Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1914-02-17


81 bow OF boat crossing the Delaware
~ amid floating blocks of ice on thu.
memorable Christmas night to
fight the battle which turned the
tide of the revolution in the right
| direction But no painter could
1A-A1 delineate the heroism of the actual
scene. His were ragged-half
naked BESIDES the running ice in the river. there
was binding blizzard, and it was SO bitter cold
that the chief loss on the American side was of
the men who, though Injured to pioneer hardshlps.
froze to death that awful night.
Did General Washington stand in his boat in
that dangerous current during a driving storm
and stare pompously at the opposite shore? Not
he. Instead of that. he sat tight" and caioled
the men, using every device that might make them
forget their terrible situation; telling them
a facetious story, which, coming from him, star
tied them, set their blood tngling and made them
obliVioUs to the cold ana dangers around them.
That was the graDdest deed in the military STRAIT
agem which made Frederick the Great of Prussia,
and, indeed. the whole world wonder at the
genius Of Washington
Nearly every one knows the outside of the
story OF the siege of Boston by the new com
mander-n-chief, who had come to the continental
congress a wealthy Virginia colonel, and his
nonoescTipt crowd of raw recruits. wholly unused
net only to military discipline but even to mill
tary forms. But few know of the transcendent
blum General Washington had to put up when he
discovered that there were but few rounds of
gunpowder in the possession of the whole Ameri-
can army. while the British were amply supplied
with ammunition and might sally forth any hour
against the American irregular"
Some one had Numbered" Many a COM
mander would have shown up the improvident
officers who had that matter in charge and pee
vishly thrown up the command rdiculously i'm
possible. But General Washington did not tell his
most trusted officers OF the excruciating dilemma
m Ia lTupW fba awful
would spread if known TO u few, and the great
cause of justice might be lost He began quietly
10 scour the country for gunpowder. He soon
found that the nearest place at which airy guam
uty could be had was in magazine the island
of, Bermuda. To get that required secret expe-
dition. much hazard and many weeks; but Wash
ington's nerve was equal to the fearful strain
During that long, tense interval the American
troops were working away upon the Notifications,
preparing for grand attack Meanwhile the
young commander-inchief was entertaining
hospitality at his headquarters, the Craige man
sion, now best known as 'Longfellows Home" in
Cambridge. AS a pleasant diversion. Lady
Washington, then of the wealthiest women in
America, came to visit the general, and all the
countryside was agog over her coach-and-four with
six black Positions in white and scarlet livery.
Even the British. cooped up in Boston, i'm
pressed by the resources and apparent confidence
Of the American generalissimo.
While expedition was gone to Bermuda
for powder, General Knox, with small force,
succeeded in bringing number OF cannon
eral hundred miles on OK seds in midwinter
from Fort NTiconderoga. In those times that
tried mems souls" it vas Washingtcns iron
nerve, supported by his broad of humor,
sometimes scintillating with radiance worthy
OF a Franklin or a Lincoln, which saved the day
This was only one OF many occasions which
Washington had TO fight out the revolution alone.
friend OF LincOln's said OF him, The
rrH..z
truer of washington than any one seems to have
realized in a day when strict gravity without
leVity, was expected Of public characters. To
laugh or to see the humorous side of an incident
was considered the sign of frivolous disposi-
ton.
WashiRgtons early biographers solemn
men, To have told in their books how much their
hero laughed would have been, in their opinion.
wantonly exposing his weakness to public gaze,
Men like "Parson" Weems renegade preacher and
tramp fiddler though he was, had been brought
up to think that laughing worse than wick
edit was vulgari" In straining to make their
hero appear to have been n demigod. those pedan.
tic biographers related not what George Wash
ingtOn really did. out what they imagined such
boy or man ought to have done under given con-
ditions.
Washington would have laughed heartily at
Weems' ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS story if he had
ever heard (which he never did for it not
invented till later edition of the erring rectors
juvenile history, six years after Washingtons
death. Yet the real hero of the cherry-tree fic-
ton would have found it the occasion of gravity
well mirth. In the stilted story OF Little
George and His Pa Weems only carrying
out the idea of his time: tell not what the small
boy actually did. but what the consummate little
prig be conceived little George Washington to
have been would have done If he had cut down his
fathers favorite cherry tr.e
II little George Washington had been the insult
feraSle little pTig described by Mr. Weems, his
hali-brothers world not have loved him better
than their own brothers, their own children.
for that matter. His early life was fuller of
citing experiences Than any fiction. Yet the life
OF young Washington Is yet TO be told as az
venture story. Eyes' In his quaint little diaries
he early dlscloses lively seI.se of humor-ssg
age humor sometimes. but broad and boyish. He
showed this by telling only the jokes against him
self When he lad OF sixteen he led sur
veying party to lay the lands OF his old friend,
Lord Fairfax, in the wilderness of the Shenan-
doah. Here is one OF his experiences as "A
'tendertoot" recorded on Tuesday March Is
FATS:
We got our Suppers & was lighted INTO
Room and l. not hsing SC good a Woodsman
Ye rest OF my company. stripped myself very or
DERBY. s went into yo Bed. as they called it,
when to my surprise found it to be nothing but
a little straw-matted together without sheets or
anything else bu. one threadbare blanket with
double its weight of Ve-min. such as Lice FIeas
&c.
! was glad to get up Gas as ye light was