America's Hidden History: Untold Tales of the First Pilgrims, Fighting Women, and Forgotten Founders Who Shaped a Nation Paperback by Kenneth C. Davis Page B
Authors: Kenneth C. Davis
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Boston lawyer James Otis issues his first political tract, A Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives , arguing that American colonists have the rights of Englishmen.
1763 Treaty of Paris is signed, ending the Seven Years’ War (and the French and Indian War). Britain becomes the dominant power in the Americas; France retains New Orleans; Florida is ceded to Britain by Spain.
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Associate yourself with Men of good Quality if you Esteem your own Reputation; for ’tis better to be alone than in bad Company.
—R ules of Civility and Decent Behavior, R ule 56 (1640) Formal attacks & platoon firing would never answer against the savages and Canadiens. It ought to be laid down as a maxim to attack them first, to fight them in their own way, and go against them light & naked, as they come against us.
—Captain Adam Stephens, Virginia Ranger (1754) I fortunately escaped without a wound, tho’ the right Wing where I stood was exposed to & received all the Enemy’s fire and was the part where the man was killed. . . . I can with trust assure you, I heard Bullets whistle and believe me there was something charming in the sound.
—George Washington (May 31, 1754)
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a Ohio River Valley—May 1754
Deep in pennsylvania’s western wilderness, with a small force of bad-tempered, ill-trained, rain-soaked Virginia militiamen and a group of Indians he barely trusted, twenty-two-year-old George Washington had a decision to make.
Hundreds of miles from his superiors in Williamsburg, the young lieutenant colonel had been ordered not to engage any French forces should he encounter them—there was peace between the French and British. But now here he was, faced with a small detachment of French soldiers bivouacked in the Pennsylvania woods. Washington believed that many more French troops might soon follow. He could withdraw, report, and await orders. Or he could make a stand, stop this scouting party, and await reinforcements from Virginia.
Ambitious but untested in combat, headstrong, perhaps even fool-hardy—the young Virginia planter’s son chose to strike first, before the French could attack. He was urged on by his Indian ally, a Mingo tribal chief named Tanaghrisson, known to the English as the Half King.
In the early morning of May 28, 1754, with some of his men still lost and wandering in the thick Ohio River Valley wilds about sixty miles south of present-day Pittsburgh, Washington moved his forty backwoodsmen and their Indian allies through the dense woods.
There would be no close-order march or precise firing lines accompanied by drums and pipes, in European military textbook fashion.
Instead Washington’s men moved Indian-style, stealthily surrounding | 87 \
America’s Hidden Hi Ç ory the French from a rock cliff overlooking the small clearing where they were camped.
All through the night before, a steady, pouring rain had soaked the men. Now they readied their powder and dried their “Brown Besses,” the notoriously inaccurate flintlock muskets they carried. In the clearing below them, the thirty or so Frenchmen began to wake, creeping from beneath blankets or out of rough lean-tos made from tree branches to start fires and cook breakfast. A Frenchman spotted one of the Virginians and cried out in alarm. In an instant, two shots rang out. The Virginia militiamen had, without a direct order from Washington, begun to fire on the French camp. In the pandemonium and thick fog of acrid gunsmoke hanging over the scene, the French soldiers gamely tried to return fire. Washington’s Indian allies cut off any escape. The firefight lasted a mere ten or fifteen minutes. When it was over, one of Washington’s men was dead and another three had been wounded. The French had suffered fourteen dead and wounded.
Another twenty Frenchmen had been captured unharmed. Among the French wounded was a thirty-five-year-old ensign named Joseph de Jumonville.
What happened then has been the subject of
1763 Treaty of Paris is signed, ending the Seven Years’ War (and the French and Indian War). Britain becomes the dominant power in the Americas; France retains New Orleans; Florida is ceded to Britain by Spain.
| 83 \
Associate yourself with Men of good Quality if you Esteem your own Reputation; for ’tis better to be alone than in bad Company.
—R ules of Civility and Decent Behavior, R ule 56 (1640) Formal attacks & platoon firing would never answer against the savages and Canadiens. It ought to be laid down as a maxim to attack them first, to fight them in their own way, and go against them light & naked, as they come against us.
—Captain Adam Stephens, Virginia Ranger (1754) I fortunately escaped without a wound, tho’ the right Wing where I stood was exposed to & received all the Enemy’s fire and was the part where the man was killed. . . . I can with trust assure you, I heard Bullets whistle and believe me there was something charming in the sound.
—George Washington (May 31, 1754)
| 85 \
a Ohio River Valley—May 1754
Deep in pennsylvania’s western wilderness, with a small force of bad-tempered, ill-trained, rain-soaked Virginia militiamen and a group of Indians he barely trusted, twenty-two-year-old George Washington had a decision to make.
Hundreds of miles from his superiors in Williamsburg, the young lieutenant colonel had been ordered not to engage any French forces should he encounter them—there was peace between the French and British. But now here he was, faced with a small detachment of French soldiers bivouacked in the Pennsylvania woods. Washington believed that many more French troops might soon follow. He could withdraw, report, and await orders. Or he could make a stand, stop this scouting party, and await reinforcements from Virginia.
Ambitious but untested in combat, headstrong, perhaps even fool-hardy—the young Virginia planter’s son chose to strike first, before the French could attack. He was urged on by his Indian ally, a Mingo tribal chief named Tanaghrisson, known to the English as the Half King.
In the early morning of May 28, 1754, with some of his men still lost and wandering in the thick Ohio River Valley wilds about sixty miles south of present-day Pittsburgh, Washington moved his forty backwoodsmen and their Indian allies through the dense woods.
There would be no close-order march or precise firing lines accompanied by drums and pipes, in European military textbook fashion.
Instead Washington’s men moved Indian-style, stealthily surrounding | 87 \
America’s Hidden Hi Ç ory the French from a rock cliff overlooking the small clearing where they were camped.
All through the night before, a steady, pouring rain had soaked the men. Now they readied their powder and dried their “Brown Besses,” the notoriously inaccurate flintlock muskets they carried. In the clearing below them, the thirty or so Frenchmen began to wake, creeping from beneath blankets or out of rough lean-tos made from tree branches to start fires and cook breakfast. A Frenchman spotted one of the Virginians and cried out in alarm. In an instant, two shots rang out. The Virginia militiamen had, without a direct order from Washington, begun to fire on the French camp. In the pandemonium and thick fog of acrid gunsmoke hanging over the scene, the French soldiers gamely tried to return fire. Washington’s Indian allies cut off any escape. The firefight lasted a mere ten or fifteen minutes. When it was over, one of Washington’s men was dead and another three had been wounded. The French had suffered fourteen dead and wounded.
Another twenty Frenchmen had been captured unharmed. Among the French wounded was a thirty-five-year-old ensign named Joseph de Jumonville.
What happened then has been the subject of
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