The Father Of His Country
The New Hampshire Union-Leader has an editorial praising George Washington on this "President's Day, the replacement for what were once two holidays, Washington's Birthday and Lincoln's Birthday.
TODAY is generally known as Presidents Day, but its official name is George Washington's Birthday. And for good reason.
Without George Washington, there might never have been a United States of America. Washington shaped his world more profoundly than any other man of his time. Not bad for a hot-tempered adventurer with little formal schooling.
Washington was 6-foot-3 and so strong a cousin said he could throw a stone clear across the Rappahannock River (not a coin across the Potomac, as legend later had it). He was a professional surveyor by age 17. By age 21, he was a major in the Virginia militia, trusted enough that the governor sent him to order the French out of the Ohio River Valley.
On his second trip to assert England's claim on the territory, he accidentally started the French and Indian War. Really. He wrote a friend after the skirmish that ended in his surrender, "I heard the bullets whistle, and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound."
In a later battle, Washington, though only a volunteer aide, took command as Gen. Braddock's army was being routed, and rode before the men in a courageous attempt to rally them. He had two horses shot out from under him and four bullets shot through his coat. He liked it so much, it became a trademark behavior. During the Revolutionary War, when most commanders watched the battle from safely behind their forces, Washington routinely rode the line, shouting orders, encouraging his men, and defying death and the enemy.
It is a pretty decent thumbnail biography. Here's the text of Washington's farewell address, delivered when he left office as President.
It is also fitting to remember Abraham Lincoln today. Here's the Wikipedia biography on Lincoln.
By Andrew X, Monday, 18 February , 2008 @ 1:55 pm
Very much worthy of mention is that Abraham Lincoln many times outpolls General Washington (barely) as number one President in US history, including in a poll just released yesterday on AOL. Set aside unrepentant confederates. Mr. Lincoln surely deserves the honor.
Yet few are the historians who would disagree that, had Sherman failed to take Atlanta and been stymied in Georgia and Tennessee the way Grant was stuck at Petersburg, Lincoln would have been defeated for re-election. And how would history remember a defeated four-year President who, in some sense, started the war (the invasion of the South at least), failed to end it, and turned over the office to a party with a radical branch invested in peace at any price?
Scenario A - Abraham the Mediocre, the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans on his hands, humiliated out of office, a whole nation when he took office, a sundered nation when he left.
Scenario B - Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, the Victor, saved the nation, the Greatest US President ever.
The difference? Billy Sherman took Atlanta.
On such slender reeds lie history’s verdicts. A lesson worth remembering today.
And tomorrow.
By Bleepless, Monday, 18 February , 2008 @ 4:40 pm
Interestingly enough, before the Revolution, Washington never won a battle. Also, depending upon how you want to count, Washington was in nine or so major battles in the Revolution, winning three. They happened to be the right three, however, and none of the others was a total rout for the patriot cause.