the earlier years to _deserve_ this high command is a
story not so well known. Yet it is both interesting in itself, and
serves to humanize its subject. The stately Washington steps down off
his pedestal, and shoulders again his surveyor's tripod of boyhood
days, while he invites us to take a tramp through the Virginia wilds.

The writing (and, we hope, the reading) of these life stories brings an
especial message. We discover that in each instance the famous soldier
was not a pet of Fortune, but was selected for his high and arduous
task, because of the training received in his formative years. His
peculiar gift of leadership was merely an expression of his indomitable
will to forge ahead. He exemplified in his life the Boy Scout motto,
"Be Prepared."

CONTENTS

WASHINGTON

GRANT

LEE

NAPOLEON

WELLINGTON

GORDON

ROBERTS

KITCHENER

HAIG

JOFFRE

FOCH

PERSHING

BOYS' BOOK OF FAMOUS SOLDIERS

WASHINGTON

THE YOUNG SURVEYOR

"Turn your guns around on them! Stop them!"

The command was given in peremptory tones to a demoralized group of
soldiers. Not waiting for them to carry out his orders, the young
officer who gave them leaped from his horse, and with his own hands
turned one of the guns upon the advancing foe.

Had it been the Argonne Forest, and the year 1918, it would have been a
machine gun that the officer manned. But the time was over a century
and a half earlier than this--and the weapon a light brass field-piece,
which after being fired once, must be painfully reloaded.

Meanwhile, the redskins came on.

The young officer, whose name has come down to history as George
Washington, was trying to stem the tide of defeat. It was the fateful
day when old General Braddock of the British army received his first
and fatal lesson in Indian warfare. Says an old Pennsylvania ranger
who was also in the fray:

"I saw Col. Washington spring from his panting horse, and seize a brass
field-piece as if it had been a stick. His look was terrible. He put
his right hand on the muzzle, his left hand on the breach; he pulled
with this, he pushed with that, and wheeled it round, as if it had been
a plaything. It furrowed the ground like a ploughshare. He tore the
sheet-lead from the touch-hole; then the powder-monkey rushed up with
the fire, when the cannon went off, making the bark fly from the trees,
and many an Indian send up his last yell and bite the dust."