Best Little Stories from the American Revolution

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Best Little Stories from the American Revolution Page 3

by C. Brian Kelly


  His only foreign travel had been with his tuberculosis-stricken half brother, Lawrence Washington, to the Caribbean, during which journey young George had contracted, and survived, that dangerous disease of the day, smallpox. He still would have bouts with various fevers, malaria, pleurisy, perhaps even TB as well, but now he at least had overcome “the pox” for life.

  He had learned surveying as a teenager, a valued vocation that soon became the source of a moderate income for the young man. As a surveyor, he was indispensable to many an expansionist landowner of his day. As a result, he had spent some time “roughing it” in the Shenandoah Valley and other unimproved lands, and yet he was not a real frontiersman. On the contrary, he had spent his life in a colonial region that had been settled for generations. The frontier was pushing westward, to be sure, but so far, few Virginia Colonials or Englishmen had ventured past the Allegheny Mountains and into the Ohio River Valley beyond.

  The widow Mary Ball Washington’s son was a meticulous notetaker, but he still had much to learn in English grammar and composition, according to his latter-day biographer, Douglas Southall Freeman. “Socially,” added Freeman in his seven-volume work, “he was capable of entering the best of colonial society without embarrassment. He could not sing or play any instrument, and he probably felt a certain awkwardness in the presence of young women, but he could dance and he had a proficiency in cards and billiards.”

  He wasn’t known as a great shot, but “he squared accounts by the superlative excellence of his horsemanship.”

  Thanks to his surveying tasks and his blue-ribbon contacts, George was a major landowner by 1753. He owned nearly 4,300 acres of “unencumbered” land, noted biographer Freeman, 2,000 of them in the Shenandoah Valley. “With the advantage of immunity from smallpox, he could travel freely,” added Freeman. He was accustomed to excursions that were short of the harsh frontier but offered few frills. Young George “was strong and was able, without complaint, or great discomfort, to sleep out of doors, in his clothing and on the ground.”

  It was early in 1753 that George Washington, on the eve of his twenty-first birthday (February 22, by today’s calendar), was commissioned as a militia major and one of the Virginia Colony’s four military adjutants. Since he could not claim one iota of experience as a soldier, the appointment was a testament to his recently deceased brother Lawrence’s standing in the colony—and to George’s own reputation as a bright young man on the rise.

  His assigned area, or district, was, of the four in Virginia, “the most remote and the least interesting,” wrote Freeman. The day was coming, though, when Major Washington’s prospects for excitement and meaningful duty would take a startling turn.

  First, however, he must instruct himself in the comportment of an officer, that he might then instruct his several lesser-ranking militia officers, many of them older than he, in the proper training of their own men at county level. He had at his disposal the months before the general musters of the militia in September, a useful respite, it seems. “Now, with the thoroughness that marked all of his acquisition of new knowledge and his every performance of his daily work, he—Major George Washington—was to learn the duties of District Adjutant of Virginia.”

  Now, too, only dimly perceived by the English and their colonists on the eastern seaboard of the future United States, the French were on the move—ominously so, and not quite as far away as French Canada, either.

  In the spring of 1753, a small army of 1,500 Frenchmen appeared along the southern edge of Lake Erie, laying down some stretches of road and building Forts Presque Isle and Le Boeuf. As vague word of the incursion reached Virginia, Governor Dinwiddie had good reason to take alarm. Very obviously, the French were moving into the Ohio watershed, while the English were doing little to nothing in defense of the vast and rich territory that they claimed as their own.

  In June of 1753 Dinwiddie sought authority from England to build his own forts in the Ohio territory to stop the French, and in late October he received King George II’s instructions to first warn the French, then, if necessary, to “repel force by force.”

  In Dinwiddie’s first effort to deal directly with the French, a pair of envoys sent to warn against encroaching upon “English” territory failed to reach the French frontier outposts.

