新GRE写作名人素材库：华盛顿_GRE写作

新GRE写作名人素材库：华盛顿

　　In 1774, Washington participated in the First Continental Congress and took command of the Virginia militia; by the next year the Second Congress, impressed with his military experience and commanding personality, made him commander in chief of the Continental army . With remarkable skill, patience, and courage, Washington led the American forces through the Revolution, struggling not only with the British but with the stingy Continental Congress and also on occasion with resentful fellow officers. Notable among his achievements were his bold crossing of the Delaware to rout enemy forces at Trenton on Christmas night of 1776 and his holding the army together during the terrible winter encampment at Valley Forge in 1777--8. His victory over the British at Yorktown effectively ended the war, but for almost two more years he had to strive to keep the colonists from splintering into selfish enterprises.

　　Washington returned to Mount Vernon in 1783, but maintained his presence in the debate over the country s future. He solidified that role when he chaired the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention of 1787. In 1789, the first electors unanimously voted Washington as president; he was reelected in 1793. A natural leader rather than a thinker or orator, he had great difficulty coping with an unruly new government, futilely resisting the growing factionalism that resolved into the forming of Hamilton s Federalist Party - to which Washington finally gravitated - and Jefferson s liberal Democratic-Republican Party.