why do people call him that? Let me
tell you how he got this name. Many years ago, on the twenty-second of
February, in the year 1732, a little baby was born in a comfortable-looking old
farm-house down in Virginia. This baby was named George Washington.
Father
of George Washington
His father was a farmer, who planted
and raised and sold large crops of tobacco in the fields about his house. These
fields were called plantations, and George Washington's father was what is
called a planter.
Mother
of George Washington
The name of George's father was
Augustine Washington. His mother's name was Mary Washington. She was a very
wise and good woman and George loved her dearly. When George was a very small
boy, his father died, and he was brought up by his mother in a nice, old
farm-house on the banks of the Rappahannock River, just opposite the town of
Fredericksburg. Ask someone to show you just where that is on the map.
George
Washington Personality
George was a good boy. He was honest,
truthful, obedient, bold and strong. He could jump the farthest, run the
fastest, climb the highest, wrestle the best, ride the swiftest, swim the
longest, and ''stump" all the other boys he played with. They all liked
him, for he was gentle, kind and brave; he never was mean, never got "
mad," and never told a lie.
Young
George Washington Riding a Colt
His mother had a sorrel colt that she
thought very much of, because it came of splendid stock, and, if once trained,
would be a fine and fast horse. But the colt was wild and vicious, and people
said it could never be trained. One summer morning, young George, with three or
four boys, were in the field looking at the colt, and, when the boys said again
that it could never be tamed.
George said: You help me gel on his
back and I'll take him." After Lard's work, they got a bridle-bit in the
colt's mouth and put young George on its back. Then began a fight. The colt
reared and kicked and plunged and tried to throw George off. But George stuck
on and finally conquered the colt so that he drove it about the field. But in a
last mad plunge to free itself from this determined boy on its back, the colt
burst a blood-vessel and fell to the ground dead.
Then the boys felt worried, you may be
sure. But while they were wondering what George's mother would say, the boy
went straight to the house determined to tell the truth. Mother," he said,
"your colt is dead."
"Dead!" said his mother
shocked. "Who killed it?" I did," said George in an honest way,
and then he told her the whole story. His mother looked at him a moment, then
she said: " It is well, my son. I am sorry to lose the colt; it would have
been a fine horse, but I am proud to know that my son never tries to put the
blame of his acts upon others, and always speaks the truth."
So, you see, that early in his life,
this boy was one to be depended upon. This story, too, shows you that besides
his being so truthful and honest, young George Washington did not give up
trying to do a thing until he had succeeded. He was bound to tame that fierce
sorrel colt, and he stuck to it until he had conquered the animal, instead of
letting it conquer him.
George
Washington Facts
He loved the woods, and he loved the
water. He wanted to be a sailor, but when he saw that his mother did not wish
him to go away to sea, he said: " All right, mother," and he stayed
at home to help her on her farm. When he was sixteen years old, he gave up
going to school and became a surveyor. A surveyor is one who goes around
measuring land so that men can know just how much they own and just where the
lines run that divide it from other people's land.
This work kept George out of doors most
of the time and made him healthy and big and strong. He went off into the woods
and over the mountains, surveying land for the owners. He lived among Indians
and bears and hunters and became a great hunter himself. He was a fine-looking
young fellow then. He was almost six feet tall. He was strong and active and
could stand almost anything in the way of out-of-door dangers and experiences.
He had light brown hair, blue eye, and
a frank face, and he had such a nice, firm way about him, although he was quiet
and never talked much, that people always believed what he said, and those who
worked with him were always ready and willing to do just as he told them. When
he was a boy it took a brave man to be a surveyor. He had to live in the
forests, in all sorts of dangers and risks;
he had to meet all kinds of people, and
settle disputes about who owned the land, when those who were quarreling about
it would be very angry with the surveyor. But young George Washington always
won in the end, and his work was so well done that some of his records and
measurements have not been changed from that day to this.
He liked the work because he liked the
free life of the woods and mountains. He liked to hunt and swim and ride and
row, and all these things and all these rough experiences helped him greatly to
be a bold, healthy, active and courageous man when the time came for him to be
a leader and a soldier.
People liked him so much that when
there was trouble between the two nations that owned almost all the land in
America when he was a boy, he was sent with a party to try and settle a quarrel
as to which nation owned the land west of Virginia, in what is now called Ohio.
These two nations were France and
England. Their Kings were far over the Atlantic Ocean. Virginia and all the
country between the mountains and the sea, from Maine to Georgia, belonged to
the King of England. There was no President then; there was no United States.
George Washington went off to the Ohio
country and tried to settle the quarrel, but the French soldiers would not
settle it as the English wished them to. They built forts in the country and
said they meant to keep it all for the King of France.
