Excerpt from Heroes of the Army in America
No doubt all our readers have read this story, and know a great deal about who he was and what he did. But it may be said that the lives of great men cannot be told too often, and to write about the military heroes of America without giving a leading place to the noblest of them all would be like giving the drama of Hamlet with the character of Hamlet left out.
George Washington was what is called well-born. He belonged to the colonial aristocracy of the Old Dominion. His ancestors came from noble English families, the first Americans among them, Lawrence and John Washington, coming to Virginia in the time of Cromwell. John had a son named Augustine, and on the 22d of February, 1732, Augustine's first child was born. His parents named him George Washington, little dreaming how famous that name was afterwards to become.
Little George grew up to be a fine, hearty, handsome boy, strong and sound in body and noble in character. His father died when he was twelve years of age, but his mother, one of the wisest and most excellent of women, was left with a good estate. She dwelt in an old manor-house on the Rappahannock River opposite the town of Fredericksburg, and there she devoted herself to bringing up her six fatherless children to be good men and women.
George, as the years went on, became a tall, vigorous, well-proportioned youth. He got what little education the poor Virginia schools of that time could give, was good in mathematics and learned surveying, intending to become a civil engineer, a profession which promised very well in that pioneer period.
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