The first extraneous citation of "Under God" in the Writings of George Washington is a footnote found in Ford, Volume II, pp 412, 413. It is not Washington's authorship, and is instead a letter written by Richard Henry Lee to Samuel Adams:
The Virginia Assembly convened at Williamsburg on Thursday, May 5th. The earlier days of the session were occupied with matters connected with the Indian outbreaks and the boundary disputes with Pennsylvania; but the news of the Boston Port Bill, closing that town to all foreign trade after June 1st, was soon known in Virginia, and in the then disturbed condition of public opinion could have but one effect. "Infinite astonishment and equal resentment," wrote a member of the Assembly on the 20th, "have seized every one here, and a resort to the expedient of 1769-70, a general agreement to stop all trade with Britain, appeared probable. The House is now pushing on the public business for which we are called here at this time; but before we depart our measures will be settled and agreed on. The plan is extensive; it is wise, and I hope under God, it will not fail of success." At the instance of the younger and more aggressive members of the Assembly, Robert Carter Nicholas moved on May 24th to appoint June 1st as a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer, and that the Burgesses attend church in a body on that day. The motion was carried, and the governor on the 26th, hearing that the fast was intended to prepare the minds of the people to receive other resolutions of the House, presumably intended to still more inflame the whole country and instigate the people to acts that might rouse the indignation of the mother country against them, with the unanimous consent of the council, dissolved the Assembly, on the ground that the terms of the resolution reflected highly upon the King and Parliament of Great Britain.
What these other resolutions might have been is shown by the paper prepared the day before dissolution by Richard Henry Lee, denouncing the dosing of Boston as "a most violent and dangerous attempt to destroy the constitutional liberty and rights of all British America," and proposing a general congress of the Colonies, "to consider and determine on ways the most effectual to stop the exports from North America, and for the adoption of such other measures as may be most decisive for securing the rights of America against the systematic plan formed for their destruction." He was prevented from proposing these resolutions by many worthy members, "who wished to have the public business first finished, and who were induced to believe, from many conversations they had heard, that there was no danger of a dissolution."
R. H. Lee to Samuel Adams, 23 June, 1774.
The second extraneous citation of "Under God" in the Writings of George Washington is found in a letter to his brother, John Augustine Washington. In Ford, it is cited as a letter dated November 19, 1776, but in Fitzpatrick it is noted as the November 19, 1776 continuation of a letter which George Washington began to write on November 6, 1776. In both citations the phrase is the last word and first word of two separate sentences: "Under. God". It is found in the last paragraph of the letter:
I am glad to find by your last Letter that your family are tolerably well recoverd from the Indisposition they labourd under. God grant you all health and happiness; nothing in this world would contribute so much to mine as to be once more fixed among you in the peaceable enjoyment of my own Vine, and fig Tree. Adieu my dear Sir; remember me Affectionately to my Sister and the Family, and give my Compliments to those who enquire after your* Sincerely Affectionate Brother.
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