232 Quiz Answer

 Don't forget, before the American Revolution we Americans were British.  And that includes the British colonel mentioned in this post, whose name was (drum roll) George Washington!

(Also for Three Word Wednesday and ABC Wednesday; "E" is for "epic")

Who was this British soldier?

Speaking of history – (which nobody was) – I’ve always been interested in the conflict known as the French and Indian War, because it seemed to me that it wasn’t covered much in school.

Way back decades before the American Revolution, a large portion of the American continent belonged to the British but a much larger portion belonged to the French.

In fact, the French possessed two to three times as much American land as the British.

So there was – what else? – a war.

The French, who had Indians on their side, built a great fort in what they regarded as the center of the American continent: Fort Duquesne.

They thought of it as the center because it was where three major rivers got together.  Fort Duquesne was built right smack on what is now, in a more mercenary age, downtown Pittsburgh.

The British fought the French and Indian War successfully.  It was a large part of the reason why the French decided to cash in their chips and check out.  They left their vast territory east of the Mississippi, and their even vaster territory west, to the British.  The French influence was pretty well eradicated in those areas.

The end result of that war was the beginning of modern America.

The French and Indian War started as a sort of local war story, but it turned into an epic; numbers of countries in Europe were involved in the squeamish fight, a massive international conflict that came to be known as the Seven Years’ War.

But to get back to our French and our Indians, here’s what always interested me about that struggle. One of the most important people involved was a young red-coated British lieutenant-colonel, who led his British red-coat troops when fighting in that war.

 

Here’s a picture of that British colonel, proudly wearing the red-coat uniform in which he had served his monarch, King George.  He certainly played an important part in the formation of modern America.

What was his name?

(The answer will be posted Friday)