  As the end of October neared, Dinwiddie had passed along the king’s instructions to his fellow colonial executives of British North America and issued a call for the Virginia General Assembly to meet in special session at Williamsburg on November 1. Excitement clearly was in the air when who should arrive in town on October 26 but young militia major George Washington and soon pay a call upon the governor’s handsome palace of red brick.

  As one of the colony’s four adjutants, he was there to volunteer for the obvious. Someone must carry the English king’s warning to the French to clear out. And George Washington was determined to be that someone.

  Dinwiddie’s reaction? Permission promptly granted.

  So it was that the untried militia major George Washington became Governor Dinwiddie’s emissary to the French. So it was that young George undertook a mission that Chief Justice John Marshall later would describe as “toilsome and hazardous.” As Marshall also wrote: “The Envoy would be under the necessity of passing through an extensive and almost unexplored wilderness, inhabited by fierce savages, who were either hostile to the English or of doubtful attachment.”

  That he failed to dislodge the French by virtue of reason alone did not disqualify the young emissary from the praise of his peers or his many future biographers. He at least did carry out his mission in impressive style. Noted Washington Irving—also a future biographer—“The prudence, sagacity, resolution, firmness, and selfless devotion manifested by Washington throughout; his tact and self-possession in treating with fickle savages and crafty white men; the soldier’s eye with which he had noticed everything that would bear upon military operations; and the hardihood with which he had acquitted himself during a wintry tramp through the wilderness, through constant storms of rain and snow—all pointed him out, not merely to the governor but to the public at large, as one eminently fitted, notwithstanding his youth, for important trusts involving civil as well as military duties. From that moment he was the rising hope of Virginia.” (Italics added.)

  On this trip, too, began what might be called the Perils of George. From his bout at age nineteen with smallpox, through one early episode after another—all coming before the American Revolution—he established a remarkable record of survival. The fact is, he came so close, so many times, to meeting an early and untimely end, someone else could have become the country’s Father…could have given his name to the federal capital we call Washington, D.C.; the grand state of Washington, and so many little towns across the country also known as Washington.

  Just hours before his plunge into the Allegheny River, an Indian guide had turned and fired his musket at George Washington and woodsman Gist at point-blank range, but he missed them both and ran off. Moving on to 1754, we find a twenty-two-year-old George back in the same frontier country and reporting the “charming” sound of bullets whistling past as he led a small force (fifty or so) of Virginia militia and friendly Indians in an ambush of about thirty Frenchmen near Great Meadows in the vicinity of the future Pittsburgh. In that episode of May 28, people were actually killed. Just weeks later, in July, he and fellow survivors from a force of 360 militia had to surrender to 600 French and Indians at Fort Necessity at Great Meadows. Washington and his men had to walk back to civilization. It could have been a lot worse.

  Then, in 1755, came a watershed battle for the British and their Colonials… and for young George, still weak from a severe fever. To the surprise of all, it was Lieutenant Colonel George Washington of the militia who, at age twenty-three, emerged hero of the day as 900 French and Indians ambushed British Major General Edward Braddock, his 1,400 British regulars, and Washington’s own 450 militiamen eight miles from the French Fort Duquesne (
also near the site of Pittsburgh) on July 9. After foolishly deploying his men out in the open, European-style, against the well-hidden enemy, Braddock was killed and his force routed. It was George Washington who then assumed command, rallied the survivors, organized their defense, and led the retreat. He survived two horses shot out from under him and four bullet holes found later in his hat and clothing. Overall, he spent twenty-four hours in constant activity, all after rising from his sickbed to accompany the ill-fated Braddock.

  Possibly apocryphal, meanwhile, is the long-standing report of still another threatening challenge to the tall Virginian’s seemingly charmed life—also in 1755, but in a location far removed from the site of Braddock’s debacle. This test of George Washington’s good fortune came in October as he and a handful of companions rode their horses northward from a tour of colonial forts near the North Carolina line. None in the party were aware that several hostile Indians were lying in wait ahead, with a few unwary white settlers already being held as their prisoners.