So, George Washington was sent out
again. This time he had a lot of soldiers with him, to drive the French away
from their forts. The French soldiers would not give in, and Washington and his
soldiers had a fight with the French and whipped them. Then the French King
sent more soldiers and built more forts, and the English King sent more
soldiers, and there was war in the land. War is a terrible thing, but sometimes
it must be made.
The King of England was very angry with
the French, and he sent over soldiers from England to fight the French. They
were led by a British general whose name was Braddock. He was a brave man, but
he thought he knew how to do everything, and he would not let anyone else tell
him how he ought to act. But he had never fought in such a land as America,
where there were great forests and Indians, and other things very different
from what he was used to.
George Washington knew that if General
Braddock and the British soldiers wished to whip the French and the Indians,
who were on the French side, they must be very careful when they were marching
through the forest to battle. He tried to make General Braddock see this, too,
but the British General thought he knew best, and he told Washington to mind
his own business.
So, the British soldiers marched
through the forest just as if they were parading down Broadway. They looked
very fine, but they were not careful of themselves, and one day, during the
forest, the. French and Indians, who were hiding behind trees waiting for them,
sprang out upon them and surprised them, and surrounded them and fired guns at
them from the thick, dark woods. The British were caught in a trap.
They did not know what to do. General
Braddock was killed, so were many of his soldiers, and they would all have been
killed or taken prisoners if George Washington had not been there. He knew just
what to do. He fought bravely, and when the British soldiers ran away, he and
his Americans kept back the French and Indians and saved the British army. But
it was a terrible defeat for the soldiers of the King of England.
George
Washington Crossing Delaware
He had to send more soldiers to America
and fight for a long time. But at last his soldiers were successful, and,
thanks to Colonel Washington, as he was now called, the English lands were
saved, and the French were driven away. After the war was over, George
Washington married a wife. All American boys and girls know her name. It was
Martha Washington. They went to live in a beautiful house on the banks of the
Potomac River, in Virginia. It is called Mount Vernon.
It was Washington's home all the rest
of his life. The house is still standing, and people nowadays go to visit this
beautiful place, just to see the spot that everyone thinks so much of because
it was the home of Washington. Perhaps, someday, you will see it. You will
think it a beautiful place.
While Washington was looking after his
great farm at Mount Vernon, things were becoming very bad in America. The King
of England said the people in America must do as he told them, and not as they
wished. But the Americans said that the King was acting very wrongly towards
them and that they would not stand it. They did not.
Life of
George Washington
When the King's soldiers tried to make
them do as the King ordered, they said they would die rather than yield, and in
a place called Lexington, in Massachusetts, some of the Americans took their
guns and tried to drive off the British soldiers. This is what is called
rebellion. It made the King of England very angry, and he sent over ships full
of soldiers to make the American's mind.
But the Americans would not. The men in
the thirteen different parts of the country called the thirteen colonies got
together and said they would fight the King's soldiers, the King tried to make
them do as he wished. So, they got up an army and sent it to Massachusetts, and
there they had famous battle soldiers, called Bunker Hill. The leading men in
the colonies saw that they must put a brave man at the head of their army.
There was but one man they thought
about this. Do you know who is George Washington? He rode all the way from
Mount Vernon, in Virginia, to Cambridge in Massachusetts, on horseback because
you know, they had no steam cars or steamboats in those days. As he was riding
through Connecticut with a few soldiers as his guard a man came galloping
across the country telling people, had been fought.
The British soldiers had driven the
Americans from the fort and said they had won. But it had been hard work for
the soldiers of the King. Washington stopped the rider and asked him why the
Americans had been driven out of the fort. " Because they had no powder
and shot left," replied the messenger. "And did they stand the fire
of the British guns as long as they could fire back?" asked Washington.
"That they did," replied the horseman. "They waited, too, until
the British were close to the fort before they fired.
That was what Washington wished to
know. He felt certain that if the American farmer boys who stood out against
the King's soldiers did not get frightened or timid in the face of trained
soldiers of the king what they would be the kind of soldiers he needed to win
with. He turned to his companion Then the liberties of the country are safe, he
said and rode on to Cambridge to the command of the army.
If ever you go to Cambridge, in
Massachusetts, you can see the tree under which Washington sat on horseback,
when he took command of the American army. It is an old, and old tree now, but
everybody loves to look at it and to think of the splendid-looking soldier, in
his uniform of buff and blue, who, on a July day, long, long ago, sat his horse
so gallantly beneath that shady elm, and looked at the brave men who were to be
his soldiers, and by whose help he hoped to make his native land a free and
independent nation.
