Around 2,200 British troops are marching over the Appalachian Mountains. Their mission—seize the French Fort Duquesne. It’s July 9, 1755, the French and Indian War. The British militia, with the likes of Colonel George Washington and a 20-year-old wagon driver named Daniel Boone in its ranks, are suddenly attacked by French soldiers and their native allies along the Monongahela River.

There are around 900 British casualties in The Battle of the Monongahela, as Washington rides repeatedly through withering gunfire, back and forth, to deliver orders to Gen. Edward Braddock, Commander in Chief of the British forces. Braddock is mortally wounded and Washington helps remove him from the field of battle.

Many mounted officers are shot, yet Washington emerges unharmed. On July 18, 1755, he writes this to his younger brother, John Augustine Washington:

As I have heard, since my arrival at this place, a circumstantial account of my death and dying speech, I take this early opportunity of contradicting the first, and of assuring you, that I have not as yet composed the later.

But by the All-Powerful Dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation: for I had four bullets through my coat and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, although death was leveling my companions on every side of me!

According to a later account, an Indian warrior reportedly declares:

Washington was never born to be killed by a bullet! I had seventeen fair fires at him with my rifle and after all could not bring him to the ground!

Twenty years before leading the Continental Army, George Washington survives the day that first made him a legend.

One is hard-pressed to declare this a fictional story, so we’re forced to accept it as fact. But what about the third alternative—a miracle?

A worthy question.

You decide.