Boys Book of Famous Soldiers | Page 2

touch-hole; then the powder-monkey rushed up
with the fire, when the cannon went off, making the bark fly from the
trees, and many an Indian send up his last yell and bite the dust."
Yet this resourceful officer, fighting almost single-handed against
certain defeat, was then only a young man a few months past
twenty-one. He was displaying the same qualities which were later to
make him the commander-in-chief of a Revolution.
George Washington was a typical example of the born leader. He had
received no set military training save that which the stern necessity of
frontier life forced upon him. Yet at nineteen we find him no less
courageous and active when facing the enemy. He had been reared as a
farmer boy, with no other intention at first than the successful
management of his father's estates in Virginia. But boys in those days
had to learn to handle the rifle as readily as the plow, and Washington
was no exception to this rule.
Born in 1732 (every schoolboy knows the month and day) at Bridges
Creek, Virginia, his first home was a plain wooden farmhouse of
somewhat primitive pattern, with four rooms on the ground floor, and a
roomy attic covered by a long, sloping roof. But before he was more
than able to walk this house burned down, and the family removed to
another farm in what was later Stafford County--an attractive knoll
across the Rappahannock River from Fredericksburg.
When George was eleven years old he lost his father, which threw him
to a great extent upon his own resources, so far as outdoor life was
concerned, although his education was still the care of his mother, who
is pictured as a gentlewoman of the old school--one born to command.
To her Washington owed many traits, among them his courtliness. In
those days, the gentle-bred boys always used very formal language
when addressing their elders. And so we find Washington writing to his

mother, even after he became of age, beginning his letter with,
"Honored Madam," and ending "Your dutiful son."
After his father's death, George Washington made his home for four or
five years with his brother Augustine, who lived at the old homestead,
now rebuilt, at Bridges Creek; and near there he attended school. It was
in no sense a remarkable school, being kept by a Mr. Williams, but it
was thorough in the fundamentals, the "Three R's," without going in
much for the frills. Some of Washington's exercise books are still
preserved, showing in a good round hand a series of "Rules of Civility
and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation."
Such things sound somewhat priggish today; but in those days they
were a necessary part of one's education. Washington was probably
neither better nor worse than the run of Virginia boys, of gentle stock,
in those days--just a good-natured, fun-loving youngster, not especially
bright as a scholar, but known as a plodder. One of his early playmates
was Richard Henry Lee, who also grew up to be a famous Virginian;
and between the two some droll schoolboy letters passed.
Washington was to be, like his father, a Virginia planter; and this may
have had something to do with the sort of education he received, which
was not very extensive. But along with his early training for farm life
there were many echoes of the military, which must have had a lasting
influence on the growing lad. His brother, Lawrence, had been a soldier
in His Majesty's service, and his stories of campaign life so fired
George's imagination that he was for throwing his books away, at
fifteen, and going into the navy. He was too young for the army, but
Lawrence, who rather encouraged him, told him that he could get him a
berth as midshipman.
It is related that the young middy's luggage was actually on board a
British man-of-war anchored in the Potomac, when Madam
Washington, who all along had been reluctant to give her consent, now
withdrew it altogether; and the "dutiful son" was saved from the navy
for a larger arena.
The boy was then just turned fifteen, and seems to have rebelled from

the humdrum life of the plantation. He was at the restless age, and his
naturally adventurous disposition sought a more active outlet. This
proved to be surveying--a profession then greatly in demand. There
were great tracts of wilderness in Virginia still inhabited by Indians and
infested by wild animals, which had never heard the sound of the
woodman's axe. These tracts had been included in grants from the King,
but their boundaries had never been exactly determined. To make such
surveys was a task requiring both skill and courage.
Washington was naturally an exact and painstaking boy. He now
applied himself to geometry and trigonometry; and at