  The leader of the Indians left for a short while—after telling his braves to ignore anyone traveling north, for fear of giving warning to his intended southbound victim. Washington and his companions were doubly lucky as they passed the ambush site minutes later—not only were they proceeding north, but their rain-soaked firearms would have been useless in case of attack.

  George Washington soon would turn to marriage and stewardship of his Mount Vernon estate on the Potomac River, along with service in the Virginia House of Burgesses—in short, no more military confrontations, no more frontier adventures to speak of. Like anyone else of his day and age, however, he still had to survive the vicissitudes of an often harsh eighteenth-century existence (no hot running water, no central heat or air conditioning, no antibiotics, no electricity, no motorized vehicles, no aspirin for a simple headache, and so on). But survive he did, until thrust at the very center of the Revolutionary War in the 1770s as overall military commander for the rebelling Colonials. And now, as might be expected, the perils of George really did mount up…but more on that a bit later.

  ***

  Additional note: Did George Washington, our George, touch off the French and Indian War with his own small war against the French in the Ohio Valley, which, in turn, fed the flames of the worldwide Seven Years’ War (1756– 1763)? Remember Washington’s ambush of the French in May 1753, followed by his defeat at his Fort Necessity that summer at Great Meadows? French philosopher Voltaire clearly had Fort Necessity in mind when he later said, “Such was the complication of political interests that a cannon shot fired in America could give the signal that set Europe ablaze.” (India and other hot spots around the globe were “set ablaze,” too.)

  Was it really George Washington, with match in hand, who touched off the fires of war? Well, yes and no. He certainly was the figurehead who confronted the French in the North American wilderness, first as diplomatic emissary, then as soldier willing to fight. Certainly, too, as Louis Koontz wrote in his book The Virginia Frontier, 1754–1763, “the first hostile forces sent out were Virginians, and the first blood was shed by Virginians.”

  Like a good soldier, on the other hand, young George was acting on orders from his royal governor, Robert Dinwiddie, who in turn had acted on behalf of King George II, who explicitly did order Dinwiddie to warn the French against encroachment, and if that failed, then to use force.

  After his return from the frontier lands in 1753, meanwhile, George Washington was unhappy to learn that Governor Dinwiddie was displeased with his performance at Fort Necessity and might even demote him. Stung, the young officer resigned from his militia posting, only to reappear in uniform in 1755 when the ill-fated General Braddock asked him to join his staff as an aide. It was that informal arrangement that placed Washington at Braddock’s side for the British general’s disastrous defeat near Fort Duquesne.

  Now, Governor Dinwiddie rallied and appointed George Washington commander of all Virginia military forces, as a full colonel in rank. Thus, a still-young George Washington was able to play a leading role (with John Forbes) in seizing Fort Duquesne from the French in 1758. The British then settled the war of the Ohio Valley in their favor by capturing Quebec the next year and gaining control of Canada as a result.

  George Washington, meanwhile, was destined to remain at his beloved Mount Vernon, more or less undisturbed by outside events, for the next decade and a half. The worldwide Seven Years’ War, meanwhile, was officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763.

  Meanwhile, Another George

  GEORGE III, THE THIRD OF THE HANOVERIAN LINE TO RULE ENGLAND, CHOSE A difficult time to be king of England. Before being set aside by insanity in 1811, he would be confronted by the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars of Europe, and even an Industrial Revolution that changed the face of England.

  During King George’s lengthy tenure of sixty years, officially 1760 to 1820, England’s population would double, its monarchy would weather the revolutionary storms intact, the outlines of the Victorian Empire would come into focus…but Great Britain would lose her American colonies.

  His reign began on a faintly ridiculous note and for a time continued that way.

  With his father, Frederick, succumbing to an injury received in a game of cricket, thirteen-year-old George suddenly found himself in line to succeed his grandfather, King George II, who in turn was the son of King George I, first of England’s German kings.

