There’s a man I want you to meet.

The original Son of the Republic. 
A man with a lot of disappointments and loss and regret, but also a man with successes and legacy.
In fact, he has one of the grandest, most far-reaching, legacies in human history, and today we still revere this prominent figure, this heroic symbol.
Without him, we say, we wouldn’t have this America we have today.

Yes, I am talking about George Washington. 

Let’s meet him at 21. (My age, incidentally.) It might be a very different look than we are expecting. A larger-than-life figure should have an impressive history, shouldn’t they?.
But he grew up in his half-brother’s shadow, much more than his father’s. His father sent his older brothers to England for boarding school, and while George would’ve almost certainly followed suit, his father passed away before he was twelve. 
This left Lawrence, his half-brother, as George’s hero during his teenage years.
George was thus barely educated formally at all, though he refined himself, copying over Rules of Civility at the age of 15.

Lawrence was in the British Army after coming home from boarding school. He was deployed to fight against the Spanish in the Caribbean. When he came back, he got married and started to settle down. Lawrence, as the oldest son, received the main plantation, and renamed it Mount Vernon, after his old commander.
George Washington spent a lot of time there. 
His brother, however, was slowly dying from consumption -what we today call tuberculosis. 
Lawrence tried bathing in hot springs, and decided to take a trip to a warmer climate in an effort to cure himself. He brought George along. 
This is the only time George left the colonies that would become the United States of America.
Instead of his brother getting better, however, George got sick –  with smallpox, one of the deadliest diseases of the day.

In those years, those who contracted it had a 20-30% chance of death. Those who did recover were always left with scars. That means George statistically had a one in four chance of death. He miraculously recovered with a light case, and only faint scars along his nose. This almost certainly saved him from getting smallpox during the Revolutionary War, when disease was the biggest cause of death.
After returning home, Lawrence passed away when George was just 20. 

Now, George had lost two father figures.

In wake of this loss, George tried to fill his half-brother’s shoes.
He went to Governor Dinwiddie, Royal Governor of Virginia, and applied for Lawrence’s job as Adjutant, the militia commander of the colonial forces. He was too young and inexperienced for such a high role, but Dinwiddie gave him the role of Major, with his militia covering about a quarter of Virginia. 
When he was 21, he heard Dinwiddie wanted to send the French a strong warning to not settle on the Ohio river. Washington rode to Williamsburg and volunteered for the expedition. A thousand mile journey over rough terrain to deliver a letter and a warning to the French and their allies. 

The English and the French at this time were in the middle of a global cold war, all trying to expand their operations in all parts of the world. This would later become an active war, called the Seven Years War, but as of now there was tension without conflict. 
Washington headed through the wilderness to find the French. He had lived in the wilderness before as a surveyor, and he was guided by Christopher Gist, a trapper. His party grew with some Native American chieftains and nobles, adding their support to the British. Once he reached the French, they treated him courteously, and promised to pass the news to their commanding officer, Marquis Duquesne, but ultimately ignored the British ultimatum.
As he journeyed home in the winter, they gathered Native American allies for the British. He was also shot at by a Native American but survived. He also fell into the icy river, but survived that too.
After reporting to Diniwiddie, he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and sent to establish a garrison at the forks of the river to prevent the French from expanding. 
He led 159 men through the wilderness, with wagons and cannons. 


I can’t help but wonder what he felt as he moved onward. Was he elated? Did he feel like all was going well? Was he overwhelmed by his responsibilities?
Did he wish Lawrence was there, thinking he would be better? 

What we do know is that later, he commented “It was an extraordinary circumstance that so young and inexperienced a person be employed on a negotiation with which the subjects of the greatest importance were involved.”
As they waited for reinforcements, they got to work, trying to make a road. Scouts reported seeing French, and they sent a party to apprehend them. It was a smashing success -they  killed 10 and captured the rest. 

Except, there was one issue: Britain and France weren’t officially at war. 
Oh and maybe another: they claimed to be on a diplomatic mission similar to Washington’s the previous year.
Also, there was the issue that the French had Fort Duquesne already established, and manned by hundreds more than Washington had.

Alright, so maybe George Washington fired the first shots of what would become the French and Indian War. Maybe he was impetuous, and attacked without a full picture of what was going on. And maybe that helped prepare him to never do it again.
He couldn’t back down, look weak, and lose all the Native American allies they’d rallied. So, they got to work building a fort.
Washington named it the very symbolic name of Fort Necessity. 

He got 100 more troops from Virginia too, but he was expecting closer to 700.
They tried to fall back back on the road they were making to a fortified storehouse, but Washington realized his troops were not able to make it all the way, with the rough weather.

They went back to Fort Necessity.

He realized it would be a full frontal attack on the fort, and he knew that the meadow ended where the attacking army could hide in the trees and still hit the fort.

Washington tried to adapt and make stronger bulwarks to protect themselves. 

The French and their Native allies attacked in the morning.

The rain kept coming down.

The trenches became streams.

He ordered an assault to try to get them out of the woods.

