AMERICA'S FIRST COMMANDER IN CHIEF

A Founding Father, military hero of the revolution and the nation’s first president – but how much of his story is fact, and how much fiction?

- DAVID SMITH

When it came to choosing a commander to lead an armed uprising against the British, unity was very much on the minds of the American colonies. Resistance to British rule had not yet escalated into a demand for independence, but a large army had formed at Boston, penning in the smaller British forces. It came mostly from the northern colonies, especially those known collectively as New England.

George Washington, from a solid Virginia family, was seen as a man who could encourage greater participation from the middle and southern colonies. The commander in chief would need to be more than a general: he would need to be a symbol of resistance and, as unrest turned into revolution, he would have to inspire and lead an amateur army against a far more experienced foe.

Washington, standing at around six-foot two, fitted the bill for a physically imposing figurehead – but he would prove to be far more. From 1775 he led America’s fledgling army, through near-calamitous defeats and desperate shortages of supplies, to victory. His service was recognised and rewarded when he became the first president of the United States in 1789, six years after he had led his young nation to independence.

The young Washington

Washington was born into a comfortable world on 22 February, 1732. His family were plantation owners at Popes Creek in Westmoreland County, Virginia. Little is known of his childhood except for the fact that his father died when George was just 11. His older half-brothers were educated in England but George did not go to college, although he was taught the principles of surveying, which would come in useful when leading an army.