Washington, GEORGE, was born February 22 (New Style), 1732, at Bridges Creek, Westmoreland county, Virginia. He died, without issue, December 14, 1799, at Mount Vernon on the Potomac. Copyright 1892 in U.S. by J. B. Lippincott Company.
He came of good English stock, being descended from the Washingtons of Northamptonshire. At an earlier time the family seems to have lived in the more northern part of England, and we cannot be far out of the way in tracing his origin to the mingled Norse and Angle blood of Yorkshire. In 1658 George Washington's grandfather, John Washington, first appeared in Virginia, and soon acquired wealth and position. He commanded the Virginia militia in the disgraceful attack on the Indians in Piscataway Fort, Maryland. For his share in this enterprise he was reprimanded by Governor Berkeley. The people, however, seem to have been on his side. He died soon after, and took no part in Bacon's rebellion against Berkeley (1676). John Washington's second son, Augustine, was the father of George Washington, by his second wife Mary Ball. Augustine died while George was still a mere boy, leaving a large family, and means inadequate to the upbringing of the younger children.
Nothing is known of Washington's childhood, notwithstanding the many stories which have gathered about his name. He seems to have been a good, healthy boy of strong physique, with a sober-mindedness somewhat beyond his years. In 1747 he went to Mount Vernon, the residence of his half-brother Lawrence, who, as the eldest son of Augustine Washington, had received the better part of the Washington property, and an English education. The removal was a good thing for the boy, as it gave him access to books and to better teachers, and brought him into contact with the Fairfax family, to which Lawrence Washington's wife belonged. His love of hunting seems to have been the thing that attracted Lord Fairfax to him. At all events, in 1748, when Washington was sixteen years of age, Lord Fairfax employed him to survey the property in the Valley of Virginia which he had inherited from the avaricious Lord Culpeper of Charles II.'s time. Surveying alternated with hunting, and the winters were passed at Mount Vernon. Still Washington acquired from these expéditions habits of self-reliance and endurance which such a life alone teaches. In 1751 he accompanied his brother, who was dying of consumption, to the Barbadoes; and this seems to have been the only time he went beyond the limits of the continental colonies. In 1752 Lawrence Washington died, leaving him guardian of his only daughter, and heir to his estates in the event of that daughter's death without issue. Lawrence Washington had seen some service with Admiral Vernon, and, either because he noticed warlike ability in his younger brother or for some other reason, determined to give him a military training. He therefore invited two of his old comrades in war to Mount Vernon, and there in the intervals of surveying and hunting Washington was taught the manual of arms and the elements of the art of war.
The French at this time (1752) were connecting their settlements on the Great Lakes with those on the Mississippi by a chain of posts on the Ohio. This region was regarded as within the sphere of English influence—to apply a phrase of the day to the earlier time. Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia determined to warn the intruders off. He sent one messenger who returned frightened before half the distance had been accomplished. Looking about for a more efficient messenger, his attention was called, perhaps by Lord Fairfax, to young Washington, and he was sent. This time there was no turning back, and the task was performed in the same relentlessly thorough way so characteristic of his later doings. There has come down to us a journal describing this trip, and it is one of the pleasantest bits of writing from Washington's pen. The French, however, paid no attention whatever to his warning. Dinwiddie determined to drive them off by force, and an expedition was sent against them of which Washington was nominally second in command. In reality, owing to the death of his superior, he was in command during the important part of the campaign. The event was unfortunate. Washington was driven back, surrounded, shut up in a little fort commanded by higher ground, and forced to surrender. But he had learned a valuable lesson in military science. It was at this time that an order was issued from the headquarters of the English army to the effect that any field-officer holding a royal commission could command a colonial officer, no matter what the respective ranks of the two men might be. Washington, notwithstanding his love of war, at once resigned. He was induced, however, to serve on Braddock's personal staff, a position which made him independent of the regular officers. In this capacity he gave a great deal of good advice, which was disregarded, and saved the remnant of the van of Braddock's army. He was then placed at the head of the Virginia forces, and in 1756 visited Boston to see General Shirley, the English commander-in-chief, and settle the matter of rank. This was arranged to Washington's satisfaction, and he continued in the service. This journey to Boston and back made Washington's face and figure known to many persons in the Middle and New England colonies, and undoubtedly contributed in no small degree to his selection as commander-in-chief in 1775. For the remainder of the war he did what he could, giving advice to English generals—which was seldom followed—and extorting money and supplies from a reluctant legislature. But barren of tangible results as these years were, they were nevertheless the most important in that formative process which made him the patient, tenacious, clear-headed man of the revolution. This struggling was a mere foretaste of what was coming to him.
