Being George Washington by Glenn Beck Page B
Authors: Glenn Beck
Tags: History, Non-Fiction
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Nowhere?
Modern-day Fort Lee is located at the west end of … the GEORGE WASHINGTON Bridge. It’s actually kind of a fitting commentary on history: without Washington, Lee is pretty irrelevant.
Whatever the reason, things were not going well at all. The British had all the momentum, and their soldiers were already receiving a hero’s welcome in the streets of New York after their victory. Washington’s men, meanwhile, were demoralized, unorganized, disappearing, and dying. Enlistments for many of the remaining men were rapidly ending. The weather was getting brutal. The fate of an entire fledgling nation hung in the balance. And now, much like arsenic icing on a cake of rat poison, some of Washington’s top commanders were not only ignoring his orders, they were actually plotting
against
him.
These were the perilous circumstances confronting George Washington in the winter of 1776—circumstances so difficult that they inspiredThomas Paine to urgently write
The Crisis
and begin with the immortal line
“These are the times that try men’s souls.”
The character beneath George Washington’s steely surface was not about to be formed—it was about to be revealed … and then put to the ultimate test.
CULTIVATING CHARACTER
No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States.
—GEORGE WASHINGTON, FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS
It goes without saying that George Washington was not a dumb man. He knew that the odds were stacked so high against him that it defied all logic to push forward and attack. Any general worth his salt would retreat all the way to Philadelphia and try to protect the capital. An attack on the notorious Hessian army in Trenton would be suicidal—especially in the unforgiving cold. This was an easy call. Or, at least it should’ve been.
Who Were the Hessians?
Most people know the Hessians were mercenaries. But they weren’t
volunteer
mercenaries. They weren’t like Christopher Walken in
The Dogs of War
hiring out on his own. These Hessian guys were basically draftees who were hired out by their ruler for cash on the barrelhead. The landgrave of Hesse-Kassel got the bucks; these poor slobs got shot at.
Now, don’t get me wrong, the Hessians didn’t make a lot of friends in America. They played rough. They looted and murdered with the worst of them.
But here’s the takeaway: freedom is contagious—even to eighteenth-century storm-trooper dudes.
While they were here, killing us, they saw what freedom was like for the very first time. They saw how decently Washington treated them whenthey were captured. They got the message. Some of them—a lot of them—bought into the American Dream.
At war’s end, 17,313 Hessians returned to Germany. No surprise there. But 4,972, more than one in five, remained to settle here among their old enemies.
They chose America. They chose
freedom.
Washington’s decision-making process during this extremely tumultuous time gives us an inside look at his character. Ever since his childhood days he had respectfully listened to the opinions of others. “Let your conversation be without malice or envy,” he had copied out to his notebook as a teenager. “Always submit your judgment to others with modesty.” In 1776, that meant listening to other military brass—even if he disagreed with every single one of them. He probably never imagined that practicing such seemingly obvious and mundane virtues as a boy would play such a large role in arguably the most important war in all human history (we’ll see this same virtue play itself out in the critical battle at Yorktown).
But what if instead of being modest, Washington had been an arrogant mess like Charles Lee? What if he had been unable to win the trust of the men he’d led into battle? How would things have been different? Would those men have followed him through hell on earth?
Probably not. It’s far more
Modern-day Fort Lee is located at the west end of … the GEORGE WASHINGTON Bridge. It’s actually kind of a fitting commentary on history: without Washington, Lee is pretty irrelevant.
Whatever the reason, things were not going well at all. The British had all the momentum, and their soldiers were already receiving a hero’s welcome in the streets of New York after their victory. Washington’s men, meanwhile, were demoralized, unorganized, disappearing, and dying. Enlistments for many of the remaining men were rapidly ending. The weather was getting brutal. The fate of an entire fledgling nation hung in the balance. And now, much like arsenic icing on a cake of rat poison, some of Washington’s top commanders were not only ignoring his orders, they were actually plotting
against
him.
These were the perilous circumstances confronting George Washington in the winter of 1776—circumstances so difficult that they inspiredThomas Paine to urgently write
The Crisis
and begin with the immortal line
“These are the times that try men’s souls.”
The character beneath George Washington’s steely surface was not about to be formed—it was about to be revealed … and then put to the ultimate test.
CULTIVATING CHARACTER
No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States.
—GEORGE WASHINGTON, FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS
It goes without saying that George Washington was not a dumb man. He knew that the odds were stacked so high against him that it defied all logic to push forward and attack. Any general worth his salt would retreat all the way to Philadelphia and try to protect the capital. An attack on the notorious Hessian army in Trenton would be suicidal—especially in the unforgiving cold. This was an easy call. Or, at least it should’ve been.
Who Were the Hessians?
Most people know the Hessians were mercenaries. But they weren’t
volunteer
mercenaries. They weren’t like Christopher Walken in
The Dogs of War
hiring out on his own. These Hessian guys were basically draftees who were hired out by their ruler for cash on the barrelhead. The landgrave of Hesse-Kassel got the bucks; these poor slobs got shot at.
Now, don’t get me wrong, the Hessians didn’t make a lot of friends in America. They played rough. They looted and murdered with the worst of them.
But here’s the takeaway: freedom is contagious—even to eighteenth-century storm-trooper dudes.
While they were here, killing us, they saw what freedom was like for the very first time. They saw how decently Washington treated them whenthey were captured. They got the message. Some of them—a lot of them—bought into the American Dream.
At war’s end, 17,313 Hessians returned to Germany. No surprise there. But 4,972, more than one in five, remained to settle here among their old enemies.
They chose America. They chose
freedom.
Washington’s decision-making process during this extremely tumultuous time gives us an inside look at his character. Ever since his childhood days he had respectfully listened to the opinions of others. “Let your conversation be without malice or envy,” he had copied out to his notebook as a teenager. “Always submit your judgment to others with modesty.” In 1776, that meant listening to other military brass—even if he disagreed with every single one of them. He probably never imagined that practicing such seemingly obvious and mundane virtues as a boy would play such a large role in arguably the most important war in all human history (we’ll see this same virtue play itself out in the critical battle at Yorktown).
But what if instead of being modest, Washington had been an arrogant mess like Charles Lee? What if he had been unable to win the trust of the men he’d led into battle? How would things have been different? Would those men have followed him through hell on earth?
Probably not. It’s far more
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