George Washington - Portrait and Brief Bio

George Washington was born in 1732 to a family of Virginia farmers. As a teenager, he was interested in military arts and western expansion. At sixteen, he helped survey lands in the Shenandoah for Lord Fairfax.

In 1754, as a commissioned Lt. Colonel, he fought in the early skirmishes of the French and Indian War. The next year, while serving as an aide to Gen. Edward Braddock, he personally escaped injury even though two horses were shot (while he was riding them) and four bullets tore-up his coat.

Between 1759 and the beginnings of the revolutionary war, Washington managed his lands at Mount Vernon and served in the Virginia House of Burgesses. Married to Martha Dandridge Custis (whose first husband had died), he had a happy, busy life.

However, Washington (like so many other colonial farmers) believed that British merchants were exploiting the Americans and Parliamentary regulations were unfair. He was not afraid to firmly express his concerns about all the restrictions.

Washington was a delegate to the Second Continental Congress when it met in Philadelphia during May of 1775. After the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord - and before the Battle of Bunker Hill - Washington was elected Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. On the 3rd of July, 1775, he met his ill-trained troops at Cambridge (Massachusetts) and took command.

Washington used a strategy of harassment against the British. He reported to Congress that:

...we should on all Occasions avoid a general Action, or put anything to the Risque, unless compelled by a necessity, into which we ought never to be drawn.

During the war for American independence, Washington often ordered his troops to fall back slowly, then strike unexpectedly.