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George Washington
George Washington was commander in chief of the Continental army during
the American Revolution and first president of the United States
Born: February 22, 1732
Died: December 14, 1799
Early Life and Career.
Born in Westmoreland County, Va., on Feb. 22, 1732, George Washington was
the eldest son of Augustine Washington and his second wife, Mary Ball
Washington, who were prosperous Virginia gentry of English descent. George
spent his early years on the family estate on Pope's Creek along the
Potomac River. His early education included the study of such subjects as
mathematics, surveying, the classics, and "rules of civility."
His father died in 1743, and soon thereafter George went to live with his
half brother Lawrence at Mount Vernon, Lawrence's plantation on the
Potomac. Lawrence, who became something of a substitute father for his
brother, had married into the Fairfax family, prominent and influential
Virginians who helped launch George's career. 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
Culpeper 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 British
general Edward Braddock's expedition 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 Gen. John Forbes's successful campaign 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.
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 American general
Charles Lee's lack of enterprise ruined Washington's plan to strike a
major blow at Sir Henry Clinton's army 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 Nathanael 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 Washington returned to Mount Vernon, which had declined
in his absence. Although he became president 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 Convension 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.
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