The Riverside Library
George Washington
By
WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER
1922
TO
HARRIET SEARS AMORY
WITH THE BEST WISHES OF HER OLD FRIEND
THE AUTHOR
PREFACE
To obviate misunderstanding, it seems well to warn the reader that
this book aims only at giving a sketch of George Washington's life
and acts. I was interested to discover, if I could, the human residue
which I felt sure must persist in Washington after all was said. Owing
to the pernicious drivel of the Reverend Weems no other great man in
history has had to live down such a mass of absurdities and deliberate
false inventions. At last after a century and a quarter the rubbish
has been mostly cleared away, and only those who wilfully prefer to
deceive themselves need waste time over an imaginary Father of His
Country amusing himself with a fictitious cherry-tree and hatchet.
The truth is that the material about George Washington is very
voluminous. His military records cover the eight years of the
Revolutionary War. His political work is preserved officially in
the reports of Congress. Most of the public men who were his
contemporaries left memoirs or correspondence in which he figures.
Above all there is the edition, in fourteen volumes, of his own
writings compiled by Mr. Worthington C. Ford. And yet many persons
find something that baffles them. They do not recognize a definite
flesh and blood Virginian named Washington behind it all. Even so
sturdy an historian as Professor Channing calls him the most elusive
of historic personages. Who has not wished that James Boswell could
have spent a year with Wellington on terms as intimate as those he
spent with Dr. Johnson and could have left a report of that intimacy?
In this sketch I have conceived of Washington as of some superb
athlete equipped for every ordeal which life might cause him to face.
The nature of each ordeal must be briefly stated; brief also, but
sufficient, the account of the way he accomplished it. I have quoted
freely from his letters wherever it seemed fitting, first, because in
them you get his personal authentic statement of what happened as he
saw it, and you get also his purpose in making any move; and next,
because nothing so well reveals the real George Washington as those
letters do. Whoever will steep himself in them will hardly declare
that their writer remains an elusive person beyond finding out or
understanding. In the course of reading them you will come upon many
of those "imponderables" which are the secret soul of statecraft.
And so with all humility--for no one can spend much time with
Washington, and not feel profound humility--I leave this little sketch
to its fate, and hope that some readers will find in it what I strove
to put in it.
W.R.T.
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS _June 11, 1922_
CONTENTS
I. ORIGINS AND YOUTH
II. MARRIAGE. THE LIFE OF A PLANTER
III. THE FIRST GUN
IV. BOSTON FREED
V. TRENTON AND VALLEY FORGE
VI. AID FROM FRANCE; TRAITORS
VII. WASHINGTON RETURNS TO PEACE
VIII. WELDING THE NATION
IX. THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT
X. THE JAY TREATY
XI. WASHINGTON RETIRES FROM PUBLIC LIFE
XII. CONCLUSION
INDEX
ABBREVIATIONS OF TITLES FREQUENTLY REFERRED TO
_Channing_ = Edward Channing: _History of the United States_. New
York: Macmillan Company, III, IV. 1912.
_Fiske_ = John Fiske: _The Critical Period of American History,
1783-1789_. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1897.
_Ford_ = Worthington C. Ford: _The Writings of George Washington_. 14
vols. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. 1889-93.
_Ford_ = Worthington C. Ford: _George Washington_. 2 vols. Paris:
Goupil; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1900.
_Hapgood_ = Norman Hapgood: _George Washington_. New York: Macmillan
Company. 1901.
_Irving_ = Washington Irving: _Life of George Washington_. New York:
G.P. Putnam. 1857.
_Lodge_ = Henry Cabot Lodge: _George Washington_. 2 vols. American
Statesman Series. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1889.
_Marshall_ = John Marshall: _The Life of George Washington_. 5 vols.
Philadelphia. 1807.
_Sparks_ = Jared Sparks: _The Life of George Washington_. Boston.
_Wister_ = Owen Wister: _The Seven Ages of Washington_. New York:
Macmillan Company. 1909.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
CHAPTER I
ORIGINS AND YOUTH
Zealous biographers of George Washington have traced for him a most
respectable, not to say distinguished, ancestry. They go back to
the time of Queen Elizabeth, and find Washingtons then who were
"gentlemen." A family of the name existed in Northumberland
and Durham, but modern investigation points to Sulgrave, in
Northamptonshire, as the English home of his stock. Here was born,
probably during the reign of Charles I, his great-grandfather, John
Washington, who was a sea-going man, and settled in Virginia in 1657.
