Gratuitous Historickal Posting (TM)

Mark Tooley has a nice article in the Weekly Standard today reminding us of a period of history the ignorance of which I often lament here, namely the French and Indian War:

There would be no United States without the French and Indian War, which ousted the French from North America and ensured Anglo-American dominance. The conflict also transformed a young Virginia woodsman named George Washington into an international figure. It gave a previously unknown unity to the English colonies in America. And it created the financial burden for the British Empire that led directly to the unwanted taxes on the colonies that would fuel a revolution. That revolution would succeed, in part, because the French would support it, in retaliation for their defeat by the British 20 years earlier.

Reading about the war, one is overwhelmed by both its remoteness and its savagery:

On April 18, 1756, several dozen members of the Virginia Regiment left Fort Edwards on the Cacapon River [in present day West Virginia] in pursuit of the enemy. One year before, English General Edward Braddock had led what was the largest army ever in North America into a trap outside what is now Pittsburgh. Over 900 men of his command, including the general himself, would fall to the ambushing French and Indians. The young George Washington would help organize the retreat.

Colonial America's frontier was left wide open to Indian attacks on farms and settlements that were often led by French officers. An observer in Cumberland, Maryland would observe that the entire panorama to the west was filled with flumes of smoke rising from burning farms. Virginia organized a regiment under Colonel Washington to organize defenses, like Fort Edwards, against attacks.

The Virginia soldiers who left Fort Edwards in April of 1756 may have been lured out by the Indians' murder of a local miller. But their response was ill-planned. They were barely two miles out before being ambushed by a force of at least 100 Indians, led by a French officer. Seventeen Virginians were killed in what would be called "Mercer's Massacre," or the Battle of the Great Cacapon. The disaster prompted the Virginia legislature to appropriate more money for the colony's defenses, and Colonel Washington, who often visited Fort Edwards, would construct the more formidable Fort Loudoun in Winchester, 20 miles to the east.

Fortunately, there are still people working to preserve this piece of history:

SOME PEOPLE have not forgotten those battles. When a townhouse development threatened to overtake the Fort Edwards site in the 1990s, Capon Bridge area residents bought the 24 acres of land and built a visitors center. For over a decade, these descendants have hosted an annual Colonial Feast to commemorate the Battle of the Great Cacapon and their warrior ancestors.

Go read the rest. And be sure to check out the link to the Fort Edwards Visitor Center.