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An
early ambition to go to sea had been effectively discouraged by
George's mother; instead, he turned to surveying, securing (1748) an
appointment to survey Lord Fairfax's lands in the Shenandoah Valley.
He helped lay out the Virginia town of Belhaven (now Alexandria) in
1749 and was appointed surveyor for Culpepper County. George
accompanied his brother to Barbados in an effort to cure Lawrence of
tuberculosis, but Lawrence died in 1752, soon after the brothers
returned. George ultimately inherited the Mount Vernon estate.
By 1753
the growing rivalry between the British and French over control of
the Ohio Valley, soon to erupt into the French and Indian War
(1754-63), created new opportunities for the ambitious young
Washington. He first gained public notice when, as adjutant of one
of Virginia's four military districts, he was dispatched (October
1753) by Gov. Robert Dinwiddie on a fruitless mission to warn the
French commander at Fort Le Boeuf against further encroachment on
territory claimed by Britain. Washington's diary account of the
dangers and difficulties of his journey, published at Williamsburg
on his return, may have helped win him his ensuing promotion to
lieutenant colonel. Although only 22 years of age and lacking
experience, he learned quickly, meeting the problems of recruitment,
supply, and desertions with a combination of brashness and native
ability that earned him the respect of his superiors.
FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR
In
April 1754, on his way to establish a post at the Forks of the Ohio
(the current site of Pittsburgh), Washington learned that the French
had already erected a fort there. Warned that the French were
advancing, he quickly threw up fortifications at Great Meadows, Pa.,
aptly naming the entrenchment Fort Necessity, and marched to
intercept advancing French troops. In the resulting skirmish the
French commander the sieur de Jumonville was killed and most of his
men were captured. Washington pulled his small force back into Fort
Necessity, where he was overwhelmed (July 3) by the French in an
all-day battle fought in a drenching rain. Surrounded by enemy
troops, with his food supply almost exhausted and his dampened
ammunition useless, Washington capitulated. Under the terms of the
surrender signed that day, he was permitted to march his troops back
to Williamsburg.
Discouraged by his defeat and angered by discrimination between
British and colonial officers in rank and pay, he resigned his
commission near the end of 1754. The next year, however, he
volunteered to join the expedition of British general Edward
Braddock against the French. When Braddock was ambushed by the
French and their Indian allies on the Monongahela River, Washington,
although seriously ill, tried to rally the Virginia troops. Whatever
public criticism attended the debacle, Washington's own military
reputation was enhanced, and in 1755, at the age of 23, he was
promoted to colonel and appointed commander in chief of the Virginia
militia, with responsibility for defending the frontier. In 1758 he
took an active part in the successful campaign of Gen. John Forbes
against Fort Duquesne. From his correspondence during these years,
Washington can be seen evolving from a brash, vain, and opinionated
young officer, impatient with restraints and given to writing
admonitory letters to his superiors, to a mature soldier with a
grasp of administration and a firm understanding of how to deal
effectively with civil authority.
VIRGINIA POLITICIAN
Assured
that the Virginia frontier was safe from French attack, Washington
left the army in 1758 and returned to Mount Vernon, directing his
attention toward restoring his neglected estate. He erected new
buildings, refurnished the house, and experimented with new crops.
With the support of an ever-growing circle of influential friends,
he entered politics, serving (1759-74) in Virginia's House of
Burgesses. In January 1759 he married MARTHA DANDRIDGE CUSTIS, a
wealthy and attractive young widow with two small children. It was
to be a happy and satisfying marriage.
After
1769, Washington became a leader in Virginia's opposition to Great
Britain's colonial policies. At first he hoped for reconciliation
with Britain, although some British policies had touched him
personally. Discrimination against colonial military officers had
rankled deeply, and British land policies and restrictions on
western expansion after 1763 had seriously hindered his plans for
western land speculation. In addition, he shared the usual planter's
dilemma in being continually in debt to his London agents. As a
delegate (1774-75) to the First and Second Continental Congress,
Washington did not participate actively in the deliberations, but
his presence was undoubtedly a stabilizing influence. In June 1775
he was Congress's unanimous choice as commander in chief of the
Continental forces.
