The way history is distorted can be very dismaying

Dear editor:

History is being distorted in a way that is very dismaying. In a June 13 letter to the editor, by Jim Ward, titled, "The US needs to get out of the UN," he states, that Washington, did in fact, get us into the foreign affairs of other nations.

I don't think there is any dispute about his leadership in leading our country in our war for independence from Great Britain. As President of the US, he stated in his farewell address, " It's our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances, with any portion of the foreign world. Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we must trust in temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies."(1)

I don't know where Jim got his ideas about Washington starting the French and Indian War as a Lt. Col. in the Continental Army. This event didn't happen until 1755 and Washington's service began earlier.

The French and Indian War began in 1754. The British had planned to build a fort at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers but the French seized the site and erected Fort Duquesne. Dispatched with an advanced party of 150 to occupy that post, Washington, following a successful skirmish with a French reconnaissance party, constructed Fort Necessity at Great Meadows. Reinforced, he resisted a larger French force under Coulon de Villiers, but finally surrendered under pre-arranged conditions.(2)

In 1755 Gen Edward Braddock headed some 1,400 British forces and Lt. Col. Washington had some 450 colonials. They now headed for Fort Duquesne. On the Monongahela about 8 miles below the fort, they were met by a mixed force of 900 French and Indians, surrounded and defeated at the Battle of the Wilderness. With Bradock mortally wounded, Washington led the remnant back to Fort Cumberland. (3)

It was readily apparent that the Indian tribes were allied with the French, and that any campaign like the Braddock's method would meet the same fate. The massacre at Monongahela was a costly and painful way to learn this lesson but Washington learned it deep down, which had become his preferred way to absorb all essential lessons.

For the second time he emerged from a disastrous defeat with an enhanced status.

No one blamed him for the tragedy -- Braddock was an easy target -- and Washington came to be called, " the hero of Monongahela "for rallying the survivors in an orderly retreat.(4)

(1) Page 20, The Growth of American Foreign Policy, by Richard W. Leopold.

(2) Page 67, Encyclopedia of American History, by Richard B. Morris.

(3) Page 67, Encyclopedia of American History.

(4) Page 23, His Excellency George Washington, by Joseph J Ellis.

Clair Densley