The years from the close of the Seven Years' War (1763) to the meeting of the Continental Congress in 1774 are the most attractive in Washington's life. He seems to have had more than his share of love affairs, but none led to marriage, until in 1758 he fell in love with a rich young widow, Martha Custis (1732-1802). The wooing was short, and the marriage was celebrated in 1759. His niece was now dead, and the combined estates of Mount Vernon and of the widow Custis made him one of the richest men in the land. He kept open house, entertained liberally, led the hunting, and produced honest grain and tobacco. Virginia life in those times was rude and boisterous. Yet one likes to look back on it and see the young Virginia colonel leading the life of his day, such as it was. He represented his county in the House of Burgesses, and acted as vestryman of his parish. From this peaceful life, however, he was once more to emerge and place himself at the head of the resistance to England.
Familiar with war, Washington wished to try all peaceful measures first, and was thus one of the leaders in the anti-importation movements. But as time went on he became slowly convinced that nothing save force would secure to his countrymen their rights. The question at issue was really the same as the dispute about military precedence. Washington, regarding himself and his countrymen as the equals of any subjects of George III., believed in self-government for America, and prepared to oppose coercion by force.
He represented Virginia in the First and Second Continental Congresses, and at once took a leading part. He was no orator like Patrick Henry, nor writer like Thomas Jefferson. But in rude common sense and in the management of affairs he excelled them all. More than this, however, he was the one American soldier of national reputation, and when congress organised the national resistance he was necessarily appointed commander-in-chief. He possessed remarkable powers as a strategist and tactician, but it was as a leader of men that Washington stood forth pre-eminent. There seems to have been something in his bearing and presence to inspire confidence. He also possessed the happy faculty of always rising to the dignity of the occasion, while never going beyond what the occasion demanded. It was this composed, well-dressed gentleman who took command of the New England farmers and mechanics assembled at Cambridge in the summer of 1775. At first he did not understand them, nor they him, but before long he brought order out of confusion, and at the same time won the love and respect of his men. It seems scarcely credible that these half-disciplined, half-armed men should have held cooped up in Boston a comparatively large, thoroughly-disciplined and well-equipped army, and still more incredible that they should have compelled its final departure. Of course the retreat from Concord and the slaughter at Bunker Hill had much to do with it. But these disasters were themselves due to the incompetence of the English commander. Indeed Washington's fame as a military man was dimmed by the incompetency of his opponents. The only really able commander opposed to him was Cornwallis, and he was hampered in the campaigns where they were opposed by the stupidity of his immediate superior. Whether a strong, able man could have brushed aside the besiegers of Boston may perhaps be doubtful. But it can hardly be maintained that such a man would have allowed Washington to save his army in the autumn of 1776, and certainly he would have made such a crushing campaign as that of Trenton impossible. It is a part of the art of war to judge one's opponents correctly, and Washington, judging his opponents correctly, undertook movements which, under other circumstances, should have cost him his army. In fact it may be said that his battle was not with the enemy, but with his friends. His army was always crumbling to pieces owing to short enlistments, and the very necessities of life were sometimes unattainable. But through it all Washington appears, except on the rare occasions when he lost control of his temper, the same silent, composed, well-dressed gentleman.
The end of the war came, and with it the temptation which comes to successful commanders in civil wars. The army wished to make him ruler of the country—partly through respect for him, partly to secure the pensions and lands which had been promised them by congress. On his side Washington wished to lead his countrymen into orderly government out of the confusion and chaos in which they were then involved. The easy way to the accomplishment of this purpose would have been to make himself the lawgiver. He might even have founded a dynasty. But Washington never for one moment faltered. He had fought the great war to secure the rights of his fellow-countrymen, not for his own aggrandisement. Singularly enough there are persons who almost blame Washington for preferring his country's good to his own greatness.
