From Wills Creek to Fort Duquesne was a distance of 120 to 140 miles, with two ranges of mountains to be crossed, before half the journey was accomplished, and the Monongahela reached. Making a road over the first range, the main range of the Alleghanies, Washington, about the end of May, reached open ground known as the Great Meadows, having still in front of him the Laurel hills, through which {232} the two branches of the Monongahela find their way to the Ohio. A few miles further on, guided by Indian scouts, he surprised an advance party sent out from Fort Duquesne, and killed their commander, Jumonville. Assassination was the term which the French applied to the death of this officer, claiming that he was the peaceful bearer of a summons to the English to retire from the land; but there is no reason to doubt that Washington was justified in using force, and that the Frenchman was killed in fair fight. Returning to his camp, and entrenching it under the suitable name of Fort Necessity, the English commander awaited a counter attack. Small reinforcements reached him, and he pushed on over the Laurel ridge; but, hearing that the French were advancing in force, fell back again to Fort Necessity. Stronger in numbers, the French, from their base at Fort Duquesne, marched forward under Jumonville's brother, Coulon de Villiers; and, after a nine hours' fight, Fort Necessity surrendered; the English, under the terms of the surrender, retreated across the Alleghanies, and the French returned in triumph to Fort Duquesne. For the time, they were beyond dispute masters of the Ohio valley, and the young Virginian, whose name now stands first in the great history of the United States of America, crawled back over the mountains, defeated and undone.