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The Second Continental Congress voted unanimously to put George Washington in charge of the Continental Army in 1775. Washington was only 43 years old at the time, a gentleman planter and local Virginian politician. He had not served in the military for over 20 years and his military service records was not particularly distinguished. What qualified Washington for the supreme confidence the young American rebels placed in him?

==Washington Takes Command==

Washington had suffered a crippling attack of dysentery and was not on hand for the initial Battle of the Monongahela and he rode up to find the Braddock Expedition in disarray. Washington gallantly attempted to organize what was left of the 2,400-man force and endured “4 bullets through my coat and two Horses shot [from] under.” <ref>Abbot, W.W.,<i>The Young George Washington and His Papers</i>, University of Virginia, 1999</ref>

History tells us that the Continental Congress chose wisely. Washington lost more battles than he won and made costly blunders in the field. He also displayed consummate bravery and leadership. And no man in the American colonies could have kept the Continental Army together and fighting for nearly nine years as George Washington was able to do. And he learned those skills from his checkered military experience twenty years earlier.

{{Mediawiki:Colonial History}}

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