George Washington: The Leader

A detailed Summary of George Washington: The Leader

George Washington is viewed as an amazing leader and the founder of our country. The only thing that irked me is the fact that he is given all the credit for a job that I am sure any other experienced army commander could have done. I believe that George Washington was just in the right place, at the right time. Also, Washington gets nothing but praise for climbing the ladder to earn the title of "Founder of Our Country", but in reality he climbed the ladder very haphazardly, he did all he could to get ahead, even if it meant doing some dishonorable things.

You really can't look at George Washington's success in later years, without looking at what brought him to it, so a short look into his childhood will definitely suffice. George was born on February 22, 1732 on the Bridges Creek Plantation, which was later called Wakefield Plantation. George lived three years with his family at the Wakefield Plantation, and then they moved to a larger one on the Potomac called "Epsewasson". The family lived here for a few more years until they moved yet again to River Farm.

George lived a very enjoyable life at River Farm. He was tutored at home, like most children whose families were "well off", and in his spare-time he would pla

After his formal schooling George went to live with his other half-brother Lawrence at Epsewasson, which was renamed Mount Vernon after Lawrence obtained the estate. Here at Mount Vernon, a very important circle of friends engulfed George; this is where George got his first lucky break. One of which was Lord Fairfax, a cousin of Lawrence's wife and owner of more then five million acres of land. He had grown to like George very much and had George survey his land beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains. This was a very dangerous job, but George enjoyed the work, and it took a little more than a year to complete. This single job led to George's first break into public office, he became the official Surveyor of Culpeper County. Since his pay was good, he was able to afford the fine clothes, and obviously the job required him to be outside, this allowed him to have exactly what he wanted in life. He was very pleased with his life for the next three years, at that point he was assigned the position of Major in the Virginia Militia, and he was sent across the Appalachian Mountains. He was told to deliver a note to French Commander Fort Le Boeuf that protested the building of French forts. Washington wrote told this story about his exploits:

The tone of that letter seemed to have Washington begging Loudoun for a new job. I guess where even Washington had to help his luck along sometimes. The problem with this is that we are not sure whether or not he was actually promised anything by Braddock. I have not been able to find anything that supports what Washington has said, but I have not been able to find anything that disproves it either, so I am still a bit skeptical on this subject.

"We fell in with a party of French Indians, which had laid in wait for us, one of them fired at Mr. Gist or me, not 15 steps, but fortunately missed. We took this fellow into custody and kept him 'till about 9 o'clock at night, and then let him go, and walked all the remaining part of the night without making any stop; that we might get to stop; that we might get the start, so far as to be out of the reach of their pursuit next day, as we were well assur'd they wou'd follow upon our tract as soon as it was light."(20 Alden)

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Approximate Word count = 1960
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History