Not George Washington?
Oh, Yes, “Gen’l George” is up there as well, but he’s a given. He’s just such a monumental figure in our history. His exploits are amazing.
I remember reading about Lewis and Clarke and the Corps of Discovery as a kid and wishing I’d been on that expedition. I loved that time period of our history. And of course, we ALL know - NOW, because we’ve been told by “experts” - that they’d have NEVER made it without Sacajawea, because they were too incompetent to figure their own way... (sarc, of course)
The westward expansion into the wilderness. Amazing... except for the evil white men treating the poor, peaceful, gentle natives so cruelly, because we’ve been told by “experts”.
Jefferson had this absolutely giant mentality of individual liberty and hostility towards anything tried to oppress “the little guy” that transcends time. He’s the embodiment of American liberty to me. But this is negated, of course, because “he owned slaves” and “may have slept with his slave woman”...because we’ve been told by “experts”
Another American that I always admired was Colonel Custer (Brevet General). A much maligned figure - of late - but when he died, it was considered by the Americans of that time as a National tragedy. He actually tried to deal fairly with the Indians’ grievances against corrupt government Indian Agency personnel who were swindling the tribes. Also chased out miners who were trespassing in the Black Hills (Sioux holy land). You don’t hear about all that, though...only that he was some arrogant dumb-ass idiot that split his command into three and managed to get himself and 280 guys wiped out...because we’ve been told by “experts” that this is so.
We’ve been treated to our own history being re-written to demonize or smear OUR heroes, our history, our accomplishments.
That’s why the ONLY way to learn history is to read the accounts of these folks from the time that they happened - not from some idiot Marxist “social studies” professor who never held a real job in his life.
And teach our children to learn it the same way.