This is one of our family's favorite stories of George Washington. We thought it fitting to share it along with a couple of quotes as we celebrate this day.
Bullet Proof George Washington
This story of George Washington once appeared in virtually every student text in America, but hasn't been seen in the last several decades. It relates to George Washington when he was involved in the French and Indian War as a young man only twenty-three years of age.
The French and Indian War occurred twenty years before the American War For Independence. It was the British against the French - the Americans sided with the British, and most of the Indians sided with the French. Both Great Britain and France disputed each other’s claims of territorial ownership along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Both of them claimed the same land. Unable to settle the dispute diplomatically, Great Britain sent 2300 veteran British troops to America under General Edward Braddock to rout the French.
The British troops arrived in Virginia where George Washington (colonel of the Virginia militia) and 100 Virginia buckskins joined General Braddock. General Braddock, along with George Washington, took 1300 troops north to expel the French from Fort Duquesne --- now the city of Pittsburgh. On July 9, 1755 --- only seven miles from the fort --- while marching through a wooded ravine, they walked right into an ambush. The French and Indians opened fire on them from both sides. Of course, these were British veterans; they knew exactly what to do. The problem was, they were veterans of European wars. European warfare was fought in the open. One army lined up at one end of an open field, the other army lined up at the other end, they looked at each other, took aim, and fired. No running, no hiding. But here they were in the Pennsylvania woods with the French and Indians firing at them from the tops of trees, from behind rocks, and from under logs.
When they came under fire, the British troops did exactly what they had been taught; they lined up shoulder-to-shoulder in the bottom of that ravine – and were slaughtered. At the end of two hours, 714 of the 1300 British and American troops had been shot down. Only 30 of the French and Indians had been shot.
There were 86 British and American officers involved in that battle. At the end of the battle George Washington was the only officer left on horseback. The next day Washington wrote a letter to his family telling them of the battle. He told them that after the battle was over he took off his jacket and to his surprise he found four bullet holes through it, yet not single bullet had touched him. He said “By the all powerful dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation.” Washington openly acknowledged that God’s hand was upon him, that God had protected him and kept him through that battle.
However, the story does not stop here. Fifteen years later, in 1770 – now a time of peace – George Washington and a close personal friend, Dr. James Craik, returned to those same Pennsylvania woods. An old Indian chief from far away having heard that Washington had come back to those woods traveled a long way just to meet with him. The Indian chief sat down face-to-face with Washington over a council fire. The chief told Washington that he had been a leader in that battle fifteen years earlier, and that he had instructed his braves to single out all the officers and shoot them down. Washington had been singled out and the chief explained that he personally had shot at Washington seventeen different times, but without effect. Believing Washington to be under the care of the Great Spirit, the chief instructed his braves to cease firing at him. He then told Washington: “I have traveled a long and weary path that I might see the young warrior of the great battle – I am come to pay homage to the man who is the particular favorite of Heaven, and who can never die in battle.”
From America’s Godly Heritage
By: David Barton
www.wallbuilders.com
“The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.”
~ George Washington, 1789
“Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.”
~John Adams
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