Continental Army

Continental Army general; key to winning the war in the South; 1742—86.
Washington’s aide-de-camp, lawyer, contributor to the Federalist Papers, Secretary of the Treasury; 1755/1757—1804.
Continental Army general, chief artillery officer, first Secretary of War; 1750—1806.
Continental Army officer, aide-de-camp to Washington, son of Henry Laurens; 1754—82.
Continental Army general, formerly a British officer; 1732—82.
”Light Horse Harry”; Continental Army officer, Virginia governor; 1756—1818.
Irish-born Continental Army general, formerly a British officer; 1738—75.
Aide-de-camp to Washington throughout the Revolutionary War; 1744—1786.
Commander-in-chief of the Continental Army; first President; 1732—99.
Continental Army general, defeated the British at Stony Point; 1745—96.

[George] Mason’s obvious legacy is in his contribution to America’s founding documents: the Declaration of Independence through the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the Constitution through his role at the Philadelphia Convention, and the Bill of Rights through his dogged opposition to a Constitution without one. Mason may have taken a circumscribed view of the rights he advocated — limiting the right of representation to white men or restricting freedom of the press to a ban on prior restraint — but he put words on paper that could be given more expansive meanings by later generations.

Jeff Broadwater
George Mason: Forgotten Founder (2006)