George Washington was in way over his head. On May 28, 1754, Washington was a 22-year-old military officer from what was then the British
That morning, Lieutenant Colonel Washington was leading a group of 40 Virginian soldiers through the deep woods of what is now western Pennsylvania. Although Native American peoples already lived in this area, France and Great Britain also claimed it for themselves. The British called it the Ohio Country.
At the time, French forces were building a base called Fort Duquesne (doo-KAYN) at the Forks of the Ohio River (see map, below). The location would give them control over rivers leading into the heart of the continent. Washington’s mission: to tell the French to abandon Fort Duquesne and get off what the British claimed was their land.