THE
AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Washington took command of the troops surrounding British-occupied
Boston on July 3, devoting the next few months to training the
undisciplined 14,000-man army and trying to secure urgently needed
powder and other supplies. Early in March 1776, using cannon brought
down from Ticonderoga by Henry Knox, Washington occupied Dorchester
Heights, effectively commanding the city and forcing the British to
evacuate on March 17. He then moved to defend New York City against
the combined land and sea forces of Sir William Howe. In New York he
committed a military blunder by occupying an untenable position in
Brooklyn, although he saved his army by skillfully retreating from
Manhattan into Westchester County and through New Jersey into
Pennsylvania. In the last months of 1776, desperately short of men
and supplies, Washington almost despaired. He had lost New York City
to the British; enlistment was almost up for a number of the troops,
and others were deserting in droves; civilian morale was falling
rapidly; and Congress, faced with the possibility of a British
attack on Philadelphia, had withdrawn from the city.
Colonial morale was briefly revived by the capture of Trenton, N.J.,
a brilliantly conceived attack in which Washington crossed the
Delaware River on Christmas night 1776 and surprised the
predominantly Hessian garrison. Advancing to Princeton, N.J., he
routed the British there on Jan. 3, 1777, but in September and
October 1777 he suffered serious reverses in Pennsylvania--at
Brandywine and Germantown. The major success of that year--the
defeat (October 1777) of the British at Saratoga, N.Y.--had belonged
not to Washington but to Benedict Arnold and Horatio Gates. The
contrast between Washington's record and Gates's brilliant victory
was one factor that led to the so-called Conway Cabal--an intrigue
by some members of Congress and army officers to replace Washington
with a more successful commander, probably Gates. Washington acted
quickly, and the plan eventually collapsed due to lack of public
support as well as to Washington's overall superiority to his
rivals.
After
holding his bedraggled and dispirited army together during the
difficult winter at Valley Forge, Washington learned that France had
recognized American independence. With the aid of the Prussian Baron
von Steuben and the French marquis de Lafayette, he concentrated on
turning the army into a viable fighting force, and by spring he was
ready to take the field again. In June 1778 he attacked the British
near Monmouth Courthouse, N.J., on their withdrawal from
Philadelphia to New York. Although the lack of enterprise of
American general Charles Lee ruined Washington's plan to strike a
major blow at the army of Sir Henry Clinton at Monmouth, the
commander in chief's quick action on the field prevented an American
defeat.
In 1780
the main theater of the war shifted to the south. Although the
campaigns in Virginia and the Carolinas were conducted by other
generals, including Nathaniel Greene and Daniel Morgan, Washington
was still responsible for the overall direction of the war. After
the arrival of the French army in 1780 he concentrated on
coordinating allied efforts and in 1781 launched, in cooperation
with the comte de Rochambeau and the comte d'Estaing, the
brilliantly planned and executed Yorktown Campaign against Charles
Cornwallis, securing (Oct. 19, 1781) the American victory.
Washington had grown enormously in stature during the war. A man of
unquestioned integrity, he began by accepting the advice of more
experienced officers such as Gates and Charles Lee, but he quickly
learned to trust his own judgment. He sometimes railed at Congress
for its failure to supply troops and for the bungling fiscal
measures that frustrated his efforts to secure adequate materiel.
Gradually, however, he developed what was perhaps his greatest
strength in a society suspicious of the military--his ability to
deal effectively with civil authority. Whatever his private
opinions, his relations with Congress and with the state governments
were exemplary--despite the fact that his wartime powers sometimes
amounted to dictatorial authority. On the battlefield Washington
relied on a policy of trial and error, eventually becoming a master
of improvisation. Often accused of being overly cautious, he could
be bold when success seemed possible. He learned to use the
short-term militia skillfully and to combine green troops with
veterans to produce an efficient fighting force.
