GEORGE WASHINGTON

GEORGE WASHINGTON

Without George Washington there might never have been a United States of America.

Character rather than genius made it possible. Because America’s first President exhibited great character, the poor Colonials were kept together in some likeness of an army and were able to win their independence from England. Because of his character, delegates from many states were will¬ing to assemble “in order to form a more perfect union” and to present to the world what is today the oldest Constitution in existence. Because of his character, the two political parties one in favor of “democracy,” or the will of the majority, and the other, wanting “rule by the few” put aside their differences.

Little is known of George Washington as a boy. His father, Augustine Washington, had four children by his first marriage and six by his second, to Mary Ball; George was the oldest of the six. In the neck of land between the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers where he was bom on February 22, 1732, lived many wealthy families of Virginia. Augustine Washington himself owned about six plantations.

Washington had little formal schooling. But he had the perfect older brother in Lawrence, the master of the Mount Vernon plantation where George went to live when his father died. What he learned from Lawrence and Lawrence’s guests, who were outstanding people of the colony, fired his ambition to become someone of importance. Feeling a sense of destiny about himself, he chose a military life.

Because he loved physical adventure, he was a natural choice for the expedition that first brought him to public notice in 1753. Young Major Washington was entrusted with the task of delivering a message from Virginia’s Governor Dinwiddie to the French Commander in the Ohio Valley, demanding that the French abandon that area. This message began the French and Indian War, the conflict which was to grow into the Seven Years’ War, lasting until England forced France from the New World mainland.

In later years Washington revealed a quality which is another mark of greatness growth. He became a great general, not only because he knew something of military science, but because he could keep an army together in the face of defeat. He did this through force of character alone. When he took command of the Continental

Army on July 3, 1775, the early Revolutionary War battles had already been fought. The follow¬ing March, Washington drove the British from Boston. They never came back and New England was returned to the hands of the Colonials.

Then came a series of defeats. After losing the Battle of Long Island, Washington’s troops had to retreat into Pennsylvania. On Christmas night, 1776, Washington made his famous crossing of die icy Delaware River. His army surprised the Hessians, who were observing the holidays in their German style. He captured a thousand of them, together with the town of Trenton, suffering only five American casualties. Some days later, he took Princeton in another surprise attack. As a result, the British abandoned New Jersey.

The following year Washington lost two battles Brandywine and Germantown. Yet, almost immediately, the American general, Horatio Gates, won his triumphant victory at Saratoga in New York. The British general, Burgoyne, had to give up one-fourth of the King’s forces fighting in America. Following the surrender, an attempt was made to present Gates as the real hero of the Revolution. But Washington refused to be bothered by this. He even sent some of the negative reports about himself directly to Congress for them to do with as they pleased. The plot against him came to nothing.

The British then moved into Philadelphia, and Washington retreated to Valley Forge, outside of the city, for the winter of 1777. The hardships of that winter are well-known. Washington was tortured by worry over his remaining troops. Three thousand of his army had deserted to the British. But saddest of all, the people seemed to care little about independence. Often they would rather sell food to the British than to their own soldiers. From the American troops they received only Continental money and in this they had no faith.

In 1778, France entered the war on the side of the colonials not so much for her love of free¬dom but because she saw a chance to humble her ancient enemy, England. The French trusted Washington completely and gave him entire con¬trol of their forces in America.

The heaviest defeat of the war took place at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1780, when the British General Clinton captured the city, as well as 5,400 Continental soldiers and four ships. In Washington’s camp at Morristown, New Jersey, supplies were cut for six weeks to one-eighth of normal quantities, and the soldiers rebelled. Gates lost the Battle of Camden with two thousand casualties. On top of it all came the betrayal of Benedict Arnold. ... It was the darkness before the dawn of victory.

Yet at this dark hour Washington made a wise move. He selected Nathanael Greene to succeed Gates as commander in the South. Greene was an organizer, quick in decision, and soon had a real striking force assembled.

The French recognition of American independence in 1781 and the consequent French- American military alliance signaled the end of the war in the colonies. The British General Corn¬wallis was trapped in Virginia. While pretending to make preparations for an attack on New York, George Washington and the French General Rochambeau marched their armies instead to the Chesapeake Bay. A French fleet then transported them to the neck of land between the York and the James Rivers. Feeling a sense of destiny around them, the 16,000 men approached the vil¬lage of Yorktown. A battle was fought, and, on October 19, Cornwallis surrendered his eight thousand-man army to Washington.

The British still held the cities of New York, Charleston, and Savannah, and had thirty thou¬sand troops in the colonies. George HI wanted to continue the war, but the British people felt the Americans would never submit, so the King was forced to give up the effort. Two years after the battle of Yorktown, peace was signed with England. Twenty years of dispute and eight years of war with the Mother Country had enabled the thirteen states to “assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitled them.” Washington resigned his commission in the army.

At the Constitutional Convention, called in Philadelphia in 1787 to strengthen the union, the delegates asked Washington to direct the proceedings. In three months the work was finished. A President was to be chosen by an Electoral College composed of educated, selfless citizens.

In February, 1789 the only time the Electoral College was ever to meet in the same year as the Inauguration every member voted for Washington to head the new Federal government. Some wanted to call him “King” but he absolutely refused. There would be no “Kings” in the New World. He became President of the United States on April 30, 1787.

Three years later, the Electoral College again chose Washington and he accepted. Although it was offered him, he declined a third term as did all succeeding Presidents except Franklin D. Roosevelt.

On December 14, 1799, George Washington died at Mount Vernon. He and his wife, Martha Dandridge Custds, are both buried there.If Washington had been devoted to humanity, as such, he would never have chosen a military career. But since the affairs of men show a pat¬tern of violence, military departments in the social structure of peoples appear necessary. A nation is fortunate if it can furnish a military leader with nobility of spirit, like Washington.

Some historians say Washington was an enemy of the common man, that he was overly fond of display, and lacking in religion. But though it is sometimes difficult, we must judge a man by the customs and beliefs of the age in which he lived. George Washington had his faults. But he is a hero to Americans because he loved his country as selflessly as any man could. He is a hero to all men because he was willing to develop himself to the fullest in order to serve that country.