Replies

A young American officer wrote to his wife: "I shall never forget what I felt in Princeton on [Washington's] account, when I saw him brave all the dangers of the field and his important life hanging as it were by a single hair with a thousand deaths flying around him. Believe me, I thought not of myself."

George Washington was a great and brave man. He was a man of faith and conviction whose courage and bravery rallied loyal troops. He was responsible for our victory in the Revolutionary War more than any other single individual. George Washington as the first President of the United States gave stability and character to an infant nation seeking its place in history with other nations.

Here's a bit of history for you . . .

George Washington was also the one who coined the term "civil engineer." A surveyor by trade when he was a young man in Virginia, Washington knew how vital engineers would be for the war effort, and he petitioned the Continental Congress to establish an engineering division in the Continental Army to help build "roads, forts, bridges and other civil works."

Thaddeus Kosciuszko, a Polish engineer who moved to North America in 1776 and later volunteered to help with the war effort, was named by Washington as the first head of the Army Corps of Engineers. Thomas Jefferson once said that Kosciuszko was "as pure a son of liberty as I have ever known."

People who live in New York City might recognize "Kosciuszko" as the name that nobody seems to pronounce correctly on daily "Shadow Traffic" reports -- that crummy Brooklyn-Queens Expressway bridge over Newtown Creek bears his name.