Fort Necessity

For three and a half hours through pouring rain, from Washington, D.C., Tim and I fought our way up the Allegheny Mountains, playing leap-frog along the interstate with two oversized vehicles, each carrying half a house, before we reached Confluence, Pennsylvania.

Then the sun broke through the clouds just as we reached the Outflow Corps of Engineers campground, the Dawntreader's newest home for the next four rainy days if the weather forecast holds true.  After we tied the bus to the campground's hook-ups, I wasn't sure I could persuade Tim to drive over to yet another National Park Service battlefield, but given the forecast, I believed that this afternoon might be our only dry chance to see Fort Necessity, scene of one of the opening battles in the French and Indian War.  I pleaded that it was a necessity and Tim, good husband that he is, caved to my request.

There, in a rare meadow of the frontier forest, British soldiers raised a small, circular stockade in May 1754.  On May 28, 22-year-old Lt. Col. George Washington and 40 militia skirmished with a small French detachment, killing 13 French soldiers and their leader Ensign Coulon de Jumonville, at a nearby place that came to be known as Jumonville Glen.

Now Washington decided to build a "fort of necessity" to defend his 130-man regiment from a large French army he assumed would seek revenge.  While waiting for reinforcements and further orders, Washington kept his men busy with the orders they had been given; that of extending the British military road, the one that would link the French held-Fort Duquesne (present-day Pittsburgh) with the Atlantic seaboard.

Leaving Fort Duquesne, 600 French and 100 Indians paddled up the Monongahela River, then made their way to Fort Necessity to confront Washington and his men.  Vastly outnumbered, Washington had to surrender and accept Captain Louis Coulon de Villiers' terms for peace.

Only the interpreter misread the French document to Washington, leaving out a sentence that claimed Washington assassinated deVilliers' brother at Jumonville Glen.  After listening to the relatively favorable terms, Washington signed the document and thereafter regretted that his reputation had been sullied by doing so.

Upon learning of Washington's defeat, Great Britain sent General Edward Braddock in 1756 to drive the French from the Ohio Valley.  Braddock had no experience with the guerrilla warfare employed by the French and their Indian allies.  Caught off-guard as he advanced towards Fort Duquesne, Braddock and almost 1,000 of his men were killed.

Concerned that Braddock's body would be mutilated by the victorious French and their Indian allies, Washington buried him just a mile from Fort Necessity beneath the military road that came to bear Braddock's name.

Fifteen years after the battle, Washington bought 234 acres surrounding the ill-fated Fort Necessity, "land [that] is valuable on account of its local situation and other properties...it affords an exceeding good stand on Braddock's Road from Fort Cumberland to Pittsburg, bears a fertile soil, [and] possesses a large quantity of natural meadow fit for the scythe."   Washington built a tavern there, hoping that it would prove profitable once Americans began pushing westward.

Today as Tim and I traveled to our campground, we drove along U. S. Route 40, once Braddock Road which became the main thoroughfare from Cumberland, MD to Wheeling, West Virginia, before the interstate highway was constructed less than a dozen miles south during Eisenhower's presidency in the 1950s.  How strange to think that we were following in Washington's footsteps!  How odd to know that General Braddock's body was once buried beneath our road!