On July 9th, 1755, during the French and Indian War, after a difficult battle, George Washington gathered his troops and went to Fort Cumberland in western Maryland, arriving there on July 17, 1755.
The next day, Washington wrote a letter to his family explaining that after the battle was over, he had taken off his jacket and had found four bullet holes through it, yet not a single bullet had touched him; several horses had been shot from under him, and his hat had been shot off his head, but he had not been harmed. He told them:
By the all powerful dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation.
Washington openly acknowledged that God’s hand was upon him, that God had protected him and kept him through that battle.
However, the story does not stop here. Fifteen years later, in 1770 — now a time of peace — George Washington and a close personal friend, Dr. James Craik, returned to those same Pennsylvania woods. An old Indian chief from far away, having heard that Washington had come back to those woods, traveled a long way just to meet with him.
He sat down with Washington, and face-to-face over a council fire, the chief told Washington that he had been a leader in that battle fifteen years earlier, and that he had instructed his braves to single out all the officers and shoot them down. Washington had been singled out, and the chief explained that he personally had shot at Washington seventeen different times, but without any effect. Believing Washington to be under the care of the Great Spirit, the chief instructed his braves to cease firing at him. He then told Washington:
I have traveled a long and weary path that I might see the young warrior of the great Spirit….I am come to pay homage to the man who is a particular favorite of Heaven, and who can never die in battle.
- David Barton