s whistle," he wrote home to his mother, "and believe
me, there is something charming in the sound"--a bit of bravado which
shows that Washington had not yet quite outgrown his boyhood. No doubt
the bullets sounded much less charmingly five weeks later when he and
his men, brought to bay in a rude fortification which he named Fort
Necessity, were surrounded by a superior force of French and Indians,
and, after an all-day fight, compelled to surrender. It is worth
remarking that this bitter defeat--the first reverse which Washington
suffered--occurred on the third day of July, 1754. Twenty-one years from
that day, he was to draw his sword at the head of an American army.

Washington made his way back to Virginia with the news of his
failure. The French had occupied the vantage ground he was aiming at and
at once proceeded to erect a fort there, which they named Duquesne. Aid
was asked from England to repel these invaders, and early in 1755, a
great force under Major-General Edward Braddock advanced against the
enemy. Washington served as aide-de-camp to the general, whose ideas of
warfare had been gained on the battlefields of Europe, and who could not
understand that these ideas did not apply to warfare in a wilderness. In
consequence, when only a few miles from the fort, he was attacked by a
force of French and Indians, his army all but annihilated and he himself
wounded so severely that he died a few days later. During that fierce
battle, Washington seemed to bear a charmed life. Four bullets tore
through his coat and two horses were shot under him, but he received not
a scratch, and did effective work in rallying the Virginia militia to
cover the retreat. Three years later, he had the satisfaction of
marching into Fort Duquesne with an English force, which banished the
French for all time from the valley of the Ohio.

That victory ended the war for a time, and Washington returned to
Virginia to marry a charming and wealthy widow, Mrs. Martha Custis, and
to take the seat in the House of Burgesses to which he had just been
elected. He served there for fifteen years, living the life of the
typical Virginia planter on his estate of Mount Vernon, which had passed
into his possession through the death of his brother's only
child. He had become one of the most important men of the colony, whose
opinion was respected and whose influence was very great.

During all this period, the feeling against England was growing more an