GEORGE WASHINGTON, BRITISH OFFICER
In late May, he encountered his first French troops, and had a skirmish which is considered by many to have been the first shots of the French and Indian War. In Washington's own words:
"I was the first man that approached them, and the first whom they saw, and immediately they ran to their arms and fired briskly till they were defeated....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."
When this last quotation was reported to King George II later in the year, he is said to have commented that Washington "would not say so, if he had been used to hear many." Washington himself, years later when asked about the quote, would only say that it had been made "when I was young."
In this brief fight, Washington's troops killed 10 Frenchmen and captured 21, with the loss of only one Virginian. One of the killed was the French commander. Washington now set about building a stockade fort, which he named Fort Necessity. Governor Dinwiddie rewarded him by promoting him to full colonel.
The French sent a retaliatory attack against Washington before he could complete his fort. He was surrounded by the French. It was raining hard, and his poorly trained and ill-disciplined troops were cold, and their gunpowder was wet. They broke into the rum supply and got drunk. With drunken troops with wet gunpowder, there was nothing Washington could do but surrender. Although he had refused when asked twice before, the third time he could not refuse. In an ironic twist of fate, Washington surrendered on July 4th, 1754. Having dropped out of school, he had never learned to speak French, which all English gentlemen learned. When he could not read the written French demands, he had to rely on a Dutchman among his troops who spoke some French.
Due to the faulty translation, Washington signed a surrender document which admitted to the assassination of the French commander killed in the battle. He admitted that the French commander had been captured, and killed while an unarmed prisoner. He had also agreed that the "disputed" lands belonged to France, and agreed that the British would not "invade" the area for at least
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