Washington's First Fourth

Before he was America’s first president, George Washington was a spy and a soldier, serving on America’s frontier. His spying activities in advance of the French and Indian War brought him a national reputation and helped precipitate that great war. The reputation he built then secured a military command for him in that war which would eventually lead to international acclaim as America’s first commander-in-chief.

In the year of 1753, French soldiers marched south from Canada into an area where claims of sovereignty between France and England were in dispute. This area is roughly where Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is now located at the forks of the Ohio and Allegheny rivers. The French soldiers brought with them Native American warriors and together they harassed, captured and killed English, Dutch and German settlers in order to scare them into leaving the area in order to claim the land for France.

The governor of Virginia, Robert Dinwiddie, chose 21 year-old George Washington to trek 400 miles into the frontier to deliver to the French a demand to leave the disputed area or face the prospect of war with colonial America and England. Washington also went to gather intelligence on the way, as there was little doubt that England and America hoped to pick a fight as much as the French did.

We know quite a lot about what happened on this expedition because Washington kept a diary that was later published.

According to the diary, Washington took with him Jacob Braum, his fencing master, and two Native American scouts lent to him by Half King, America‘s Native American ally plus he "engaged Mr. Gist to pilot us out, and also hired four others as Servitors, Barnaby Currin, and John MacQuire, Indian Traders, Henry Steward, and William Jenkins, and in Company with those Persons, left the Inhabitants the Day following."

They plunged into the wilderness, taking notes about the country, and how best to defend it. Washington was very familiar with this area. He had been traveling these roads on business for years. He owned a great deal of land in the area, like many of the pro-war party in Virginia. He accumulated the land by acting as a frontier surveyor.

After weeks in the wilderness and often sleeping with no cover on the hard ground, Washington made contact with a party of French soldiers as winter was coming on. The soldiers took him to the fort that the French had recently built near the forks of the Ohio and Allegheny rivers. The commander of the French forces in the area was named Monsieur Tissot. Washington told Tissot that he was on a diplomatic mission and that he had a communication from the royal governor of Virginia. Monsieur Tissot read the letter from Governor Dinwiddie but said that a reply would be a long time coming as he needed to send the letter to his master in Quebec, says Washington.

In the meantime, the French entertained Washington and his party with elaborate courtesy, holding feasts and parties in their honor. Washington was given freedom to inspect the French fort and made notes about its weapons and design.

Finally after weeks of waiting, with snow beginning to accumulate on the ground, George was given the bad news: the French had no intention of leaving the area. This meant war.

Washington was impatient to leave the fort, although it meant braving icy temperatures and ice-clogged rivers for the 400 mile return trip to Williamsburg, the capital of colonial Virginia. Waiting until the weather warmed would allow the French to have months to prepare for the spring and fighting; and the Virginians might be attacked by surprise.

Equipped with a pair of snowshoes, Washington says he left the French fort accompanied by his guide, Christpher Gist, and two Native American scouts friendly to the French.

Shortly into their journey, one of the native scouts fired at Washington and Gist with a musket but the bullet missed its target. They chased him away, but they took the other scout prisoner until they could put many miles between themselves and the prisoner’s friend. When they were safely away, they released the scout unharmed, records Washington in his journal account.

Washington and Gist then traveled quickly, worrying hostile natives might be all around them.

Using hatchets, they spent an entire day fashioning a raft to cross an ice-choked river. As they crossed, they used poles to push the raft across, and to avoid the ice chunks in the river. Unfortunately their homemade raft was no match for the ice. One chunk after another bombarded the raft until both Washington and Gist were forced overboard. They swam safely to a small island in the middle of the river. They spent the night in frozen clothes sleeping on the ground. The temperature dropped so low that in the morning that they were able to walk safely across the frozen river and shortly thereafter arrived in the colonial capital.

The colonial legislature in Virginia (the House of Burgesses) after reading Washington’s own account of his adventures, voted to raise an army to confront the French, and if necessary fight them. Because of his distinguished service as a diplomat-spy, Washington was selected as the second in command of the Virginia army.

Much of Washington’s military philosophy was formed during the French and Indian War. Just as in the Revolutionary War, Washington faced a foe that enjoyed numerical superiority, at least in men-in-arms. Washington therefore concentrated on keeping his force as a “force in being” and started to develop an appreciation of how intelligence could be used to even the odds against a numerically (and sometimes materially) superior foe.

Washington took about 400 troops into the wilderness, and despite being greatly outnumbered in total, decided to pick a fight with a small French advance contingent even though technically England and France were not at war.

After surprising and overwhelming the French advance guard, Washington retreated to his main camp, called Fort Necessity, a rickety compound of upended logs dug into the shallow earth, with the appearance of a ten-foot privacy fence.

Here the French soon approached with a force that was both numerically superior and materially superior.

