Posted on 01/07/2006 12:27:03 PM PST by Pharmboy
In 1754, a senseless massacre began innocently enough. A young George Washington, leading a force of Virginia volunteers and Indians, stumbled into an engagement with a French detachment in a remote Allegheny glen. To this day, the circumstances are cloudy as to who shot first and how the hostilities broke out. What is not in doubt is that Washington bungled badly: he lost control of his men, and before the mayhem ended, 13 Frenchmen were killed, wounded soldiers were brutally scalped and one man was even decapitated.
As is so often the case in history, this one small act, however miscalculated, had large consequences. It incited the French and Indian War (also known as the Seven Years' War). This was a confrontation no one wanted, but what started as a remote skirmish produced a chain of events that culminated in a fierce struggle among the British, the French and dozens of American Indian nations fighting for control of North America. And the conflagration eventually spread to Canada, the Caribbean, India, even the Philippines.
Yet, Fred Anderson writes, for all the conflict's scope and carnage, not to mention its implications, Americans are no more familiar with it than they are with the Peloponnesian War. This is a pity. True, Americans have long had an unquenchable appetite for the Civil War, and more recently for the founding fathers. But however obscure, the inaptly named French and Indian War is itself a drama of considerable significance, one that deserves to be rescued from the graveyard. It was Winston Churchill, after all, who once termed it the "first world war." Anderson, a history professor at the University of Colorado and the author of the splendid "Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766,"
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Just to note--I may be mistaken about the rank. Washington however did sign a letter of confession to the killing. He did, iirc, so under a mistaken impression that what he was signing was an admission of a accidental killing, for his interpreter so claimed the French word for "assassin" to mean.
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No harm, no foul. I think Martha had descendants though... ah, here it is... Mary Anne Randolph Custis Lee (wife of Robert E. Lee) was the grand-daughter of Martha.
Also, years ago (like 35) I recall reading a claim by a Japanese woman that Washington was her ancestor via his affair with a Japanese woman who worked for him.
Probably happened during his attendance at a conference on the planet Mars. ;')
http://www.homeofheroes.com/moh/memory/arlington.html
"George and Martha Washington had no children of their own, but the widowed Martha Dandridge Custis had brought two children to the family when the couple married in 1759. John Parke and Martha Parke Custis had grown up under the fatherly hand of George Washington. John named a son in his step father's honor, George Washington Parke Custis. When John Parke was killed at Yorktown in 1781, George and Martha Washington adopted two of their grandchildren. It was, therefore, the step-grandson of George Washington who would receive the estate of the Washington/Custis family. Included in that estate was the 1,100 acres overlooking the Capitol."
Martha Dandrige married Daniel Parke Custis and bore him four children, two of which did not survive early childhood (Daniel and Frances died at ages three and four, respectively). John (called "Jacky") and Martha (called "Patsy") were with Martha when she married George in 1759 and were raised by them (Daniel Parke Custis died and left Martha a widow in 1757).
Patsy had epilepsy and died in 1773 as a result of a seizure. Jacky and his wife Eleanor had four surviving children but he unfortunately died of "camp fever" (probably typhus) while an aide to his stepfather, General Washington.
Two of Jacky's children then stayed with their grandparents at Mt Vernon (George Washington Parke Custis and Nelly Custis) and both of them lived long lives.
Very interesting post here Pharmboy. Thanks.
Ah. More for my reading list!
Thanks!
See my post 25 above. John ("Jacky") was not killed at Yorktown, however; he died of camp fever, probably typhus.
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Sorry for the late ping....I have been away from my computer for the last couple of weeks.
"since my post seemed negative to wards Indians"
The truth is the truth, negative or otherwise.
I wish the reviewer(s) would at least mention that the 7-Years War was a European conflict, and that the French & Indian Wars were an outgrowth of that European war. The French & Indian Wars alone is not what is meant by the Seven Years War.
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