Ticonderoga evacuated
by the British.

CHAPTER XI.

Defects in the Commissary departments.... Distress of the army at
Valley Forge.... The army subsisted by impressments.... Combination in
congress against General Washington.... Correspondence between him and
General Gates.... Distress of the army for clothes.... Washington's
exertions to augment the army.... Congress sends a committee to
camp.... Attempt to surprise Captain Lee.... Congress determines on a
second expedition to Canada.... Abandons it.... General Conway
resigns.... The Baron Steuben appointed Inspector General.... Congress
forbids the embarkation of Burgoyne's army.... Plan of reconciliation
agreed to in Parliament.... Communicated to congress and rejected....
Information of treaties between France and the United States....
Complaints of the treatment of prisoners.... A partial exchange agreed
to.

THE LIFE

OF

GEORGE WASHINGTON

CHAPTER I.

Birth of Mr. Washington.... His mission to the French on the
Ohio.... Appointed Lieutenant Colonel of a regiment of
regular troops.... Surprises Monsieur Jumonville....
Capitulation of fort Necessity.... Is appointed aid-de-camp
to General Braddock.... Defeat and death of that general....
Is appointed to the command of a regiment.... Extreme
distress of the frontiers, and exertions of Colonel
Washington to augment the regular forces of the colony....
Expedition against fort Du Quesne.... Defeat of Major
Grant.... Fort Du Quesne evacuated by the French, and taken
possession of by the English.... Resignation of Colonel
Washington.... His marriage.

{1732}

[Sidenote: Birth of Mr. Washington.]

George Washington, the third son of Augustine Washington, was born on
the 22d of February, 1732, near the banks of the Potowmac, in the
county of Westmoreland, in Virginia. His father first married Miss
Butler, who died in 1728; leaving two sons, Lawrence and Augustine. In
1730, he intermarried with Miss Mary Ball, by whom he had four sons,
George, John, Samuel and Charles; and one daughter, Betty, who
intermarried with Colonel Fielding Lewis, of Fredericksburg.

His great grandfather, John Washington, a gentleman of a respectable
family, had emigrated from the north of England about the year 1657,
and settled on the place where Mr. Washington was born.

At the age of ten years he lost his father. Deprived of one parent, he
became an