would undertake to avenge the loss of his officer.
While I was impatiently waiting supplies from Croghan at Wills Creek, for now we were six days without flour, came news that Colonel Frye, my commander, was dead at that post. Colonel Innes of North Carolina, who was to succeed him in the whole command, lay at Winchester with four hundred men; but as he continued to lie there, neither he nor his troops were of any use in the campaign.
During the period which elapsed between my fight on May 28 and my being attacked on July 3, being now a colonel, and sure of soon being reinforced, I made haste to complete the fort at Great Meadows.
There I had excellent help from Captain Stobo and Mr. Adam Stephen, whom I made captain, and who, long after, became a general and served under me in the great war.
It was only a log work we built, near to breast-high, with no roof, one hundred feet square, with partitions, and surrounded at some distance by a too shallow ditch and palisadoes. Captain Stobo gave to this defence the name of Fort Necessity, and said
