Note—Today begins a four part series on the life, times, achievements, and
flaws of the proclaimed Father of the Country, George Washington. May it be a reminder of how far we have
fallen.
Today is George Washington’s Birthday except it isn’t unless you live in Virginia, Illinois,
Iowa, or New York. Those are the only states that still mark
the occasion as an official stand alone
holiday. And outside of the old
boy’s native Virginia you would be hard
pressed to find evidence of it outside of mattress
sale ads. Nobody
gets off work for it anymore. Schools
are generally in session working too
hard cramming for standardized testing to do much about
it. Since Ditto machines became obsolete
I doubt if second graders even get
silly Cherry Tree handouts to sniff and color. Of
course, George usually gets top billing
with Abe Lincoln for the Presidents Day Federal holiday, but
it’s just not the same.
Too bad. The Father
of Our Country; First in War,
First in Peace, First in the Hearts of his Countrymen;
etc. was an interesting dude. He was one of the few who can truly be said to indispensable men of their
age. While not the stiff plaster saint devoid of common human foibles often depicted, he had
enough grit, determination, and personal rectitude to hold an Army in the field for eight
years against the mightiest empire on Earth with precious few victories under his belt and yet prevail—with a little help from the French. He then helped shepherd a unique new republican government into existence and
became the unifying leader that kept
the component states from flying apart by centrifugal force. And most astonishing of all,
he walked away from power at the appointed date
and let another take his place unchallenged or
molested. That unprecedented
act set in motion 220 years of—mostly—peaceful transfers of power excepting
the Civil War and attempts to overthrow the 2020 election
results spinning out of control.
To begin with George wasn’t even born on February 22. He first saw the light of day on February
11, 1731 under the old Julian Calendar then
still in use by England and its colonies. He was an ambitious 21-year-old in 1752 when Britain adopted the Gregorian Calendar losing 11 dates and
changing his birthday. It must have been
confusing and disorienting.
Washington's modest birthplace--Pope's Creek in Westmoreland County, Virginia.
He was the son of a second marriage of a modestly prosperous planter and member
of the gentry. His Father died when he was just 11 years
old and he became the ward of his older half-brother Lawrence who had married
into the fabulously wealthy Fairfax
family, Virginia’s largest
landowners. The boy, without a fortune of his own, famously mooned over the lovely Sally Fairfax,
the young wife of Lord Fairfax himself. She may, or may not, have encouraged the attentions. George wrote up
rules for himself to adopt the manners of the aristocracy and get ahead in
the world.
He received a middling education from a local
Anglican priest and dreamed of following brother Lawrence into service in
the Royal Navy. His domineering
mother squashed that dream when he was 15 and the right age to have a midshipman’s berth purchased for
him.
He took up surveying when
he was 17 and laid out tracts in the
western counties of Virginia,
sparking a lifelong interest in
western lands.
When Lawrence died in 1752—the year
of the calendar change, George came into his estate, Mt. Vernon
named for the Admiral who Lawrence had served under. The next year he was appointed a district adjutant of the Virginia Militia with the rank of Major.
A fanciful depiction of the death of Ensign Joseph Coulon de Jumonville
near Ft. Duquesne was based on French accounts of the affair which
depicted Jumonville as an unarmed diplomat assassinated under a white
flag by Washington's men, although this version shows him trying to
intercede. What ever happened, it sparked a world-wide war.
His military career got off to a fast
start by essentially starting a world
war. Dispatched to protect the
interests of the Ohio Company land
speculation scheme, Washington discovered the Ohio Company fort at the present
site of Pittsburgh had fallen to a
party of French and their Native allies and that they were
building their own Ft.
Duquesne. The young officer and his
militia men along with Mingo allies ambushed the French party killing most
of them including its leader Joseph
Coulon de Jumonville. Jumonville may
have been killed by the Mingos while Washington’s prisoner. The
story is unclear.
Washington began to build his own Ft. Necessity near the
former Ohio Company post, but his party was attacked and he was captured by the French before he could
complete it. He was paroled and expelled by
the French and allowed to return to Virginia with his troops where he was
greeted as a hero. The French accused him of assassinating Jumonville and after a couple of years of diplomatic wrangling the incident
became the casus belli of the Seven Years War or the French and Indian War in North America in 1756.
None-the-less, he
was exhilarated by the battle and
wrote to his brother, “I heard the bullets whistle, and, believe me, there is
something charming in the sound.”
Given Washington’s unique experience it was no surprise that he was tapped as the senior
American aide to British General
Edward Braddock in 1755 for his expedition
to expel the French from the
Ohio country. It was the largest deployment to date of British Regulars who along with
colonial militia and Native allies were supposed to capture Ft. Duquesne. Because no American officer could serve above the rank of captain without appointment from London,
Washington was denied a field command
at the rank of major and reluctantly was officially listed as a volunteer aid to the General. Braddock was a conventional European soldier with no experience in the irregular warfare of the frontier. He tried to push a heavy column over the mountains
and through thick woods while
hacking a stump road for the baggage train and artillery. It was slow going and gave the French, alerted
by their Native allies, ample time to
prepare.