So, at his camp at Cambridge, he
drilled his army of farmers and fishermen, and when he was ready he drove the
British away from Boston without a battle, when all the American leaders met in
the City of Philadelphia and said they would obey the King of England no longer
but would set up a nation of their own.
They called this new nation the United
States of America, and they signed a paper that told all the world that the men
of America would no longer obey the King of England, but would be free, even if
they had to fight for their freedom. You know what this great paper they signed
is called the Declaration of Independence.
The day that they decided to do this is
now the greatest day in all of America. You remember it every year and
celebrate it with fire-crackers and fire-works and flags, and no school. It is
on the fourth of July. Well, the King of England was very angry at this. He
sent more ships and soldiers over the sea to America, and there was a long and
bloody war. It was called the American Revolution.
There was fighting for seven years,
and, through it all, the chief man in America, the man who led the soldiers and
fought the British, and never gave up, nor ever let himself or his soldiers
grow afraid, even when he was beaten, was General George Washington. If the British
drove him away from one place, he marched to another, and he fought and
marched, and kept his army brave and determined.
Even when they were ragged and tired,
and everything looked as if the British would be successful. When the British
whipped him in the Battle of Long Island, at Brooklyn, and thought they had
caught all the American army, Washington, one stormy night, got all his
soldiers safely across the river to New York, and the. British had to follow
and fight. And, again, when it looked as if the Americans must surely give in,
Washington took his soldiers, one terrible winter's night, across the Delaware
river and fell upon the British, when they were not expecting him, and won the
battle of Trenton.
There were many hard and bitter days
for George Washington through these years of fighting. One winter, especially,
was very bad. The British soldiers seemed victorious everywhere. They held the
chief cities of New York and Philadelphia, and the weak American army was
half-starved, cold and shivering in a place in Pennsylvania, called Valley
Forge.
Washington was there, too, and it took
all his strength and all his heart to keep his soldiers together and make them
believe that, if they would only "stick to it," they would beat the
British at last. But when their log huts were all covered with snow, and they
had hardly clothes enough to keep them warm, or food to keep them from being
hungry, it was not easy for the soldiers to see victory ahead, and, if it had
not been for Washington, the American, army would have melted away, owing to
that dreadful winter at Valley Forge.
But he held it together, and when
spring came, marched away from Valley Forge. Part of his army was attacked by
the British at a place called Monmouth Court House and was almost beaten and
driven back when General Washington came galloping up. He stopped the soldiers
who were running away; he brought up other soldiers to help them, and he fought
so boldly and bravely and was so determined, that at last he drove off the
British, and won the important battle of Monmouth. You see, would not give in
when people told him he would have to. and that the British get all the cities
and, towns.
He said that the country was large,
and, that sooner than give in, he would go with his soldiers into the mountains
and keep up the war until the British were so sick of it that they would
finally go away. So, he kept on marching and fighting, and never giving in,
even when things looked worst, and, at last, on the 19th of October, in the
year 1781, he captured the whole British army, at a place called Yorktown, in
Virginia, and the Revolution was ended. So, the United States won its freedom.
They have been a great nation ever
since, and every American, from that day to this, knows that they gained their
freedom because they had such a great, brave, noble, patriotic, strong and
glorious leader as General George Washington. After the Revolution was over,
and Washington had said good-bye to his soldiers and his generals, he went back
to Mount Vernon and became a farmer again.
But the people of America would not let
him stay a fanner. They got together again in Philadelphia, and, after much
thought and talk, they drew up a paper that said just how the new nation should
be governed. This is called the Constitution of the United States. The
Constitution said that, instead of a king, the people should pick out elect is
what they called it one man, who should be the head man of the nation for four
years at a time.
He was to preside over things, and so
he was called the President. When the time came to elect the first President,
there was just one man in the United States that everybody said must be the President.
Of course, you know who this man was — George Washington. It was a great day
for the new nation when he was declared President.
This is what we call being "
inaugurated." All along the way, as he rode from Mount Vernon to New York,
people came out to welcome him. They fired cannon and rang bells and made
bonfires and put up arches and decorations; little girls scattered flowers in
his path and sang songs of greeting, and whenever he came to a town or city,
everyone turned out and marched in procession, escorting Washington through
their town.
When he came to New York, after he had
crossed the bay in a big rowboat, he went in a fine procession to a building
called " Federal Hall," on Wall Street, and there he stood, on the
front balcony of the building, in face of all the people, and, with his hand on
an open Bible, he said he would be a wise and good and faithful President.
Then the Judge, who had read to him the
words he repeated, lifted his hand and cried out: "Long live George
Washington, President of the United States!" A flag was the run-up to the
cupola of the hall, cannon boomed, bells rang, and all the people cheered and
cheered their hero and general, whom they had now made the head of the whole
nation. So, George Washing- ton became President of the United States.
