Editorial Note

In the weeks after GW’s return from his journey to the French commandant, reports of further French infiltration into the Ohio Valley continued to reach Williamsburg and Gov. Robert Dinwiddie made preparations to resist. He appealed to other colonial governors for aid in repelling the French.1 Capt. William Trent2 was ordered to raise a force of 100 men and march them to the Ohio to construct a fort at the Forks. Dinwiddie had already sent ten cannon and a supply of ammunition to Alexandria for transportation to the Ohio.3 GW, now adjutant of the Northern Neck, was instructed to raise 50 men from Frederick County and 50 men from Augusta County, then “Having all Things in readiness You are to use all Expedition in proceeding to the Fork of Ohio with the Men under Com’d and there you are to finish and compleat in the best Manner and as soon as You possibly can, the Fort w’ch I expect is there already begun by the Ohio Comp’a. You are to act on the Defensive, but in Case any Attempts are made to obstruct the Works or interrupt our Settlem’ts by any Persons whatsoever You are to restrain all such Offenders, and in Case of resistance to make Prisoners of or kill and destroy them.” However, neither Augusta nor Frederick complied with the request for men, and in mid-February GW returned to Williamsburg.4 To encourage enlistments Dinwiddie issued a proclamation on 19 Feb. promising that a grant of 200,000 acres on the east side of the Ohio would be distributed among those who volunteered for service in the army.5

When the House of Burgesses met in February, Dinwiddie immediately informed it of the French threat. The burgesses proved less cooperative than Dinwiddie had hoped. An inadequate grant of £10,000 for protecting the frontier was hedged with restrictions as to the terms under which the money could be spent.6 By this time Dinwiddie realized the futility of relying on the counties to raise enough militia for the campaign and decided to use the funds voted by the Assembly to raise a force of six companies composed of 50 men each. “I am in hopes they will soon meet at Alexandria . . . and that they will be on their March to the Ohio the latter End of this Mo. or early in April.” 7 Both New York and South Carolina were to send independent companies of regular troops, and it was hoped that contributions would be forthcoming from the other colonies.

GW was definitely interested in a command for the campaign against the French. In a letter to Richard Corbin, a member of the Council, he stated: “In a conversation with you at Green Spring, you gave me some room to hope for a commission above that of major, and to be ranked among the chief officers of this expedition. The command of the whole forces is what I neither look for, expect, nor desire; for I must be impartial enough to confess, it is a charge too great for my youth and inexperience to be entrusted with. . . . But if I could entertain hopes, that you thought me worthy of the post of lieutenant-colonel, and would favor me so far as to mention it at the appointment of officers, I could not but entertain a true sense of the kindness.” Corbin, and probably others, apparently spoke for GW, since he did indeed receive the appointment he sought—forwarded to him by Corbin. General command of the Virginia forces was given to Joshua Fry, who was ordered to march first to Alexandria and then on to Wills Creek to aid in construction of a fort at the Forks of the Ohio.8

Even before the receipt of his commission as lieutenant colonel, GW had established headquarters at Alexandria and was actively engaged in recruiting and preparations for the campaign. Dinwiddie wrote GW on 15 Mar. that the French were moving down the Ohio more rapidly than expected, “w’ch, I think, makes it necessary for You to march what Soldiers You have enlisted, imediately to the Ohio, and escort some Waggons with the necessary Provisions. Colo. Fry to march w’th the others as soon as possible.”9 GW’s diary of the campaign begins 31 Mar. 1754 and includes the march from Alexandria to the frontier, the defeat of a party of French troops under the command of Joseph Coulon de Villiers, sieur de Jumonville, and the construction of Fort Necessity in the Great Meadows. The last entry is for 27 June 1754, with GW’s force planning to move to erect a fort on Red Stone Creek. On 28 June word was received from Chief Monacatoocha that the French at the Forks were preparing to send out “800 of their own men & 400 Indians” under the command of Louis Coulon de Villiers.10 It was clear that the Indians with GW’s troops would leave unless he returned to Great Meadows. Accordingly, the retreat was ordered, and after a backbreaking march over a mountainous terrain, the Virginia troops and Capt. James Mackay’s Independent Company of regulars arrived at little Fort Necessity on Great Meadows 1 July. There they found almost no provisions—but the exhausted men were in no condition to retreat farther. GW ordered them to dig in. Their Indian allies quietly disappeared. On 1 July scouts informed GW that the French had advanced as far as Red Stone, and about 11:00 A.M. on 3 July the French command approached the fort. After a day of fighting, faced by a greatly superior force, GW was compelled to surrender. On 3 July he and Captain Mackay signed the articles of capitulation including the controversial admission that they had “assassinated” Jumonville.

