army all but annihilated and he himself wounded so severely that he died a few days later.  During that fierce battle, Washington seemed to bear a charmed life.  Four bullets tore through his coat and two horses were shot under him, but he received not a scratch, and did effective work in rallying the Virginia militia to cover the retreat.  Three years later, he had the satisfaction of marching into Fort Duquesne with an English force, which banished the French for all time from the valley of the Ohio.

That victory ended the war for a time, and Washington returned to Virginia to marry a charming and wealthy widow, Mrs. Martha Custis, and to take the seat in the House of Burgesses to which he had just been elected.  He served there for fifteen years, living the life of the typical Virginia planter on his estate of Mount Vernon, which had passed into his possession through the death of his brother’s only child.  He had become one of the most important men of the colony, whose opinion was respected and whose influence was very great.

During all this period, the feeling against England was growing more and more bitter.  Let us be candid about it.  The expulsion of the French from the continent had freed the colonies from the danger of French aggression and from the feeling that they needed the aid of the mother country.  That they should have been taxed to help defray the great expense of this war against the French seems reasonable enough, but there happened to be in power in England, at the time, a few obstinate and bull-headed statesmen, serving under an obstinate and ignorant king, and they handled the question of taxation with so little tact and delicacy that, among them, they managed to rouse the anger of the colonies to the boiling point.

For the colonists, let us remember, were of the same obstinate and bull-headed stock, and it was soon evident that the only way to settle the difference was to fight it out.  But the impartial historian must write it down that the colonies had much more to thank England for than to complain about, and that at first, the idea of a war for independence was not a popular one.  As it went on, and the Tories were run out of the country or won over, as battle and bloodshed aroused men’s passions, then it gradually gained ground; but throughout, the members of the Continental Congress, led by John and Samuel Adams, were ahead of public opinion.

As we have said, it soon became apparent that there was going to be a fight, and independent companies were formed all over Virginia, and started industriously to drilling.  Washington, by this time the most conspicuous man in the colony, was chosen commander-in-chief; and when, at the gathering of the second Continental Congress at Philadelphia, came news of the fight at Lexington and Concord, the army before Boston was formally adopted by the Congress as an American army, and Washington was unanimously chosen to command it.  I wonder if any one foresaw that day, even in the dimmest fashion, what immortality of fame was to come to that tall, quiet, dignified man?