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WASHINGTON AND HIS COMRADES AT VALLEY FORGE.
Washington had met defeat in every considerable battle at which he was personally present.

His first appearance in military history, in the Ohio campaign against the French, twenty-two years before the Revolution, was marked by a defeat, the surrender of Fort Necessity.
Again in the next year, when he fought to relieve the disaster to Braddock's army, defeat was his portion.

Defeat had pursued him in the battles of the Revolution--before New York, at the Brandywine, at Germantown.

The campaign against Canada, which he himself planned, had failed.