Boston and Quebec Washington was not a professional soldier, though he had seen the realities of war and had moved in military society. Perhaps it was an advantage that he had not received the rigid training of a regular, for he faced conditions which required an elastic mind. The force besieging Boston consisted at first…
All posts in Heroes
Washington and his Comrades: Chapter I
The Commander in Chief Moving among the members of the second Continental Congress, which met at Philadelphia in May, 1775, was one, and but one, military figure. George Washington alone attended the sittings in uniform. This colonel from Virginia, now in his forty-fourth year, was a great landholder, an owner of slaves, an Anglican churchman,…
Washington and His Comrades in Arms, Preface and Contents
Prefatory Note The author is aware of a certain audacity in undertaking, himself a Briton, to appear in a company of American writers on American history and above all to write on the subject of Washington. If excuse is needed it is to be found in the special interest of the career of Washington to…
The Burning of the Philadelphia
And say besides, that in Aleppo once, Where a malignant and a turban’d Turk Beat a Venetian and traduced the state, I took by the throat the circumcised dog And smote him, thus. –Othello. It is difficult to conceive that there ever was a time when the United States paid a money tribute to anybody.…
The Storming of Stony Point
In their ragged regimentals Stood the old Continentals, Yielding not, When the grenadiers were lunging, And like hail fell the plunging Cannon-shot; When the files Of the isles From the smoky night encampment bore the banner of the rampant Unicorn, And grummer, grummer, grummer, rolled the roll of the drummer, Through the morn! Then with…