Washington retired to Mount Vernon and turned his attention to securing a stronger government by constitutional means. Society seemed almost falling to pieces. By 1787 matters had reached such a pass that even congress moved, and a convention of delegates from twelve states met at Philadelphia and formulated the present constitution of the United States. Over the deliberations of this convention Washington presided. The government under this constitution began in 1789 with Washington as first chief-magistrate or president.
To his new office he brought the same qualities which had contributed so much to the success of the revolution—the same honesty of purpose and dignity of character. As soon as it was fairly started, the people saw that the new government was entirely unlike the old. It was a strong consolidated government, as the enemies of the constitution declared it would be. Parties were formed, led by Washington's two most trusted advisers, Jefferson and Hamilton. Washington's position with regard to these early parties has been a subject of dispute ever since his death. One set of biographers represent him as standing apart and above faction, as striving to moderate the asperities of political life. They point to the fact that Jefferson, a known opponent of the constitution, was called to the highest position in the cabinet, and assert that upon his retirement the place was offered to Patrick Henry, who had opposed the ratification of the constitution more strenuously than any other man. Another set of biographers represent him as a party man and leader of the Federalist or strong government party. They assert that at the time of his appointment Washington was not aware of Jefferson's opposition to the constitution. They furthermore deny that the secretaryship of state was ever offered to Henry, and point to the fact that Washington called himself a Federalist in a letter written in 1799. Probably there is truth in both views. At the outset it seems that Washington was desirous of enlisting on the side of the new government the ablest men in the country, whether they had approved or disapproved the precise form of the constitution. As time went on, however, it became evident that those desiring greater liberty for the individual would no longer be content with passive opposition. A strong party, almost at once, sprang into life, and began a campaign which has never been surpassed for personal abuse and virulence. Stung by their taunts, Washington lost his faith in American institutions, and went over heart and soul to the Federalist party. He declared in one letter that he had been attacked in such 'indecent terms as could scarcely be applied to a Nero, a notorious defaulter, or even to a common pick-pocket.' In another letter he proposed that none but persons of 'sound politics' should be appointed to high offices in the army, and was doubtful of the advisability of admitting members of the opposition or Republican party to the army at all—thus proscribing about half the male population of the country as persons who could not be trusted. Fortunately the election which occurred soon after these letters were written turned the government over to the care of Jefferson and the party which abetted 'the nefarious views of another nation upon our rights,' to use Washington's own words. He did not live to see how wholly in the wrong he was, as he died a few months after these sentences were written.
At the outset it seemed desirable to surround the new government with ceremony and show. Washington therefore was accustomed to open congress in person, driving there in a cream-coloured coach drawn by four or six white horses, with servants in livery. He made a speech to the assembled legislators, and they, in return, addressed him—all being apparently modelled on the English customs. Then, too, his receptions were more formal, if possible, than those of royalty itself. Washington held his hand behind his back, and bowed civilly to those who were presented to him. All this savoured of monarchy, and the opposition, seeing their chance, charged that Hamilton and the Federalists intended to introduce monarchy. There is no reason to suppose the charge true—although Hamilton no doubt preferred a monarchical form of government. But the people believed it to be true.
In great contrast to this violence on either side was Washington's farewell address, advising his countrymen above all to 'be Americans.' In fact, of all the many striking things in Washington's life and work his Americanism stands forth. At a time when those about him were provincials he was an American. He thought America should stand aloof from the conflicts of Europe, and inaugurated a policy of neutrality which has remained the policy of the country from his time to ours.
Washington's early education was poor, and he began his life-work at the age when most boys are entering upon a college career. This deficiency in his training was more patent to him perhaps than to any other person. To the very last he was engaged in remedying this defect, and died a fairly well read man in history and politics. He knew no language but his own, but he was familiar with the masterpieces of the English tongue.
For a list of Washington's writings, see Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. viii. pp. 416 et seq. Many were published, with a Life, by Chief-justice John Marshall (5 vols. 1804); and a new edition of his complete works, containing many letters and papers not previously published, has been prepared by Worthington C. Ford (vol. i. New York, 1888). The Life by Washington Irving (5 vols. 1855-59; abridged and revised by John Fiske, 1888) must be mentioned out of many. The best study of Washington as a man is Henry Cabot Lodge's George Washington ('American Statesmen', 1889); see also Gen. B. T. Johnston's Washington ('Great Commanders', 1893) and Thackeray's Virginians.