Note 26 — Chapter II · The First Military Expedition.

It would seem that Washington had daily public prayers in the camp, reading the service himself. Mr. Irving writes, “It certainly was not one of the least striking pictures presented in this wild campaign—the youthful commander presiding with calm seriousness over a motley assemblage of half-equipped soldiery, leathern-clad hunters and woodsmen, and painted savages with their wives and children, and assisting them all in solemn devotion by his own example and demeanor.”—Life of Washington, in two volumes, vol. i. p. 42.