The Dangerous Book of Heroes Read Free

insubordination, which he punished by hanging and flogging, but Washington was learning the soldier’s art.
    The world war continued. General Wolfe’s victory at Quebec, the capture of Montreal, and victories by the Royal Navy as far away as Quiberon Bay and Lagos turned the tide for eventual defeat of the French.
    In the French and Indian War, the British—and especially Braddock’s replacement, Brigadier General John Forbes—understood that Native American friendship and alliances were necessary for a speedy victory. More important, their friendship and alliances were vital to win the peace for the colonies afterward. One after the other, most of the Native American nations turned to support Britain. The basis of negotiation was what they’d desired at the beginning of the war—that the British would trade with them but would not invade and settle their territories west of the Appalachian Mountains.
    In November, just before winter, General Forbes made a forty-mile advance to the Forks of the Ohio in a surprise campaign. On thefifteenth, using Colonel Washington’s Virginians and militia from the Carolinas, Delaware, and Maryland, Forbes marched his small force west from Loyalhanna, Pennsylvania. Washington wanted to use the old trail once more, but Forbes blazed a new road, which could be used again to resupply the Ohio country. Forbes himself was actually dying and was carried by litter.
    The force was ten miles from Fort Duquesne when the French abandoned and destroyed it. Forbes quickly built a new fort, Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh), garrisoned it with Pennsylvanian militia for the winter, and secured peace with the local Delaware chiefs. He was carried back to Philadelphia but died six weeks later. The other militia dispersed, their terms of service expired, while Washington resigned again with the honorary rank of brigadier general.
    He returned to Mount Vernon in early 1759, dissatisfied that he had not secured a permanent commission in the British army. Whether he was qualified to become a regular soldier is one matter. The more important matter is that from his experience with the British, in particular serving under General Forbes, he had absorbed the vital fact about how to conduct and win a war in the terrain of North America.

    Copyright © 2009 by Matt Haley
    He wrote at the time: “Suppose the Enemy gives us a meeting in the Field and we put them to the Rout. What do we gain by it? perhaps triple their loss of Men in the first place, tho our numbers may be greatly superior (and If I may be allowd to judge from what I have seen of late, we shall not highten much that good opinion they seem to have of our skill in woods fighting)—therefore to risk an Engagement when so muchdepends upon it, without having accomplishment of the main point of view, appears in my Eye, to be a little Imprudent.”
    In other words, winning battles in a wilderness war does not win the war if the enemy disperses, regroups, and returns to strike back elsewhere. British commanders soon forgot this tactic, for they were not required to use it again. The British army considered the North American campaign of the Seven Years’ War a unique experience it would never meet again. After all, the Canadian colonies and the American colonies were British.
    In January 1759, George Washington married Martha Custis, a widow he had met the year before. She brought to the marriage two children, seventeen thousand acres, twenty-three thousand pounds, and some fifty slaves. Although the war continued until eventual British victory in 1763, Washington remained at Mount Vernon to farm and manage his wife’s estates. For his war services he was granted land in present-day West Virginia.
    Unlike the Native Americans in the south, the nations in the north and in Canada had continued to support the French until defeat in 1763. Led by Chief Pontiac of the Ottawa and others, these nations rebelled in a further