  Their ascension to the English throne, in fact, is a story deserving quick review here. It goes back to the death of Queen Anne in 1714 without a single one of her seventeen children still living (most died in infancy). Thus, no purely English heir stood in line to succeed her. The German-born and raised George I came to the vacated throne as a great-grandson of England’s James I. The royal newcomer never learned English, a failing that allowed Sir Robert Walpole to dominate at council meetings, thus becoming the country’s first “prime” minister.

  The unloved, Hanover-born king was notorious for having imprisoned his wife, Sophia, for thirty-two years for her suspected adulterous affair with a Swede, Philip von Konigsmark—who mysteriously disappeared, never to be seen again, and may have been murdered by the furious husband.

  With George I’s death in 1727, his son George II took over the regal reins. The younger George had despised his father and had once tried to swim a castle moat to see his imprisoned mother. Also raised in Hanover, Germany, he spoke English with an accent. Though never popular, he did briefly impress his English subjects for personally taking part in the Battle at Dettingen in 1743—the last English monarch to lead troops into battle. Unfortunately for the imperial image, when he died at Kensington Palace after a morning cup of hot chocolate in 1760, it was in the bathroom—“a martyr to constipation,” is the way a modern British publication describes his passing. He was seventy-seven.

  His grandson, George, Prince of Wales, heir to the throne at age twenty-two, was much more “English” than the two Georges before him but at first a bit immature and not taken too seriously by his subjects—nor by his intimates in court and government. He didn’t help his image by his early infatuation with fifteen-year-old Lady Sarah Lennox, a fellow “royal” (great-great-granddaughter of Charles II and a mistress) who apparently flirted with him but turned down his offer of marriage. He then married seventeen-year-old Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

  Onlookers considered it a bad omen when the large diamond in George III’s crown fell out on their wedding day in 1761—some, aided by the virtues of hindsight, thought it presaged the loss of the American colonies.

  It may be apocryphal that George’s mother, the Princess Augusta, told her young son, “George, be a king,” but he did ascend the throne with fixed monarchial ideas. One of them was his determination to reassert royal authority over Parliament, the very institution that had placed the Protestant “royals” from the German Duchy of Hanover on the English throne to begin with
. Before his premature death, George’s father had written down his earnest hope that, as king some day, young George would “retrieve the glory of the throne.” And this he apparently was determined to do.

  Even before becoming king, George himself once said, “Though I act wrong in most things, I have too much spirit to accept the crown and be a cipher.”

  A critic of his own grandfather, George II, the new King George III taking the throne in 1760 held a shockingly low opinion of the late monarch’s famous secretary of state, William Pitt, the “Great Commoner.” It was under Pitt that the British had destroyed French power in India, Africa, the West Indies, and North America. So great were the British triumphs that the year 1759 was known as the “Year of Miracles.” Said popular pundit Horace Walpole (son of Robert): “Victories come so tumbling over one another from distant parts of the globe that it looks like the handiwork of a London romance writer.”

  And yet, to the incoming King George III, Pitt was “a true snake in the grass,” the “blackest of hearts,” and the “most dishonorable of men.” The new king, England’s youngest incoming monarch since Queen Elizabeth took the throne in 1558, shared these views with a small circle of intimates, chief among them his longtime Scottish tutor, John Stuart, Earl of Bute—who considered the late king an inept tool of his cabinet and encouraged the new king at every opportunity to reassert his royal authority.

  George III had to temper his critical view of Pitt the very night of King George II’s death. In a full cabinet meeting held that evening, the new monarch tried out a statement—composed by Bute, it so happens. It began innocently enough with George’s pledge of “tenderest affection for this my native country.” He also promised to “preserve and strengthen the Constitution.” The rub came when he expressed hopes that the highly successful Seven Years’ War (known in America as the French and Indian War) would soon be ended. When the new king called it the “bloody and expensive war,” however, Pitt objected and insisted upon a change of language to the “expensive but just and necessary war.”

 

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