His eldest son, Lawrence, had three children--John, Augustine, and
Mildred. Of these, Augustine married twice, and by his second
wife, Mary Ball, whom he married on March 17, 1730, there were six
children--George, Betty, Samuel, John Augustine, Charles, and Mildred.
The family home at Bridges Creek, near the Potomac, in Westmoreland
County, was Washington's birthplace, and (February 11, Old Style)
February 22, New Style, 1732, was the date. We hear little about his
childhood, he being a wholesomely unprecocious boy. Rumors have it
that George was coddled and even spoiled by his mother. He had very
little formal education, mathematics being the only subject in which
he excelled, and that he learned chiefly by himself. But he lived
abundantly an out-of-door life, hunting and fishing much, and playing
on the plantation. His family, although not rich, lived in easy
fashion, and ranked among the gentry.
No Life of George Washington should fail to warn the reader at the
start that the biographer labors under the disadvantage of having to
counteract the errors and absurdities which the Reverend Mason L.
Weems made current in the Life he published the year after Washington
died. No one, not even Washington himself, could live down the
reputation of a goody-goody prig with which the officious Scotch
divine smothered him. The cherry-tree story has had few rivals in
publicity and has probably done more than anything else to implant an
instinctive contempt of its hero in the hearts of four generations of
readers. "Why couldn't George Washington lie?" was the comment of a
little boy I knew, "Couldn't he talk?"
Weems pretended to an intimacy at Mount Vernon which it appears he
never had. In "Blackwood's Magazine" John Neal said of the book, "Not
one word of which we believe. It is full of ridiculous exaggerations."
And yet neither this criticism nor any other stemmed the outpouring
of editions of it which must now number more than seventy. Weems
doubtless thought that he was helping God and doing good to Washington
by his offensive and effusive support of rudimentary morals.
Weems had been dead a dozen years when another enemy sprang up. This
was the worthy Jared Sparks, an historian, a professor of history, who
collected with much care the correspondence of George Washington and
edited it in a monumental work. Sparks, however, suffered under the
delusion that something other than fact can be the best substance of
history. According to his tastes, many of Washington's letters were
not sufficiently dignified; they were too colloquial, they even let
slip expressions which no man conscious that he was the model of
propriety, the embodiment of the dignity of history, could have used.
So Mr. Sparks without blushing went through Washington's letters and
substituted for the originals words which he decided were more seemly.
Again the public came to know George Washington, not by his own words,
but by those attributed to him by an overzealous stylist-pedant. Well
might the Father of his Country pray to be delivered from the parsons.
One of the earliest records of Washington's youth is the copy, written
in his beautiful, almost copper-plate hand, of "Rules of Civility &
Decent Behavior, In Company and Conversation." These maxims were taken
from an English book called "The Young Man's Companion," by W. Mather.
It had passed through thirteen editions and contained information upon
many matters besides conduct Perhaps Washington copied the maxims as a
school exercise; perhaps he learned them by heart.
They are for the most part the didactic aphorisms which greatly
pleased our worthy ancestors during the middle of the eighteenth
century and later. Some of the entries referred to simple matters of
deportment: you must not turn your back on persons to whom you talk.
Others touch morals rather than manners. One imagines that the parson
or elderly uncles allowed themselves to bestow this indisputably
correct advice upon the youths whom they were interested in. A boy
brought up rigidly on these doctrines could hardly fail to become a
prig unless he succeeded in following the last injunction of all:
"Labor to keep alive in your heart, that little spark of celestial
fire called conscience."