He worked just as hard to make the new
nation strong and great and peaceful as he did when he led the army in the
Revolution. People had all sorts of things to suggest. Some of those things
were foolish, some were wrong, and some would have been certain to have broken
up the United States and lost all the things for which the country fought in
the Revolution. But Washington was at the head.
He knew just what to do, and he did it.
From the day when, in the City of New York, he was made President — that is
what we call his inauguration — he gave all his thought and all hi? Time, and
all his strength to making the United States united and prosperous and strong.
And, when his four years as President were over, the people would not let him
give up but elected him for their President for another four years.
Wife of
George Washington
When Washington was President, the
Capital of the United States was first in New York and afterward at
Philadelphia. Washington and his wife, whom we know of as Martha Washington,
lived in fine style and made a very noble-looking couple. They gave receptions
occasionally, to which the people would come to be introduced and see the man
of whom all the world was talking. Washington must have been a splendid-looking
man then.
He was tall and well built. He dressed
in black velvet, with silver knee and shoe buckles; his hair was powdered and
tied up in what was called a 14 queue." He wore yellow gloves and held his
three-cornered hat in his hand. A sword in a polished white leather sheath hung
at his side, and he would bow to each one who was introduced to him.
He had so good a memory, that, if he
heard a man's name and saw his face at one introduction, he could remember and
call him by name when he met him again. But though he was so grand and noble,
he was very simple in his tastes and his talk and desired to have no title, but
only this — the President of the United States.
PI is the second term as President was
just as successful as his first four years had been. He kept the people from
getting into trouble with other countries; he kept them from war and danger,
and quarrels and loss. But it tired him all out and made him an old man before
his time. He had given almost all his life to America. When his second term was
ended, the people wished him to be President for the third time. But he would
not.
Washington's
Farewell Address
He wrote a long letter to the people of
America. It is called "Washington's Farewell Address." He told them
they were growing stronger and better, but that he was worn out and must have
rest. He told them that if they would be wise and peaceful and good, they would
become a great nation; that all they had fought for and all they had gained
would last, if they would only act right, and so they would become great and
powerful. So, another man was made President, and Washington went back to his
farm at Mount Vernon.
He was the greatest, the wisest and the
most famous man in all of America. People said it was because of what he had
done for them that their country was free and powerful and strong. They said
that George Washington was "The Father of His Country." I think he
was very glad to get back to Mount Vernon. He loved the beautiful old place,
and he had been away from it for eight years.
He liked to be a farmer, with such a
great farm to look after as there are in Virginia. He found very much to do,
and he mended, built and enlarged things, rode over his broad plantations, or
received in his fine old house the visitors who came there to see the greatest man
in all America. There came a time when he thought he would have to give up this
pleasant life and go to be a soldier once more. For there came very near being
a war between France and the United States, and Congress begged Washington to
take command of the army once more.
He was made lieutenant-general and
commander in chief and hurried to Philadelphia to gather his army together.
Fortunately, the war did not occur, and the new nation was saved all that
trouble and bloodshed. So, he went back again to his beloved Mount Vernon. But
he did not live long to enjoy the peace and quiet that were his right.
Death
For, one December day, as he was riding
over his farm, he caught a cold and had the croup. He had not the strength that
most boys and girls must carry him through such a sickness. He was worn out,
and, though the doctors tried hard to save his life, they could not, and in two
days he died. It was a sad day for America — the twelfth day of December, in
the year 1 799.
All the world sent condolence letters with
deep grief and sorry. Entire the world had come to look upon George Washington
as the greatest man of his time. Kings and nations put on mourning for him,
and, all over the world, bells tolled, drums beat, and flags were dropped to
half-mast when the news came that Washington was dead.
When you grow up and go to Mount
Vernon, as every American boy and girl should do someday, you will see his
tomb. It is a plain and simple building, just as plain and simple as he was,
and it stands close to his house, on the green banks of the beautiful Potomac
River he loved so much. Then, sailing up the Potomac, or riding on the
steam-cars, you will come to the beautiful city that is named for this great
man Washington, the capital of the United States.
Then you will see the great white dome
of the splendid Capitol, the building in which the American people make laws
for the nation that Washington founded. There is the White House, where all the
Presidents since his day have lived, there is the tall, white monument, the
highest in the world.
That the American people have built to
honor his memory and his name. And in the cities and towns in America are
statues and streets and parks and schools and buildings named after
him. And built because all the world knows that this great American
general and President was the best, the noblest and the bravest man that ever
lived in all America George Washington.
First in war, first in peace, first in
the hearts of his countrymen." Love him, children. Never forget him. Try
to be like him. Thus, may you grow to be good men and women, and. Therefore,
good Americans.
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