America’s Godly Heritage Part 3 by David Barton

When Americans were still British citizens before the Revolution, it had been illegal to print English-language Bibles in America, but with the final American victory over the British at Yorktown, that policy was terminated. Robert Aitken, a local Philadelphia printer, therefore approached Congress, seeking permission to print an English language Bible on his presses, pointing out that it would be “a neat edition of the Holy Scriptures for the use of schools.”

Congress agreed, approved his request, and appointed a congressional committee to oversee the project. 16 In late summer, 1782, the committee announced that the Bible was ready for print; 17 on September 12, 1782, Congress officially approved that Bible 18 and it soon began rolling off the presses – the first English-language Bible ever printed in America. In the front of that Bible is a congressional endorsement declaring: 

Whereupon, Resolved, That the United States in Congress assembled . . . recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States. Of this event – and the Bible it produced – an early historian observed:

Who, in view of this fact, will call in question the assertion that this is a Bible nation? Who will charge the government with indifference to religion when the first Congress of the states assumed all the rights and performed all the duties of a Bible Society long before such an institution had an existence in the world!  

Another well-documented (but today unfamiliar) part of America’s Godly heritage involves the account of a young George Washington during a fierce military battle in which his life precariously hung in the balance for two hours but was miraculously spared. In fact, following that event, Washington himself openly acknowledged that it had been by the direct intervention of God that he remained alive.  

The incident occurred during America’s French and Indian War (1753-1763). At that time, England and France – two long-standing bitter enemies that had warred against each other for centuries in Europe – claimed the same land in America along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. They went to war to settle that dispute; those living in America at the time took sides, with most of the Indians joining the French and most of the American colonists joining the British.

Great Britain, seeking to drive the French from the inland parts of America, dispatched 2,300 handpicked, veteran British troops to the colonies. Those troops, under the command of distinguished veteran General Edward Braddock, arrived in Virginia and were joined by a hundred Virginia buckskins, led by their twenty three year old colonel, George Washington.

They then set out for the mouth of the Ohio River to expel the French from Ft. Duquesne (now the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), a young washington miraculously spared durng a particularly fierce battle gen. braddock. Having arched hundreds of miles, Braddock temporarily halted his troops at Fort Cumberland. They were still more than a hundred miles from the French fort, but Fort Cumberland would serve as a staging ground for the attack. Braddock dispatched his force in four waves, with himself, George Washington, the Virginians, and 1,200 chosen British troops comprising the third wave and principal military force (the first two groups had been the engineering force with its workers and their military protection, sent out to open a road through the wilderness; the fourth group was the baggage and equipment wagons bringing up the rear). By July 9, 1755, Braddock’s force had moved within seven miles of the French fort, and while following a path leading through a wooded ravine, they marched into a waiting ambush; the French and Indians opened fire on them from both sides.  

Fortunately, Braddock’s group was composed largely of battle-hardened British veterans accustomed to war, but unfortunately they were veterans of European wars. European warfare was traditionally conducted in the open: one army lined up at one end of an open field and the other army lined up at the opposite end; they faced each other, took aim, and fired. The British now found themselves in the Pennsylvania woods with the French and Indians firing at them from the tops of trees, behind rocks, and under logs; the British were completely unfamiliar with woodland warfare.