George Washington - North American Colonies
Taken from The British Empire in the Nineteenth Century (1898) by Edgar Sanderson
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This great man was descended from an Englishman, John Washington, who emigrated in 1657, and he was the eldest son, by a second wife, of a substantial farmer in Westmoreland county, Virginia. Born in 1732, he became, at an early age, a surveyor by profession. As an officer of the Virginia militia, he soon took the field against the French, showing high military qualities, but without meeting the due reward of success. In 1754 he was compelled, in command of his regiment, to surrender to a superior force, and, in the following year, serving as a volunteer under General Braddock, he was almost the only officer who returned safe from the disastrous expedition against the French at Fort Duquesne. By the death of his half-brother he became a wealthy landowner, in the possession of the Mount Vernon estates and plantations, and, as a member of the Virginia Assembly, he gained the high regard of his fellow-colonists which caused his appointment as their supreme leader in war at the crisis of their political history. The real greatness of Washington corresponds, in one direction, with that belonging to other heroic figures of the first rank in history, such as Wellington and William of Orange. Indomitable patience and resolution amidst difficulties which would have utterly subdued a man of weaker soul carried him on to final triumph. He rises to the highest point in the dark hours of defeat, and of the dismay and discouragement which follow thereon. Contending, with raw troops, against large bodies of British regulars, aided by Hessians and other German hirelings, and, to the disgrace of England, by hordes of savage Indians, he was often unable to make head against the foe. Driven from New York, in 1776, by Clinton, Howe, and Cornwallis, after the defeat of Putnam at Long Island, and of himself at White Plains, he made his way to Pennsylvania, where he found himself heading a mere handful of ragged, disheartened fugitives. Many leading colonists then turned 'loyalists,' but Washington never for a moment lost heart. On the night of Christmas, 1776, he crossed the Delaware, in a storm of sleet, amid the dangers of drifting ice, with a picked force, routed the Hessians at Trenton in the midst of their festivities, took a thousand prisoners, slew their leader, and crossed back to his camp with the loss of but four men, two killed in action, two frozen to death. This brilliant feat kept with the colours crowds of men whose term of service was expiring, and brought large numbers of recruits. … continue reading »