Rapidly, on both sides, the spirit of vengeance spread. The savages, with their fiend-like natures roused, perpetrated deeds of cruelty which demons could not have surpassed. They made no discrimination. The English were to be exterminated. When the frontiersman was roused, at midnight, by the yell of the savages, and being left for dead upon the ground, with his scalp torn from his head, after some hours of stupor revived to see his cabin in ashes, the mangled corpses of his children strewn around, with their skulls cleft by the tomahawk, and not finding the remains of wife or daughter, was sure that they were carried into Indian captivity, perhaps to be tortured to death, for the amusement of howling savages--as thus bleeding, exhausted, and in agony he crept along to some garrison house, he was in no mood to listen to the dictates of humanity. Thus the terrible conflict which arose, assumed the aspect of a war between maddened fiends. George Washington had attained the age of nineteen years. Youthful as he was, he was regarded as one of the prominent men of the State of Virginia. Every day brought reports of tragedies enacted in the solitudes of the wilderness, whose horrors will only be fully known in that dread day of judgment when all secrets will be revealed. It became necessary to call the whole military force of Virginia into requisition, to protect the frontiers from the invasion of savage bands, who emerged from all points like wolves from the forest. The State was divided into districts. Over each a military commander was appointed, with the title of Major. George Washington was one of these majors. The responsibilities of these officers were very great, for they were necessarily invested with almost dictatorial powers. The savages would come rushing at midnight from the wilderness, upon some lonely cabin or feeble settlement. An awful scene of shrieks and flame and death would ensue, and the band would disappear beyond the reach of any avenging arm. In such a war the tactics of European armies could be of but little avail. The State of Virginia was then, as now, bounded on the west by the Ohio river, which the French called La Belle Rivière. England claimed nearly the whole North American coast, as hers by the right of discovery, her ships having first cruised along its shores. The breadth of the continent was unknown. Consequently the English assumed that the continent was theirs, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, whatever its breadth might be.[7]