AFTER THE WAR
After
the war Washington returned to Mount Vernon, which had declined in
his absence. Although he became President General of the Society of
the Cincinnati, an organization of former Revolutionary War
officers, he avoided involvement in Virginia politics. Preferring to
concentrate on restoring Mount Vernon, he added a greenhouse, a
mill, an icehouse, and new land to the estate. He experimented with
crop rotation, bred hunting dogs and horses, investigated the
development of Potomac River navigation, undertook various
commercial ventures, and traveled (1784) west to examine his land
holdings near the Ohio River. His diary notes a steady stream of
visitors, native and foreign; Mount Vernon, like its owner, had
already become a national institution.
In May
1787, Washington headed the Virginia delegation to the
Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and was unanimously
elected presiding officer. His presence lent prestige to the
proceedings, and although he made few direct contributions, he
generally supported the advocates of a strong central government.
After the new CONSTITUTION was submitted to the states for
ratification and became legally operative, he was unanimously
elected President (1789).
THE
PRESIDENCY
Taking
office (Apr. 30, 1789) in New York City, Washington acted carefully
and deliberately, aware of the need to build an executive structure
that could accommodate future presidents. Hoping to prevent
sectionalism from dividing the new nation, he toured the New England
states (1789) and the South (1791). An able administrator, he
nevertheless failed to heal the widening breach between factions led
by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of the Treasury
Alexander Hamilton. Because he supported many of Hamilton's
controversial fiscal policies--the assumption of state debts, the
Bank of the United States, and the excise tax--Washington became the
target of attacks by Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans.
Washington was reelected president in 1792, and the following year
the most divisive crisis arising out of the personal and political
conflicts within his cabinet occurred--over the issue of American
neutrality during the war between England and France. Washington,
whose policy of neutrality angered the pro-French Jeffersonians, was
horrified by the excesses of the French Revolution and enraged by
the tactics of Edmond Genet, the French minister in the United
States, which amounted to foreign interference in American politics.
Further, with an eye toward developing closer commercial ties with
the British, the president agreed with the Hamiltonians on the need
for peace with Great Britain. His acceptance of the 1794 Jay's
Treaty, which settled outstanding differences between the United
States and Britain but which Democratic-Republicans viewed as an
abject surrender to British demands, revived vituperation against
the president, as did his vigorous upholding of the excise law
during the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania.
RETIREMENT AND ASSESSMENT
By
March 1797, when Washington left office, the country's financial
system was well established; the Indian threat east of the
Mississippi had been largely eliminated; and Jay's Treaty and
Pinckney's Treaty (1795) with Spain had enlarged U.S. territory and
removed serious diplomatic difficulties. In spite of the animosities
and conflicting opinions between Democratic-Republicans and members
of the Hamiltonian Federalist party, the two groups were at least
united in acceptance of the new federal government. Washington
refused to run for a third term and, after a masterly Farewell
Address in which he warned the United States against permanent
alliances abroad, he went home to Mount Vernon. He was succeeded by
his vice-president, Federalist John Adams.
Although Washington reluctantly accepted command of the army in 1798
when war with France seemed imminent, he did not assume an active
role. He preferred to spend his last years in happy retirement at
Mount Vernon. In mid-December, Washington contracted what was
probably quinsy or acute laryngitis; he declined rapidly and died at
his estate on Dec. 14, 1799.
Even
during his lifetime, Washington loomed large in the national
imagination. His role as a symbol of American virtue was enhanced
after his death by Mason L. Weems, in an edition of whose Life and
Memorable Actions of George Washington (c.1800) first appeared such
legends as the story about the cherry tree. Later biographers of
note included Washington Irving (5 vols., 1855-59) and Woodrow
Wilson (1896). Washington's own works have been published in various
editions, including The Diaries of George Washington, edited by
Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig (6 vols., 1976-79), and The
Writings of George Washington, 1745-1799, edited by John C.
Fitzpatrick (39 vols., 1931-44). |
