George Washington, Frontiersman

by Zane Grey

First published 1994

Amazon

3.6(67)

George Washington, Frontiersman follows Washington from his Virginia youth through the experiences that formed him before the American Revolution. Surveying work takes him into the Shenandoah and Ohio country, where land speculation, Indigenous diplomacy and rivalry between Britain and France turn the western frontier into a school for both politics and military leadership.

Washington’s service during the French and Indian War brings defeat as well as advancement, including the difficult lessons of frontier campaigning and relations with colonial authorities. The novel then carries him towards 1775, when the Continental Congress selects him to command the new American army. Rather than beginning with the celebrated general, the story concentrates on the frontier years that made that later role possible.