01/27/2026
By candlelight inside Fort Loudoun, a young Colonel George Washington sat at his table late into the night. Only twenty-five years old, he removed his coat and set it aside before mixing ink and beginning a letter to Colonel John Stanwix. The frontier was unraveling. Desertion plagued the chain of forts meant to protect the Shenandoah Valley, and Washington knew discipline was slipping from his grasp. Of the hundreds of men sent to the region, more than one hundred had fled. Thirty were captured and confined in a small log jail near present-day Loudoun Street and Fairfax Lane. Their fate now rested with the commander himself.
A general court-martial convened on July 25, 1757. With approval from Governor Dinwiddie, Washington was granted authority to make an example. He ordered a forty-foot gallows erected on the hill near the fort, meant to warn any man considering desertion. When the court delivered its verdict, most of the prisoners were spared. Only two—Ignatius Edwards, a gifted fiddler who had deserted twice, and William Smith, a repeat offender Washington deeply distrusted—were condemned. On July 29, 1757, both men were hanged at Fort Loudoun. It was the first ex*****on ever ordered under George Washington’s command, a decision that weighed heavily on him, but one he believed the frontier demanded.
