nemies of his
country, wherever they were to be found, and drive them from the face
of the wide earth. To give these feelings some relief, he would muster
his little school-fellows at play-time, and take them through the
lessons of a military drill; showing them how to fire and fall back,
how to advance and retreat, how to form in line of march, how to pitch
their tents for a night's encampment, how to lay an Indian ambuscade,
how to scale a wall, how to storm a battery; and, in short, forty
other evolutions not to be found in any work on military tactics ever
written, and at which old Wooden Leg, had he been there, would have
shaken his cocked hat with a dubious look. Then dividing them into two
opposing armies, with himself at the head of one, and the tallest boy
of the school leading on the other, he would incite them to fight sham
battles with wooden swords, wooden guns, snow-balls, and such other
munitions of war as came most readily to hand; in which George, no
matter what might be the odds against him, or what superior advantages
the enemy might have in weapons or ground, was always sure to come off
victorious.

He was a handsome boy, uncommonly tall, strong, and active for his
age; could out-run, out-jump, out-ride any boy three years older than
himself; and, in wrestling, there was not one in a hundred who could
bring his back to the ground. Many stories are told of his wonderful
strength; and the spot is still shown, where, when a boy, he stood on
the banks of the Rappahannock River, and, at its widest part, threw a
stone to the opposite side,--a feat that no one has been found able to
perform since that day. It was said, that, a few years later, he stood
under the Natural Bridge, and threw a silver dollar upon the top of
it,--a height of two hundred and twenty feet; not less than that of
Bunker-hill Monument, and more than double that of the tallest hickory
that ever hailed down its ripened nuts upon your heads. Although there
were none more studious than he in the schoolroom, yet he always took
the keenest delight in every kind of active and manly sport, and was
the acknowledged leader of the playground. But he had qualities of
mind and heart far more desirable and meritorious than those of mere
bodily activity and strength. Such was his love of truth, his strong
sense of justice, and his clearness of judgment, that, when any
dispute arose between his playmates, they always appealed to him to
decide the dif