Page 72 - Dragon Flood
P. 72
It was this same minister who concocted the story of George Washington kneeling in the
snow to pray to God while his army was camped at Valley Forge.
One of his best known stories of Washington's piety comes from Weems' account of
Washington praying at Valley Forge. Weems tells of a man named Isaac Potts who
silently witnesses an unsuspecting Washington, kneeling humbly in the snow, praying for
God's blessing of his troops. Although the story was questioned as early as the 1850s, it
became emblazoned on the American memory by a painting by Henry Brueckner in the
1860s.
[Source: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~cap/gw/gwmoral.html]
George Washington - Prayer at Valley Forge
George Washington was not the saint Weems portrayed him to be. Weems biographies were
seeking to counteract less favorable portrayals of Washington that appeared at the time. I
suspect that Weems made no mention of Washington building the largest whiskey distillery
in America following his retirement from office.
Washington’s Whiskey Distillery
Rather than manifesting the selflessness Weems describes, Washington had purely
pecuniary motives. Writing to James Anderson, Washington’s plantation manager, he
stated the following:
