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Change "and blamed" in "The French later found their countrymen dead and scalped and blamed Washington, who had retreated to Fort Necessity" to ", blaming." Otherwise, it reads as though they "scalped and blamed Washington." Oliver Samuel Carter (talk) 09:09, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Recent edit re: Weems & the cherry tree story
Recently an article was added as a reference on the George Washington/cherry tree story. I am uncomfortable using this article as a reference for a couple of reasons:
The website the article appears in - liberty1(dot)org - is an unknown "vendor" owned/run by unknown people. I am unable to find out anything about its emblazoned owner the Institute for American Liberty...who owns it, who runs it, board of directors, etc.
The book that is quoted extensively in the reference's article - James Bish's I Can't Tell A Lie: Parson Weems and the Truth about George Washington's Cherry Tree, Prayer at Valley Forge, and Other Anecdotes - is self-published. Was there an editor? is there any kind of internal review?...well, since it was self-published there doesn't seem to have been a declared editor, not sure an internal review.
One thing that truly bothers me is that nowhere do Bish & Gardiner, in the Institute article, actually quote Weems's complete statements in his 1806/The Life of Washington the Great or in his 1808/The Life of George Washington: With Curious Anecdotes, Equally Honourable to Himself and Exemplary to His Young CountrymenDepending on the edition the Cherry Tree story does not appear until the 1806 & then in the subsequent editions. The 1808 edition does have the following on its Page 14:
George, said his father, do you know who killed that beautiful little cherry-tree yonder in the garden? and
I can't tell a lie, Pa; you know I can't tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet.
Bish & Gardiner's bone to pick with most historians/with the generally-known consensus is that the story has been characterized as a "myth" and that most historians declare that Washington chopped down the cherry tree in question. Why didn't the ref-article just include Weems's actual words?...
Bish/Gardiner does in fact quote Weems, on page 8. But the article isn't really about Washington; the authors soon leave off talking about Washington, and talk only about all the previous writing about Washington. Although it has interesting nuggets, it is not much use as a reference for our article about Washington.
I don't think our article needs to contribute to the discussion of whether Weems's stories were proven or disproven. The sentence saying that they have neither been proven nor disproven, along with the citation of Levy and of Bish/Gardiner, can be removed. The previous sentence is already citing the same page of Levy. Wikipedia also has an article about Parson Weems, and it give at least adequate emphasis to Gardiner and Bish, citing both the self-published article and Bish's self-published book. Bruce leverett (talk) 00:30, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Bish/Gardiner does in fact quote Weems, on page 8." I can't find a quote (of the complete story would be helpful) - as written by Weems - from any of Weems's various editions in the Bish/Gardiner article.
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