The fort was poorly situated in a clearing that was too near to the forest. The forest gave the French cover while Fort Necessity offered only American soldiers a mud hole while it rained on them steadily. Much of the powder Washington had in the fort was spoiled from the wet. In an eight hour battle, the French finally compelled Washington to surrender the fort under terms that narrowly allowed him to avert total humiliation, although they were humiliating enough. Half-King, ostensibly Washington’s ally, mocked him by calling the fort “that little thing upon the meadow.”

The next day, Washington marched out of Fort Necessity and surrendered the fort to the French. The French promptly burned it to the ground.

But the date that became important for Washington to celebrate in future years was July 3^rd, not the 4^th. And not because that was the day the Declaration of Independence was actually signed. It was approved on July 4^th, and signed at later dates.

As historian Fred Anderson notes: “Indeed, in a letter Washington wrote on July 20, 1776, as he awaited the British invasion of New York, he made no mention of the independence proclaimed two weeks earlier, but noted only his ‘grateful remembrance’ of ‘escape’ at the battle of Fort Necessity on July 3, 1754.”

There are a number of great firsthand accounts of George Washington during the French and Indian War, but I highly recommend Anderson’s The War That Made America and George Washington: A Life by Willard Sterne Randall. Randall’s is an especially absorbing, complete biography of a great man.

Oh, thank you, for this great addition to our thoughts and celebrations of this Independence Day!

Of all the years since 1776, the Year 2012 may mark the point in the noble history of this nation when citizens must make a great decision and commitment to the cause of freedom, as it becomes more evident the decision will not and must not be entrusted to any political candidate or Party, not to the Congress or Senate, or even to the Court.

Independence Day reminds us of some of the real motivations for those brave colonists to come together in 1776 and declare their Creator-endowed individual rights. And, the power-seekers and so-called "progressives" have, through the guise of moving FORWARD, carried us BACKWARD to the Old World ideas which existed in that glorious year when American Independence was so eloquently stated.

Coercive "taking" power, when wielded against the citizenry by either the government alone (taxing), or in combination with another power (unions), is destructive of freedom and prosperity.

The following statement by Sir Winston Churchill, upon leaving office as Prime Minister in 1945, was prophetic for Great Britain, and as it turns out, the United States and the world:

"I do not believe in the power of the State to plan and enforce. No matter how numerous are the committees they set up or the ever-growing hordes of officials they employ or the severity of the punishments they inflict or threaten, they can't approach the high level of internal economic production achieved under free enterprise. Personal initiative, competitive selection, and profit motive corrected by failure and the infinite processes of good housekeeping and personal ingenuity, these constitute the life of a free society. It is this vital creative impulse that I deeply fear the doctrines and policies of the socialist government has destroyed. Nothing that they can plan and order and rush around enforcing will take its place. They have broken the main spring and until we get a new one, the watch wil not go. Set the people free. Get out of the way and let them make the best of themselves. I am sure that this policy of equalizing misery and organizing society--instead of allowing diligence, self-interest and ingenuity to produce abundance--has only to be prolonged to kill this British Island stone dead."

In the early days of America's experiment in liberty, its Founders warned of oppressive taxation by those elected to represent the people. Under their "People's" Constitution, the people were left free, and the government was limited.

While Europe struggled with oppressive government intervention, the genius Founders of America recognized enduring truths about human nature, the human tendency to abuse power, and the possibilities of liberty for individuals. Richard Frothingham's 1872 "History of the Rise of the Republic of the United States," Page 14, contained the following footnote item on the condition of citizens of France:

"Footnote 1. M. de Champagny (Dublin Review, April, 1868) says of France, 'We were and are unable to go from Paris to Neuilly; or dine more than twenty together; or have in our portmanteau three copies of the same tract; or lend a book to a friend: or put a patch of mortar on our own house, if it stands in the street; or kill a partridge; or plant a tree near the road-side; or take coal out of our own land: or teach three or four children to read, . .. without permission from the civil government.'"

Clearly the government of France at that 1868 date laid an oppressive regulatory and tax burden on citizens, robbing them of their Creator-endowed liberty and enjoyment thereof. Frothingham observed that such coercive power constituted "a noble form robbed of its lifegiving spirit."

Thomas Jefferson warned Americans:

"To preserve [the] independence [of the people,] we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses, and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:39

Note Jefferson's very last thought here. He declares that when government taxing and debt have reached certain levels, in order for individuals to survive, then their chosen "employment" becomes "hiring ourselves to rivet their (the government's) chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers." Might that account for why it is government employment levels which have risen at such great rates in the past 2 years?

Inasmuch as government creates no wealth and has no money, the pay for every job in government must first come out of the pockets of hardworking citizens in the private sector or be borrowed (to be paid back eventually from the pockets of future generations).

Ahhh, guess that's what you call "redistributing" wealth! In Jefferson's words, it's called "rivet(ing) chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers."

Let this 2012 Independence Day celebration include a resolve to rediscover and restore the ideas which distinguished America from most of the other forms of government in the world, including that of France in 1868, as cited above. Happy Fourth!!!

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