Finally, on
Washington’s recommendation, Braddock
split his forces with a fast moving
flying column leaving the heavy construction crews and baggage behind with
a rear guard. Braddock took command of the lead column with
Washington, who had been ill with fever,
at his side. At the Battle of the Monongahela the well prepared French and Indians
ambushed the lead column, cutting it to
pieces and mortally wounding Braddock. Washington
coolly rallied the British and
Virginia Militia and organized an orderly
retreat from what had been a rout. He had two horses shot out from under
him and his coat was torn by four musket balls. The expedition limped home.
Washington was
hailed as a hero by his troops, but the British held him at fault for his advice on splitting the force. He was not posted to the next British expedition against the French. And his hopes for a Regular Army commission
and a scarlet coat were dimmed.
Instead, Washington
was made Colonel of the Virginia Regiment and “Commander in Chief of all forces now
raised in the defense of His Majesty’s Colony” in 1755. The regiment, known as the Virginia Blues, was the first in the
Colonies with full time professional
soldiers, who were regularly drilled
and outfitted with full uniforms and military equipment rather than ill organized, equipped and trained
Militia turned out for short service.
The troops were
mostly draftees from the poorest levels of Virginia society and included some mulattos and native “half-breeds”. Washington whipped them up into a respectable
fighting force and deployed them in a string of frontier forts and blockhouses
to protect settlers from Indian raids sponsored by the
British. He led his men in brutal campaigns against the Indians
where his regiment fought 20 battles in 10 months and lost a third of its men.
As a result, Virginia’s frontier suffered
less than that of other
colonies. Years of low level frontier
warfare followed.
In 1758 he and
elements of his regiment were part of a new
drive against the French in the Ohio country—the Forbes Expedition. Despite the ultimate
success of that expedition which ultimately drove the French from Ft. Duquesne,
Washington saw little action and that was an embarrassing snafu—his men and a British unit mistook each other
for the French in the heavy woods and 14 men were killed in a friendly fire disaster.
That might have
contributed to Washington’s decision to resign
his commission when he got home, but more likely was his continuing disappointment in the British refusal
to incorporate the Blues into the
Regular Army with a commission for himself.
Despite his love for the military, he “retired” to manage his Mt. Vernon estate and other properties in in
December of 1758.
Martha Washington was not always the heavy set, grey haired matron
familiar to most of us. As Martha Dandrige Custis she was an
attractive--and very rich--widow when Washington married her.
But there seems to
have been an even more compelling motive. On January 6, 1759 he married 28 year old Martha Dandridge Custis, a wealthy widow with two children despite the
fact that she was older than him and he still secretly pined for Sally
Fairfax. But Martha was still beautiful, charming, and compatible. She also had shown she could capably manage a plantation on her
own. She was an excellent partner for the ambitious George and soon they were devoted to each other, and he dedicated himself to raising her
children when it became apparent that
he would have none of his own.
Martha was, in fact,
not just wealthy, but barring the Fairfax family, one of the richest persons
in Virginia. She brought with her not
only more plantations and property but hundreds of slaves most of which she retained
in her name but who joined the score or so that Washington owned and were
soon all working under his exacting direction. The young, retired officer had vaulted
from the middling gentry to the front ranks of the Virginia aristocracy
with all the prestige and responsibility that entailed.
Washington threw
himself into the management of his properties, especially the home estate
at Mount Vernon. He began expanding the modest home his brother had left into
to the impressive white mansion we
see today with additions and modifications being constantly
made. He rode the extensive grounds daily personally overseeing the work of the plantation and spent hours at his desk planning and pouring over
business matters.
Seeing other Tidewater planters beginning to suffer
from a total reliance on tobacco as a cash crop as it exhausted the soil and yields fell off, Washington sought to diversify his planting and began to
employ the earliest innovations in scientific farming including crop rotation being explored by Scottish agronomists. He
put in wheat, rye,
oats, flax, and hemp in addition to tobacco.
He strove to make the plantation as self-reliant
as possible building grist mills,
whiskey distilleries,
sawmills, a rope
walk, and directed wheels and looms in the slave quarters to
spin flax and wool into yarn and weave the homespun into rough cloth. He raised fine horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs and his busy smoke
houses produced plenty of bacon and
fine hams. The sale of his surplus production eventually rivaled the revenue from his tobacco
barns. He grew richer by the year.
Washington at an older age was depicted as a kind slave master supervising haying in this painting by Junius Brutus Stearns.
