About 7:00 a.m. on May 28, 1754, most of the 32 French troops camped here were preparing breakfast or just arising when enemy soldiers appeared at the edge of their camp. The French called out an alarm and ran for their muskets stacked nearby as Lt. Col. George Washington ordered his men to fire and Captain Adam Stephen's men above the glen echoed the volley. In the confusion, French soldiers tried to escape down the glen, but when they encountered Indians with tomahawks, they ran back toward the British with their hands in the air. As Washington accepted the French surrender, some Indians continued to scalp the dead and wounded and wanted to take the prisoners as well, but Washington refused to release them. When the attack ended, the British had suffered one dead and two wounded. Ten French soldiers were dead, including their leader Ensign Joseph Coulon de Jumonville, 21 were captured, and one man escaped barefoot and walked 60 miles to Fort Duquesne, present-day Pittsburgh, to report the incident that became known worldwide as the Jumonville Affair.