When he was eleven years old, Washington's father died, and his older
half-brother, Lawrence, who inherited the estate now known as Mount
Vernon, became his guardian. Lawrence had married the daughter of a
neighbor, William Fairfax, agent for the large Fairfax estate. Fairfax
and he had served with the Colonial forces at Cartagena under Admiral
Vernon, from whom the Washington manor took its name. Lord Fairfax,
William's cousin and head of the family, offered George work on the
survey of his domain. George, then a sturdy lad of sixteen, accepted
gladly, and for more than two years he carried it on. The Fairfax
estate extended far into the west, beyond the immediate tidewater
district, beyond the fringe of sparsely settled clearings, into the
wilderness itself. The effect of his experience as surveyor lasted
throughout George Washington's life. His self-reliance and his courage
never flagged. Sometimes he went alone and passed weeks among the
solitudes; sometimes he had a companion whom he had to care for as
well as for himself. But besides the toughening of his character which
this pioneer life assured him, he got much information, which greatly
influenced, years later, his views on the development, not only of
Virginia, but of the Northwest. Perhaps from this time there entered
into his heart the conviction that the strongest bond of union must
sometime bind together the various colonies, so different in resources
and in interests, including his native commonwealth.
From journals kept during some of his expeditions we see that he was
a clear observer and an accurate reporter; far from bookish, but a
careful penman, and conscious of the obligation laid upon him to
acquire at least the minimum of polite knowledge which was expected of
a country gentleman such as he aspired to be.
Here is an extract in which he describes the squalid conditions under
which he passed some of his life as a woodsman and surveyor.
We got our suppers and was lighted into a Room and I not being
so good a woodsman as ye rest of my company, striped myself very
orderly and went into ye Bed, as they calld it, when to my
surprize, I found it to be nothing but a little straw matted
together without sheets or any thing else, but only one thread
bare blanket with double its weight of vermin, such as Lice,
Fleas, etc. I was glad to get up (as soon as ye light was carried
from us). I put on my cloths and lay as my companions. Had we not
been very tired, I am sure we should not have slep'd much that
night. I made a Promise not to sleep so from that time forward,
chusing rather to sleep in ye open air before a fire, as will
appear hereafter.
Wednesday 16th. We set out early and finish'd about one o'clock
and then Travelled up to Frederick Town, where our Baggage came to
us. We cleaned ourselves (to get rid of ye game we had catched ye
night before), I took a Review of ye Town and then return'd to our
Lodgings where we had a good Dinner prepared for us. Wine and Rum
Punch in plenty, and a good Feather Bed with clean sheets, which
was a very agreeable regale.
The longest of Washington's early expeditions was the "Journey over
the Mountains, began Fryday the 11th of March 1747/8." The mountains
were the Alleghanies, and the trip gave him a closer acquaintance than
he had had with Indians in the wilds. On his return, he stayed with
his half-brother, Lawrence, at Mount Vernon, or with Lord Fairfax, and
enjoyed the country life common to the richer Virginians of the time.
Towns which could provide an inn being few and far between, travellers
sought hospitality in the homes of the well-to-do residents, and every
one was in a way a neighbor of the other dwellers in his county. So
both at Belvoir and at Mount Vernon, guests were frequent and broke
the monotony and loneliness of their inmates. I think the reputation
of gravity, which was fixed upon Washington in his mature years, has
been projected back over his youth. The actual records are lacking,
but such hints and surmises as we have do not warrant our thinking
of him as a self-centred, unsociable youth. On the contrary, he was
rather, what would be called now, a sport, ready for hunting or
riding, of splendid physical build, agile and strong. He liked
dancing, and was not too shy to enjoy the society of young women;
indeed, he wrote poems to some of them, and seems to have been popular
with them. And still, the legend remains that he was bashful.
From our earliest glimpses of him, Washington appears as a youth very
particular as to his dress. He knew how to rough it as the extracts
of his personal journals which I have quoted show, and this passage
confirms:
I seem to be in a place where no real satisfaction is to be had.
Since you received my letter in October last, I have not sleep'd
above three or four nights in a bed, but, after walking a good
deal all the day, I lay down before the fire upon a little hay,
straw, fodder, or bearskin, which ever is to be had, with man,
wife, and children, like a parcel of dogs and cats, and happy is
he who gets the berth nearest the fire. There's nothing would make
it pass off tolerably but a good reward. A doubloon is my constant
gain every day that the weather will permit my going out, and
sometimes six pistoles. The coldness of the weather will not allow
of my making a long stay, as the lodging is rather too cold for
this time of year. I have never had my clothes off but lay and
sleep in them, except the few nights I have lay'n in Frederic
Town.[1]
[Footnote 1: Hapgood, p, 11.]