The French countercharged; Washington ordered them to stand their ground and fire.

The Regulars did.

The Virginians however, broke and fell back to the fort.

Outnumbered, after inflicting casualties on the approaching French, they fell back.

The rain got harder. 

The French spread out around the clearing and fired at them from every direction.

Washington’s forces were firing too high.

Washington saw man after man fall to the ground.

The rain ruined their gunpowder.

Everything seemed to go wrong.
The weather was against Washington, his troops didn’t hold their position, the defenses were inadequate.
It was a disaster. When all was said and done, a third of Washington’s troops lay in the rain-soaked mud. 
He signed a surrender contract in candlelight on a paper written in French. His translator missed some of the terms, so even though Washington didn’t know it, by signing that surrender he was admitting to murdering the commander of the first party they had attacked. 

They abandoned the Fort and headed home on a day that meant nothing but defeat, July 4th 1754.
Oh how things would change! 

But right now, Washington had just started a war, lost his troops, the ground he’d taken, and his position. 
He probably felt not only needless, but like a burden. Despite his best efforts, things had just gone from bad to worse. If it was me, I’d be highly tempted to give up then and there. To try to give it all up, admit my failings, and strive to forget it all.
But he pressed forward. 

A year later, they sent a General Edward Braddock from England. As Washington knew that land best, he was chosen as an aide. Braddock was determined to fight the European way, rather than firing, dispersing, hiding, and picking off strategic targets as Washington had seen used so successfully.
Though Washington protested against Braddock’s dismissal of the colonists, he was ignored.
Braddock dismissed him as too young to know anything, by calling him “a beardless boy” 

This expedition also ended in disaster.
About 7 miles from Fort Duquesne, the regulars marching through the woods were completely ambushed. More than half of the army was wounded or killed. Braddock was killed due to his pride.
Before dying, he gave his pistols and ceremonial sash to Washington. I can’t help but assume that part of Washington’s unwavering patience in listening to everyone’s opinion, as well as his humility in listening to the advice of others, could be traced to this dying token he received.

After two hours, the American/British forces lost more than 700. Their attackers? Only 23 dead. And all of 16 wounded. 
Washington survived miraculously, writing to his brothers that “By the All-Powerful Dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, although death was leveling my companions on every side of me!”

Obviously, it was not necessary for Washington to be there at that battle. He was unheeded, and frankly unimportant and nonessential. If it wasn’t for his later life only the most specialized of historians or lovers of fun facts would even know his name, as the man who fired the first shots of the French and Indian War.  
But somehow, this is now eclipsed. Because later, again and again and again, he would become indispensable. 

(Asking yourself what does indispensable really mean? How was Washington indispensable? The answers are coming, in future articles.)

In the next five years of the war, he rankled generals and pronounced unsolicited decisions and promises regarding political and military matters. Dinwiddie accused him of ingratitude. Washington resigned in 1758, because he got desperately sick, with what looked like consumption – exactly what had killed Lawrence.

It wasn’t, and he recovered. 

Though he may have disgruntled generals and governors, his soldiers loved him. His Virginia officers, hearing he’d retired, mourned, telling him, “Your steady adherence to impartial justice, your quick discernment and invariable regard to merit, wisely intended to inculcate those genuine sentiments of true honor and passion for glory from which the great military achievements have been derived […] heightened our natural emulation and desire to excel.
[…] Judge, then, how sensibly we must be affected with the loss of such an excellent commander, such a sincere friend, and so affable a companion.”

Years later, in 1770, he met the Native American Chief who was in charge of the ambushing Natives. 

“I am a chief, and the ruler over many tribes,” the Chief declared, “My influence extends to the waters of the great lakes, and to the far blue mountains. I have traveled a long and weary path that I might see the young warrior of the great battle.

“It was on the day when white man’s blood mixed with the streams of our forest that I first beheld this chief. I called to my young men and said, Mark yon tall and daring warrior? He is not of the red-coat tribe – he hath an Indian’s wisdom and his warriors fight as we do – himself is alone exposed. Quick, let your aim be certain, and he dies. Our rifles were levelled, rifles which but for him knew not how to miss – ‘twas all in vain; a power mightier far than we shielded him from harm. He cannot die in battle.
“I am old, and soon will be gathered to the great council fire of my fathers in the land of the shades; but ere I go there is something bids me speak in the voice of prophecy. Listen!
“The Great Spirit protects that man, and guides his destinies – he will become the chief of nations, and a people yet unborn will hail him as the founder of a mighty empire.”

I’ve heard people complain, asking “Where is our George Washington now?” 

Perhaps, he’s here among us. Maybe he’s making mistakes or trying his best to fight but sees everything ending worse than they started. Maybe she’s trying to warn others that they aren’t trying to do this the right way, that it’s not the American way, but being ignored and unheeded, so she chooses just to do her best where she is. Maybe he thinks that someone else could do it better, or is mourning someone who was there for them.

Maybe he’s you.

Join us next time to see that this doesn’t have to be the end.

Part 2: INDISPENSABLE – the General