George Washington himself had little actual military experience. In 1755 he was an aide to Braddock in Pennsylvania, but saw no action in the campaign. Later that year, at age twenty-three, he was named colonel and commander –in-chief of the Virginia forces, automatically becoming a brigadier in 1758 when the colony expanded its militia to two regiments (a brigade). Washington and the Virginians served with General John Forbes in a short campaign, once more against Fort Duquesne in 1758. In all, his experience was confined to what fighting he had done in the wilderness: a series of disjointed skirmishes with no opportunity to exercise field evolutions and deployment, and no command of cavalry or artillery.

Nonetheless, Washington, in the war to come, had a natural advantage over the well-practiced British commanders he faced. Despite his relative lack of a military history and his need to learn as the war progressed, he answered the dictum of Clausewitz, who poisted that “a remarkable, superior mind and strength of character” are better qualifications in a commander than an extensive military background. (JJG)

For more information, please visit: "Washington, George." Encyclopedia Britannica. 2007.