on July 13, 1755 and was buried in an unmarked grave in the middle of the narrow road that his troops were using. According to Washington family legend, Edward Braddock presented his red commander's sash to Washington, as the only uninjured aide on Braddock's staff and the leader who helped
