George Washington: Gentleman warrior

It is easy to forget that the dignified eighteenth-century gentleman whose image appears on the one-dollar bill, the first President and father of his nation, owed his position entirely to his prowess as a soldier. Stephen Brumwell’s book charts the two phases of his military career, firstly fighting for King George II, then fighting against King George III.

George Washington was born into a landowning family in Virginia and was expected to become a gentleman planter like his forebears. But the appeal of adventure on the frontier drew him to enlist – with no formal military training ‒ as a militia officer. Five years of tough campaigning followed, defending the western fringes of Britain’s colonies against encroachment by the French and their Indian allies. At the age of just twenty-two, Washington was appointed colonel of the Virginia Regiment, and he experienced all the horrors of war, including the torture and scalping of prisoners by tribesmen on both sides, before the frontier was finally pacified and the French repelled.