The obscure Quaker Isaac Potts, an otherwise unknown and insignificant figure in history, told of a poignant moment he personally witnessed during the ravages of the early days of America’s War for Independence. It was a scene at Valley Forge—amply recreated in paintings, drawings and popular media—of George Washington, the general of the American army, a bowed man whose shoulders carried the burdens of freedom through that grist mill of defeat and deprivation, dropping to his knees in final desperation to lay his petition for relief before God.
Quaker Potts is the sole source of the details of this event, telling it to family and associates. It’s a tale of lasting endurance drawn from the frozen mud of stark discouragement and death among the dwindling hovels of troops who then sustained the cause of freedom on that wintry day.
Seldom mentioned about this lowest point in their slogging struggle is that after his fervent and private communion with his Father in Heaven, General Washington gathered about himself what remained of his faith, his courage, and his inner resolve—and the man stood up.
He stood up against the arrogance of an all-powerful ruler who had dispatched death to smother the embers of freedom.
He stood up against the arbitrary chains of abject obedience forged around the throats of people wanting nothing more but their liberty and their lives.
He stood up against the tyrant who held the executioner’s axe that forced Washington and his troops into this forge of the worst kind.
He stood up against an impotent Congress rendered chaotic and inept to unify the colonies or materially support the war because of their failed Articles of Confederation.
He stood up against the consuming collapse of a broken heart for the losses of men about him, suffering through starvation, disease, and the cold, leaving nameless bloody tracks in the snow as lonely monuments to their passages through the great struggle for freedom.
He stood up against all that would destroy and enslave and end the great cause that brought them to this place in the snow, this Valley Forge, where the only sentinel preventing an escape was his own personal resolve. And all around him, the powers of the cold, the elements, the collapsing decay of mortality and conflict, squeezed away the last drops of ability and hope, and callously poured them into the frozen earth—leaving just threadbare fingers of faith clutched in humble prayer. For this, George Washington stood up this one last time—for his life, for his liberty, and for his sacred honor.
And when he stood up, others in their rags and illness and misery saw it. Taking courage, they stood up with him, and so rose the greatest nation in the history of the world.
If free Americans are willing to stand up with Washington, stand up against the forces that are drowning human capacity, to put the virtues of freedom within their own hearts, and then stand up across the world in one vast united front, it is entirely possible to celebrate within our lifetimes this, the grandest prize of all, “Freedom in our time for all mankind!”