The Greatest George Washington Story You've Probably Never Read

Long before he rose to glory as a Founding Father, young Washington was miraculously preserved and prepared for a greater calling

I test drove a vehicle a couple months ago and did so with the dealership’s 20-something year old salesman in the back as my chaperone.  He was in college, and I used the test drive as an opportunity to evaluate his knowledge, and if necessary, drive home a few points about things I’ve learned in my journey.  After I learned he was not even alive yet on 9/11, one thing that struck me as both improbable and troublesome is that he had no idea that the elder George Bush (41) had served as president a decade before he, the salesman, had been born.  This would be akin to me not knowing Richard Nixon had been president.  He reeled off the presidents he did know of, and fortunately managed to recall our first president – George Washington.

Washington is one of history’s greatest men, complete with his flaws and failures, including many lost battles in the opening years of the American Revolution.  Students of history, particularly those fond of the early Founders, are generally familiar with Washington’s famous Christmas crossing of the icy Delaware River in 1776, which launched from modern-day Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and succeeded in destroying an enemy garrison filled with mercenaries across the way in New Jersey.  It ended an otherwise tough year on a high point, had been featured in many paintings and literary works, and is the most well-known of Washington’s badass exploits:

Recently, I read an excerpt from Ron Chernow’s biography, Washington: A Life, that added incredible detail to Washington’s heroic exploits at the Battle of the Monongahela, near present-day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on July 9, 1755, a resounding British defeat at the hands of French troops and their Native American allies, who used densely wooded terrain and high ground in the bloody route.  In these days before the British formally declared war on the French, formally commencing the French and Indian War, Washington served as an aide to General Edward Braddock, who, despite Washington’s sincere counsel and knowledge as a land surveyor, insisted on fighting in the old European style and hauling massive supply and artillery trains through extremely inhospitable terrain.