Later, when Washington became master of Mount Vernon, his servants
were properly liveried. He himself rode to hounds in the approved
apparel of a fox-hunting British gentleman, and we find in the lists
of articles for which he sends to London the names of clothes and
other articles for Mrs. Washington and the children carefully
specified with the word "fashionable" or "very best quality" added.
Still later, when he was President he attended to this matter of dress
with even greater punctilio.
One incident of this early period should not be passed by unmentioned.
Admiral Vernon offered him an appointment as midshipman in the navy,
but Washington's mother objected so strongly that Washington gave up
the opportunity. We may well wonder whether, if he had accepted it,
his career might not have been permanently turned aside. Had he served
ten or a dozen years in the navy, he might have grown to be so loyal
to the King, that, when the Revolution came, he would have been found
in command of one of the King's men-of-war, ordered to put down
the Rebels in Boston, or in New York. Thus Fate suggests amazing
alternatives to us in the retrospect, but in the actual living, Fate
makes it clear that the only course which could have happened was that
which did happen.
In 1751 the health of Washington's brother, Lawrence, became so bad
from consumption that he decided to pass the winter in a warm climate.
He chose the Island of Barbados, and his brother George accompanied
him. Shortly before sailing, George was commissioned one of the
Adjutants-General of Virginia, with the rank of Major, and the pay
of £150 a year. They sailed on the Potomac River, perhaps near Mount
Vernon, on September 28, 1751, and landed at Bridgetown on November
3d. The next day they were entertained at breakfast and dinner
by Major Clark, the British officer who commanded some of the
fortifications of the island. "We went," says George Washington, in a
journal he kept, "myself with some reluctance, as the smallpox was in
his family." Thirteen days later, George fell ill of a very strong
case of smallpox which kept him housed for six weeks and left his face
much disfigured for life with pock marks, a fact which, so far as I
have observed his portraits, the painters have carefully forgotten to
indicate.
The brothers passed a fairly pleasant month and a half at the
Barbados. Major Clark, and other gentlemen and officials of the
island, showed them much attention. They enjoyed the hospitality of
the Beefsteak and Tripe Club, which seems to have been the fashionable
club. On one occasion, Washington was taken to the play to see the
"Tragedy of George Barnwell." This may have been the first time that
he went to the theatre. He refers to it in his journal with his
habitual caution:
Was treated with a play ticket by Mr. Carter to see the Tragedy
of George Barnwell acted: the character of Barnwell and several
others was said to be well perform'd there was Musick a Dapted and
regularly conducted by Mr.
But Lawrence Washington's consumption did not improve: he grew
homesick and pined for his wife and for Mount Vernon. The physicians
had recommended him to spend a full year at Barbados, in order to
give the climate and the regimen there a fair trial, but he could not
endure it so long, and he sailed from there to Bermuda, whence he
shortly returned to Virginia and Mount Vernon. George, meanwhile, had
also gone back to Virginia, sailing December 22, 1751, and arriving
February 1, 1752. Even from his much-mutilated journal, we can see
that he travelled with his eyes open, and that his interests were
many. As he mentioned in his journal thirty persons with whom
he became acquainted at the Barbados, we infer that in spite of
bashfulness he was an easy mixer. This short journey to the Barbados
marks the only occasion on which George Washington went outside of the
borders of the American Colonies, which became later, chiefly through
his genius, the United States.[1]
[Footnote 1: J.M. Toner: _The Daily Journal of Major George Washington
in 1751-2_ (Albany, N.Y., 1892).]
In July, 1752, Lawrence Washington died of the disease which he
had long struggled against. He left his fortune and his property,
including Mount Vernon, to his daughter, Sarah, and he appointed his
brother, George, her guardian. She was a sweet-natured girl, but very
frail, who died before long, probably of the same disease which
had carried her father off, and, until its infectious nature was
understood, used to decimate families from generation to generation.
To have thrust upon him, at the age of twenty, the management of a
large estate might seem a heavy burden for any young man; but George
Washington was equal to the task, and it seems as if much of his
career up to that time was a direct preparation for it. He knew every
foot of its fields and meadows, of its woodlands and streams; he knew
where each crop grew, and its rotation; he had taken great interest in
horses and cattle, and in the methods for maintaining and improving
their breed; and now, of course being master, his power of choosing
good men to do the work was put to the test. But he had not been long
at these new occupations before public duties drew him away from them.