The diary was among the papers lost by GW at the surrender of Fort Necessity. Retrieved by the French, it became part of a pamphlet published in Paris in 1756 under the title Mémoire contenant le précis des faits, avec leurs pièces justificatives pour servir de réponse aux observations envoyées par les ministres d’Angleterre, dans les cours de l’Europe.

In addition to GW’s journal which appeared as document No. VIII in the first part of the pamphlet, numerous other letters and journals were included with editorial notes justifying French activities in the Ohio Valley. In 1757 a copy of the pamphlet was captured on board a French ship taken as a prize, and was translated and published by Hugh Gaine in New York under the title A Memorial Containing a Summary View of Facts with Their Authorities, in Answer to the Observations Sent by the English Ministry to the Courts of Europe. This translation is hereafter referred to as MEMOIR description begins [Jacob Nicolas Moreau]. A Memorial Containing a Summary View of Facts, with Their Authorities. In Answer to the Observations Sent by the English Ministry to the Courts of Europe. Translated from the French. New York, 1757. description ends and has been used in this volume as the source for the text of the 1754 diary. Two additional printings, one by J. Parker in New York and one by James Chattin in Philadelphia, appeared also in 1757. Two English editions were published.11

As the original of GW’s journal has not been found, the accuracy of the version published in the MEMOIR description begins [Jacob Nicolas Moreau]. A Memorial Containing a Summary View of Facts, with Their Authorities. In Answer to the Observations Sent by the English Ministry to the Courts of Europe. Translated from the French. New York, 1757. description ends must remain questionable. The authenticity of at least one of the documents in the MEMOIR description begins [Jacob Nicolas Moreau]. A Memorial Containing a Summary View of Facts, with Their Authorities. In Answer to the Observations Sent by the English Ministry to the Courts of Europe. Translated from the French. New York, 1757. description ends was disputed in England in 1756 before an English translation appeared in print. Document No. XII of the first part of the MEMOIR description begins [Jacob Nicolas Moreau]. A Memorial Containing a Summary View of Facts, with Their Authorities. In Answer to the Observations Sent by the English Ministry to the Courts of Europe. Translated from the French. New York, 1757. description ends is a letter, purportedly from Col. Robert Napier to Gen. Edward Braddock, 25 Nov. 1754, containing the duke of Cumberland’s orders for the 1755 campaign against the French in the Ohio country. In 1756 a pamphlet, Reasons Humbly Offered, to Prove, That the Letter Printed at the End of the French Memorial of Justification, Is a French Forgery, and Falsely Ascribed to His R——l H——s, was published in London, challenging the authenticity of the letter on the basis of its content.12 GW expressed reservations concerning the accuracy of the MEMOIR description begins [Jacob Nicolas Moreau]. A Memorial Containing a Summary View of Facts, with Their Authorities. In Answer to the Observations Sent by the English Ministry to the Courts of Europe. Translated from the French. New York, 1757. description ends in a letter used by Jared Sparks in his edition of GW’s writings:

I am really sorry, that I have it not in my power to answer your request in a more satisfactory manner. If you had favored me with the journal a few days sooner, I would have examined it carefully, and endeavoured to point out such errors as might conduce to your use, my advantage, and the public satisfaction; but now it is out of my power.

I had no time to make any remarks upon that piece, which is called my journal. The enclosed are observations on the French notes. They are of no use to me separated, nor will they, I believe, be of any to you; yet I send them unconnected and incoherent as they were taken, for I have no opportunity to correct them.

In regard to the journal, I can only observe in general, that I kept no regular one during that expedition; rough minutes of occurrences I certainly took, and find them as certainly and strangely metamorphosed; some parts left out, which I remember were entered, and many things added that never were thought of; the names of men and things egregiously miscalled; and the whole of what I saw Englished is very incorrect and nonsensical; yet, I will not pretend to say that the little body, who brought it to me, has not made a literal translation, and a good one.

Short as my time is, I cannot help remarking on Villiers’ account of the battle of, and transactions at, the Meadows, as it is very extraordinary, and not less erroneous than inconsistent.13 He says the French received the first fire. It is well known, that we received it at six hundred paces’ distance. He also says, our fears obliged us to retreat in a most disorderly manner after the capitulation. How is this consistent with his other account? He acknowledges, that we sustained the attack warmly from ten in the morning until dark, and that he called first to parley, which strongly indicates that we were not totally absorbed in fear. If the gentleman in his account had adhered to the truth, he must have confessed, that we looked upon his offer to parley as an artifice to get into and examine our trenches, and refused on this account, until they desired an officer might be sent to them, and gave their parole for his safe return. He might also, if he had been as great a lover of the truth as he was of vainglory, have said, that we absolutely refused their first and second proposals, and would consent to capitulate on no other terms than such as we obtained. That we were wilfully, or ignorantly, deceived by our interpreter in regard to the word assassination, I do aver, and will to my dying moment; so will every officer that was present. The interpreter was a Dutchman,14 little acquainted with the English tongue, therefore might not advert to the tone and meaning of the word in English; but, whatever his motives were for so doing, certain it is, he called it the death, or the loss, of the Sieur Jumonville. So we received and so we understood it, until, to our great surprise and mortification, we found it otherwise in a literal translation.

