When George Washington was 21 years old, he went on a dangerous mission into the wilds of the Ohio River Valley to deliver a message from the Virginia colonial governor to a French military base, Fort Le Boeuf, a message to prevent war between England and France. The journey was harrowing and dangerous as Washington, joined by frontiersman Christopher Gist and Iroquois leader Tanacharison, also called the Half-King, braved the bitter cold of an unforgiving winter.
Washington wrote of his journey as a report to the governor, but he gave an incomplete portrait of the goings on of his journey, for he was attacked. He was attacked by something he could not explain. Something not of the New World but of the Old. Something that had preyed upon innocent for centuries. Something that scared him so much that he refused to report it to anyone.
Here, for the first time, is the full account of the colonial major's journey. Far more than an act to prevent conflict between nations, it became a conflict that pitted evil against a man unlike any other, a man who had to potential within him to lead a nation.