Though they knew it not, the European settlers in North America were
approaching a life-and-death catastrophe. From the days when the
English and the French first settled on the continent, Fate ordained
for them an irrepressible conflict. Should France prevail? Should
England prevail? With the growth of their colonies, both the English
and the French felt their rivalry sharpened. Although distances often
very broad kept them apart in space, yet both nations were ready to
prove the terrible truth that when two men, or two tribes, wish
to fight each other, they will find out a way. The French, at New
Orleans, might be far away from the English at Boston; and the
English, in New York, or in Philadelphia, might be removed from the
French in Quebec; but in their hatreds they were near neighbors. The
French pushed westward along the St. Lawrence to the Great Lakes, and
from Lake Erie, they pushed southward, across the rich plains of Ohio,
to the Ohio River. Their trails spread still farther into the Western
wilderness. They set up trading-posts in the very region which the
English settlers expected to occupy in the due process of their
advance. At the junction of the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers, they
planted Fort Duquesne, which not only commanded the approach to the
territory through which the Ohio flowed westward, but served notice
on the English that the French regarded themselves as the rightful
claimants of that territory.
In 1753 Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, had sent a commissioner to
warn the French to cease from encroaching on the lands in the Ohio
wilderness which belonged to the King of England, but the messenger
stopped one hundred and fifty miles short of his goal. Therefore,
the Governor decided to despatch another envoy. He selected George
Washington, who was already well known for his surveying, and for his
expedition beyond the mountains, and doubtless had the backing of the
Fairfaxes and other influential gentlemen. Washington set out on the
same day he received his appointment from Governor Dinwiddie (October
31, 1753), engaged Jacob Van Braam, a Hollander who had taught him
fencing, to be his French interpreter; and Christopher Gist, the best
guide through the Virginia wilderness, to pilot the party. In spite
of the wintry conditions which beset them, they made good time.
Washington presented his official warning to M. Joncaire, the
principal French commander in the region under dispute, but he replied
that he must wait for orders from the Governor in Quebec. One object
of Washington's mission was to win over, if possible, the Indians,
whose friendship for either the French or the English depended wholly
on self-interest. He seems to have been most successful in securing
the friendship of Thanacarishon, the great Seneca Chief, known as the
Half-King. This native left it as his opinion that
the colonel was a good-natured man, but had no experience; he took
upon him to command the Indians as his slaves, and would have them
every day upon the scout and to attack the enemy by themselves,
but would by no means take advice from the Indians. He lay in
one place from one full moon to the other, without making any
fortifications, except that little thing on the meadow, whereas,
had he taken advice, and built such fortifications as I advised
him, he might easily have beat off the French. But the French in
the engagement acted like cowards, and the English like fools.[1]
[Footnote 1: Quoted by Lodge, I, 74.]
Believing that he could accomplish no more at that time, Washington
retraced his steps and returned to Williamsburg.
Governor Dinwiddie, being much disappointed with the outcome of the
expedition, urged the Virginian Legislature to equip another party
sufficiently strong to be able to capture Fort Duquesne, and to
confirm the British control of the Ohio. The Burgesses, however,
pleaded economy, and refused to grant funds adequate to this purpose.
Nevertheless, the Governor having equipped a small troop, under the
command of Colonel Fry, with Washington as second, hurried it forth.
During May and June they were near the Forks, and with the approach of
danger, Washington's spirit and recklessness increased. In a slight
skirmish, M. de Jumonville, the French commander, was killed. Fry died
of disease and Washington took his place as commander. Perceiving that
his own position was precarious, and expecting an attack by a large
force of the enemy, he entrenched himself near Great Meadows in a
hastily built fort, which he called Fort Necessity, and thought it
possible to defend, even with his own small force, against five
hundred French and Indians. He miscalculated, however. The enemy
exceeded in numbers all his expectations. His own resources dwindled;
and so he took the decision of a practical man and surrendered the
fort, on condition that he and his men be allowed to march out with
the honors of war. They returned to Virginia with little delay.