That we left our baggage and horses at the Meadows is certain; that there was not even a possibility to bring them away is equally certain, as we had every horse belonging to the camp killed or taken away during the action; so that it was impracticable to bring any thing off, that our shoulders were not able to bear; and to wait there was impossible, for we had scarce three days’ provisions, and were seventy miles from a supply; yet, to say we came off precipitately is absolutely false; notwithstanding they did, contrary to articles, suffer their Indians to pillage our baggage, and commit all kinds of irregularity, we were with them until ten o’clock the next day; we destroyed our powder and other stores, nay, even our private baggage, to prevent its falling into their hands, as we could not bring it off. When we had got about a mile from the place of action, we missed two or three of the wounded, and sent a party back to bring them up; this is the party he speaks of. We brought them all safe off, and encamped within three miles of the Meadows. These are circumstances, I think, that make it evidently clear, that we were not very apprehensive of danger. The colors he speaks of as left were a large flag of immense size and weight; our regimental colors were brought off and are now in my possession. Their gasconades, and boasted clemency, must appear in the most ludicrous light to every considerate person, who reads Villiers’ journal; such preparations for an attack, such vigor and intrepidity as he pretends to have conducted his march with, such revenge as by his own account appeared in his attack, considered, it will hardly be thought that compassion was his motive for calling a parley. But to sum up the whole, Mr. Villiers pays himself no great compliment in saying, we were struck with a panic when matters were adjusted. We surely could not be afraid without cause, and if we had cause after capitulation, it was a reflection upon himself.

I do not doubt, but your good nature will excuse the badness of my paper, and the incoherence of my writing; think you see me in a public house in a crowd, surrounded with noise, and you hit my case. You do me particular honor in offering your friendship; I wish I may be so happy as always to merit it, and deserve your correspondence, which I should be glad to cultivate.15

Discovery of a contemporary copy of GW’s diary in the Contrecoeur Papers, Archives du Seminaire de Québec, Université Laval, indicates that the amount of deliberate French “editing” of the journal was probably less than historians have believed and was probably confined to critical annotation and comments. Duquesne sent this copy of the journal to his subordinate, the sieur de Contrecoeur, on 8 Sept. 1754:

I attach hereto the extract of the journal of Colonel Washington who commanded the 500 Englishmen whom we fought. You will see that he is the most impertinent of all men, but that he has wit only in the degree that he is cunning with credulous savages. For the rest, he lies very much to justify the assassination of sieur de Jumonville, which has turned on him, and which he had the stupidity to confess in his capitulation!16

This piece which the baron de Longueuil has transmitted to me is extraordinary. The hypocrisy of the Englishman is unmasked. That of the Five Nations is no less uncovered, but after all, the Englishman is their dupe, because after so many pretty promises they abandoned him at the moment when he had the most need of them. On the other hand, you will see that the Englishman, wishing to make them believe that he would march only at the solicitation of the Five Nations, marched. The blunderer, thinking that with this strong assistance he could not fail to defeat us, and then become the peaceful possessor of La Belle Rivière [the Ohio River]! What has struck me in this journal, is that they came in wagons as far as the place where Sr. de Villiers found them, but that captain doubts all the same that they were able to cross the high mountains which they would have had to climb in order to go to the English camp. . . .

What desertion! What difficulties in the provinces where Washington has passed! What discord in these troops from different provinces who pretend to independence! It is that which makes me believe that we shall always be fighting a troop as poorly composed as they are poor warriors.

I beg you to comment on this journal in order to improve, if it can be done, upon my ideas and the precautions on which your safety depends, for they certainly are sensible that only treason can destroy our establishments.

There is nothing more unworthy and lower, and even blacker, than the sentiments and the way of thinking of this Washington. It would have been a pleasure to read his outrageous journal under his very nose.17

It is evident that Duquesne did not regard the journal as a fabrication; a comparison of the version in the Contrecoeur Papers with the version in the MEMOIR description begins [Jacob Nicolas Moreau]. A Memorial Containing a Summary View of Facts, with Their Authorities. In Answer to the Observations Sent by the English Ministry to the Courts of Europe. Translated from the French. New York, 1757. description ends reveals only minor differences in wording, although there are several entries in the Contrecoeur copy which do not appear in the MEMOIR description begins [Jacob Nicolas Moreau]. A Memorial Containing a Summary View of Facts, with Their Authorities. In Answer to the Observations Sent by the English Ministry to the Courts of Europe. Translated from the French. New York, 1757. description ends . Aside from variations in spelling of places and proper names, the French translator probably closely followed GW’s original diary.