Virtually all of the
labor was provided by his slaves, who he found more honest and trustworthy
than most hired white help. Many rose from field hands to become skilled
craftsmen, overseers, and household servants. A few were taught to read and write to help with the details
of administration. Washington was a firm and exacting master, but by the standards of the day he was a fair one. Whipping and other corporal
punishment was sparing. And because he was interested in
expanding his slave holdings to serve his bustling properties, he seldom sold his slaves or separated families. After
all, he preferred to breed slaves rather
than buy them. And unlike so many other masters, Washington
did not use his female slaves as a private
harem. His rectitude and loyalty to
Martha prevented common sexual abuse that
was rife among slave holders.
Still, no matter how
you cut it, there is no denying that the vast wealth that Washington amassed on
the base of his brother’s estates and his wife’s properties was the direct result of slavery.
Despite all of this,
Washington was still in debt to his
British creditors for the importation of luxury goods for his household, especially in the early years of
his marriage as he sought to establish his social
standing. When Martha’s daughter Patsy Curtis died in his arms of epilepsy in 1773 it was a crushing personal blow. But he came personally into half of
Patsy’s substantial estate with which he was able to pay off his English debt in full and permanently—a rare feat
among the Virginia aristocracy.
It was not all
work. Washington enjoyed the amusements of his class—fox hunting at which he excelled and developed his reputation
as the finest horseman in
Virginia. He entertained a stream of guests of the cream of Virginia society and visitors from other colonies and the Mother Land. He enjoyed social dancing at which he was said to be quite graceful. He also assumed the duties of a leading squire like the office of vestryman at his local Anglican parish despite a growing deism that detached him
from conventional and orthodox Christianity. He joined a local Free Mason Lodge, not taking it terribly seriously at first but
then becoming immersed in its mysteries and rituals, the true source of
the spiritual life that he could no
longer find at the communion rail. And of course, in addition to minor local offices and honors, was
elected a member of the House of
Burgesses.
Given his wealth and
status, Washington could easily have become a Tory, like the Fairfax family he had long sought to emulate. But beginning in the mid 1760’s he began to throw his lot increasingly with those restive under the Crown and Parliament. Perhaps it was the lingering resentment of a
soldier who was never made a Regular, perhaps it was the spirit of the age.
He was never a deep or original political thinker like George Mason or a firebrand like Patrick Henry,
but he was a steady, firm political
presence. The Stamp Act of 1765 stirred him to action and became especially
active after the adoption of the Townsend
Acts two years later in which Parliament
tried to re-assert its authority over the colonies with a series of taxes, levies, and punitive actions aimed mostly at Massachusetts and New York. In response Boston merchants began to agitate for non-importation declarations by the Colonies.
In 1769 Washington
and George Mason spearheaded the movement in Virginia where the House of
Burgesses passed a resolution
stating that Parliament had no right to
tax Virginians without their consent. Governor Lord Botetourt dissolved the assembly which then
met at Raleigh Tavern and adopted a boycott agreement known as the Association. It was a critical turning point.
When Washington posed for his first portrait for Charles Wilson Peale at
the age of 40 in 1772 he was proud to wear his old Virginia Blues
uniform. He could still cut a dashing figure in it when he wore it to
the Second Continental Congress three years later.
The furor in the
Colonies led to the Townsend Act to be repealed
in 1770 except for the tax on tea left in place as both an important revenue source and an
assertion of Parliamentary authority. But agitation in the New World continued and in 1774 London responded with what the
Colonies called the Intolerable
Acts. Washington was livid he wrote to a friend,
They are an
Invasion of our Rights and Privileges…I think the Parliament of Great Britain
has no more right to put their hands in my pocket without my consent than I
have to put my hands into yours for money… [We must not submit to acts of
tyranny] till custom and use shall make us as tame and abject slaves, as the
blacks we rule over with such arbitrary sway.
Washington not only blew off steam, he acted.
In July 1774, he chaired the meeting at which the Fairfax
Resolves were adopted calling for the
convening of a Continental Congress. The next month he attended the First Virginia Convention and was elected
as a delegate to the First Continental Congress.
George Mason, Virginia's leading intellectual figure, authored the
Fairfax Resolves that called for a Continental Congress, but it was
George Washington's prestige a Chairman of the meeting that helped get
them adopted.
Meanwhile things
were getting out of hand in Boston where the British had closed the port to
trade, occupied the city, and quartered
troops on the town. Things blew up in April of 1775 when Massachusetts Militiamen resisted
efforts by British Regulars to seize armories
inland. The Battles of Lexington and Concord
and the Siege of Boston by
Militia troops from throughout New England followed.
When the Second Continental Congress convened in
Philadelphia in the midst of the
crisis, Washington showed up in his old Virginia Blues uniform and cut a
dramatic, martial figure. His life, and the fate of the colonies, would
be changed forever.
Tomorrow—Part II, First in War….
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