There was then no talk of Cabot or La
Salle, of Indian purchase or crown property. Jumonville may have come out
from Duquesne for peaceable speech, but Washington misunderstood or would
not listen. A flash of flint fire, a fresh bit of lead planted in the hill
of laurel, a splash of blood on the rock, and the war for the west was
begun.
What actually happened out on the slope of that hill will never be
accurately known; but, though Washington was only twenty-two years old
then, "full of military ardor" and "vehement," he could not have been
guilty of wilful firing on men of peaceful intent.
It doubtless seemed but an insignificant skirmish when Washington attacked
Jumonville near Pittsburgh, and it is now remembered by only a line or two
in our histories and the little cairn of stones "far up among the mountain
fogs near the headwaters of the Youghiogheny River," which marks the grave
of Jumonville.
Washington, the major of colonial militia in the Alleghany Mountains, the
scout of a land company, has been entirely forgotten in Washington, the
father of a nation; but Jumonville, the French ensign with no land-scrip,
fighting certainly as unselfishly and with as high purpose, is not
forgotten in any later achievement.
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