I have this minute received the melancholy account of the defeat of our troops, the General killed and numbers of our officers, the whole army taken; in short the account I have received is so bad that, please God, I intend to make a stand here. It’s highly necessary to raise the militia everywhere to defend the frontiers.

—General James Innes on Braddock’s defeat

The Seven Years’ War, called the French and Indian War in America, actually began in 1754 with a skirmish in the wilderness of western Pennsylvania between French colonial troops and Virginia provincial troops commanded by a young officer named George Washington. Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia was very concerned in 1753 when he learned that the French were building forts on the Allegheny River and Lake Erie, and he sent Major George Washington with a strongly worded message of protest to the French commander in the region. The overland journey of more than 500 miles was very difficult. Only the companionship of Jacob van Braam, his interpreter, and the frontier guide, Christopher Gist, had made the journey possible. At Fort le Boeuf Washington presented Dinwiddie’s message to the commandant, Captain Jacques Legardeur de Sainte-Pierre. The letter read in part, “by whose authority and instructions [have you] lately marched from Canada with an armed force, and invaded the King of Great Britain’s territories.” Sainte-Pierre

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