The fifteen-minute skirmish fought here on May 28, 1754, had long-term consequences. One month later, six hundred French soldiers and one hundred Indians under Captain Louis Coulon de Villiers, Jumonville's brother, left Fort Duquesne "to avenge ourselves...." On July 3, the French and Indian force surrounded almost four hundred British troops at nearby Fort Necessity and forced a surrender. In 1755, the French and Indians defeated Major General Edward Braddock's larger British army at the Battle of Monongahela. Tensions between the two powers increased and, in 1756, they officially declared war on each other. The French and Indian War, also called the Seven Years War in Europe, was fought on four continents and three oceans before it ended in 1763. Lieutenant Colonel George Washington signed the surrender document at Fort Necessity before later finding that it included a statement that he had "assassinated" Jumonville on May 28, causing an international uproar. Two years after the attack in these woods, now called Jumonville Glen, England and France declared war.
