Battle of Fort Necessity

Battle of Fort Necessity
Part of the French and Indian War
A modern-day reconstruction of Fort Necessity
Date July 3, 1754 Location Fort Necessity, Pennsylvania, British America 39°48′51″N 79°35′14″W / 39.81417°N 79.58722°W / 39.81417; -79.58722 Result French-Indian victory
Belligerents
France  New France Algonquin Odawa Huron[1]	Great Britain Virginia
Commanders and leaders
Louis Coulon	George Washington  James Mackay
Strength
600 regulars and militia 100 Indians[2][3]	100 regulars 293 provincials[4][3]
Casualties and losses
3 killed 19 wounded	31 killed 70 wounded 369 captured[5]

The Battle of Fort Necessity, also known as the Battle of the Great Meadows, took place on July 3, 1754, in present-day Farmington in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. The engagement, along with a May 28 skirmish known as the Battle of Jumonville Glen, was the first military combat experience for George Washington, who was later selected as commander of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia.^[6]

The Battle of Fort Necessity began the French and Indian War, which later spiraled into the global conflict known as the Seven Years' War. Washington built Fort Necessity on an alpine meadow west of the summit of a pass through the Laurel Highlands of the Allegheny Mountains. Another pass nearby leads to Confluence, Pennsylvania; to the west, Nemacolin's Trail begins its descent to Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and other parts of Fayette County along the relatively low altitudes of the Allegheny Plateau.