of the Ohio, where Pittsburg now stands. The irate governor now determined to drive them back by force, and in the spring of 1754 he sent out a small force of militia, of which Washington was lieutenant-colonel. The colonel died on the way, leaving Washington in command. He was to drive away, kill and destroy, or seize as prisoners," any foreigners he found in the valley of the Ohio.

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In May the young commander met a small force of French at a place called the Great Meadows, shots were fired and the leader of the French was killed. That, as we have said, was the first shot in the first important American war, a conflict which was to last for seven years, and not end until the French were forced to give up all their possessions in America.

"I heard the bullets whistle," wrote Washington, "and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound."

That was the boast of a very young soldier. He was to live through times when he would not think the sound of bullets charming. In fact, he soon found it so now, for he was besieged by a much stronger body of French in a hastily built fortification which he named Fort Necessity. There was a brisk fight; then, on July 4, 1754, he was forced to surrender, on condition that he and his men should be free to go back to Virginia. Thus he had his baptism in battle.

The fights at Great Meadows and Fort Necessity opened the war. The next spring General Braddock, an obstinate Englishman, too conceited to take advice, and utterly ignorant of the ways of the wilderness, was sent to Virginia with two regiments of troops. To these were added some Virginians under Washington, who was now a colonel.

Through the wilderness marched Braddock against Fort Duquesne, a stronghold which the French had built at the Forks of the Ohio. As he approached the fort his men were drawn out in a long straggling line. Washington advised caution, but Braddock was not to be taught by a colonel of militia. Suddenly, from the surrounding woods, a tempest of bullets was poured into the ranks. A French and Indian ambush lay behind the bushes and trees. Washington and his men took to the woods, but Braddock would not let his soldiers seek cover, and kept them under fire until in the end he fell, with nearly half his men around him.

Washington and his Virginians were the only ones who came with credit out of that deadly fight. He and his men fought the Indians in their own way, and when the British troops ran, leaving their baggage and cannon behind them, he tried to rally them in vain. "They ran like sheep before the hounds," he wrote. The best he could do was to cover their retreat.

Washington took only a local part in the general operations of the war that followed. Their success at Fort Duquesne had made the Indians so bold that all the frontier settlements were in danger, and during several years he was kept busy, with a force of about two thousand men, in protecting the settlers from

massacre.

In 1758 another expedition, under General Forbes, was sent against Fort Duquesne, Washington again accompanying. Forbes proceeded very slowly, and was on the point of giving up and retreating when Washington asked permission to go forward with a small party of men. He reached the fort to find that the French had abandoned it on hearing of his approach, and he took possession without a shot.

George Washington had won all the credit gained in that part of the field of war. But he had been given little opportunity to take part in the great events of the conflict, and now resigned, married Mrs. Martha Custis, a rich and beautiful widow, and settled at Mount Vernon as a planter. He was soon elected to the House of Burgesses of Virginia, and on his appearance there was complimented by the speaker for his military services. He rose to reply, but, as Irving says, "blushed, stammered, trembled, and could not utter a word."

Sit down, Mr. Washington," said the speaker; your modesty equals your valor, and that surpasses the power of any language I possess."

For the fifteen years that followed Washington dwelt happily in his lovely home at Mount Vernon, cultivating and improving his estate and adding to it until it amounted to eight thousand acres. He raised wheat and tobacco; he had fisheries and brick yards; he was a good master to his slaves, and in his will gave them their freedom. He was for years a member of the House of Burgesses, and in 1774 became a member of the first Continental Congress. When Patrick Henry was asked whom he considered the greatest man in Congress, he replied: "If you speak of solid information and sound judgment Colonel Washington is undoubtedly the greatest man on that floor."

A change in affairs was close at hand, which was to make George Washington great in the eyes of all the world. In April, 1774, the fights at Lexington and Concord brought the country suddenly from peace to war, and two months later, when Congress deliberated upon the choice of a commander-in-chief for the patriot

soldiers besieging Boston, Washington was unanimously elected to that post.

On the 2d of July he arrived at Cambridge and took command of the army. The farmer soldiery had proved their valor at Bunker Hill just before, but they were untrained militia, and their new commander had a hard task in teaching them the soldier's art and supplying them with arms. But in eight months after his arrival he had made an army out of this raw militia, and forced the British troops to sail away from Boston, on whose streets no foeman's foot ever afterwards trod. He had won in the first move of the war.

The second act was at New York. In August, 1774, the British landed thirty thousand skilled soldiers on Staten Island, against which force Washington had only about twelve thousand poorly armed and largely undisciplined men. Five thousand of these were stationed at Brooklyn, Long Island, and on them marched fifteen thousand disciplined troops. A short, fierce battle ensued; the Americans were defeated and driven back.

But Washington proved equal to the situation; at night a dense fog rolled in upon the harbor; boats were hastily collected; before morning the whole force was moved across the river, with nearly all the cannon and military stores, the whole done so skilfully and quietly that the British were utterly amazed the next morning to find that their hoped-for prey had escaped. New York could not be held. The narrow island of Manhattan was threatened on both sides by British ships that sailed up the Hudson and East Rivers, and Washington was obliged to withdraw. There were marches and countermarches; Fort Washington, with its three thousand men, was captured by the British; all looked dark for the patriots; in despair General Reed asked:

"My God, General Washington, how long shall we fly?"

Calm and significant was Washington's answer: "We shall retreat, if necessary, over every river of our country, and then over the mountains, where I shall make a last stand against our enemies."

The Hudson was crossed. Over the soil of New Jersey marched the despairing Continentals, hotly pursued by the foe. Washington, with brilliant skill, baffled all their efforts; the Delaware was reached and crossed; when the British came to its banks not a boat was to be found, Washington had swept them all away. For the time they were baffled, but the cause of the Colonies seemed at its last gasp and the people everywhere lost their hopes.

But Washington did not despair. He was biding his time. On Christmas day of 1776 he led his ragged and nearly barefoot men across the Delaware through floating blocks of ice, marched to Trenton, where a force of troops lay in fancied security, took them by surprise and utterly defeated them, taking a thousand prisoners.

General Cornwallis hastened to march upon him with a large body of soldiers, confident that he now had him in a net from which he could not escape. But when the morning dawned Washington and his men were gone and the roar of guns showed that a battle was going on elsewhere. He had marched away through the night, met a body of British troops at Princeton and beaten them badly, and was soon on his way to the highlands at Morristown, which he had chosen for his winter quarters.

The battles of Trenton and Princeton made a wonderful change in public feeling. The people turned