The Burgesses and the people of the State, though chagrined, did not
take so gloomy a view of the collapse of the expedition as Washington
himself did. His own depression equalled his previous exaltation. As
he thought over the affairs of the past half-year in the quiet of
Mount Vernon, the feeling which he had had from the start, that the
expedition had not been properly planned, or directed, or reënforced
in men and supplies, was confirmed. Governor Dinwiddie's notion that
raw volunteers would suffice to overcome trained soldiers had been
proved a delusion. The inadequate pay and provisions of the officers
irritated Washington, not only because they were insufficient, but
also because they fell far short of those of the English regulars.
In his penetrating Biography of Washington, Senator Lodge regards
his conduct of the campaign, which ended in the surrender of Great
Meadows, and his narrative as revealing Washington as a "profoundly
silent man." Carlyle, Senator Lodge says, who preached the doctrine of
silence, brushed Washington aside as a "bloodless Cromwell," "failing
utterly to see that he was the most supremely silent of the great men
of action that the world can show." Let us admit the justice of the
strictures on Carlyle, but let us ask whether Washington's letters at
this time spring from a "silent" man. He writes with perfect openness
to Governor Dinwiddie; complains of the military system under which
the troops are paid and the campaign is managed; he repeatedly
condemns the discrimination against the Virginian soldiers in favor of
the British regulars; and he points out that instead of attempting to
win the popularity of the Virginians, they are badly treated. Their
rations are poor, and he reminds the Governor that a continuous diet
of salt pork and water does not inspire enthusiasm in either the
stomach or the spirit. No wonder that the officers talk of resigning.
"For my own part I can answer, I have a constitution hardy enough to
encounter and undergo the most severe trials, and, I flatter myself,
resolution to face what any man durst, as shall be proved when it
comes to the test, which I believe we are on the borders of." In
several other passages from letters at this time, we come upon
sentiments which indicate that Washington had at least a sufficiently
high estimation of his own worth, and that his genius for silence had
not yet curbed his tongue. There is the famous boast attributed to him
by Horace Walpole. In a despatch which Washington sent back to the
Governor after the little skirmish in which Jumonville was killed,
Washington said: "'I heard the bullets whistle, and, believe me, there
is something charming in the sound.' On hearing of this the King said
sensibly, 'he would not say so if he had been used to hear many.'"
This reply of George II deserves to be recorded if only because it is
one of the few feeble witticisms credited to the Hanoverian Kings.
Years afterward, Washington declared that he did not remember ever
having referred to the charm of listening to whistling bullets.
Perhaps he never said it; perhaps he forgot. He was only twenty-two at
the time of the Great Meadows campaign. No doubt he was as well aware
as was Governor Dinwiddie, and other Virginians, that he was the best
equipped man on the expedition, experienced in actual fighting, and
this, added to his qualifications as a woodsman, had given him a real
zest for battle. In their discussion over the campfire, he and his
fellow officers must inevitably have criticized the conduct of the
expedition, and it may well be that Washington sometimes insisted
that if his advice were followed things would go better. Not on this
account, therefore, must we lay too much blame on him for being
conceited or immodest. He knew that he knew, and he did not dissemble
the fact. Silence came later.
The result of the expeditions to and skirmishes at the Forks of the
Ohio was that England and France were at war, although they had not
declared war on each other. A chance musket shot in the backwoods of
Virginia started a conflict which reverberated in Europe, disturbed
the peace of the world for seven years, and had serious consequences
in the French and English colonies of North America. The news of
Washington's disaster at Fort Necessity aroused the British Government
to the conclusion that it must make a strong demonstration in order
to crush the swelling prestige of the French rivals in America. The
British planned, accordingly, to send out three expeditions, one
against Fort Duquesne, another against the French in Nova Scotia, and
a third against Quebec. The command of the first they gave to General
Edward Braddock. He was then sixty years old, had been in the Regular
Army all his life, had served in Holland, at L'Orient, and at
Gibraltar, was a brave man, and an almost fanatical believer in the
rules of war as taught in the manuals. During the latter half of 1754,
Governor Dinwiddie was endeavoring against many obstacles to send
another expedition, equipped by Virginia herself, to the Ohio. Only in
the next spring, however, after Braddock had come over from England
with a relatively large force of regulars, were the final preparations
for a campaign actually made. Washington, in spite of being the
commander-in-chief of the Virginia forces, had his wish of going as
a volunteer at his own expense. He wrote his friend William Byrd, on
April 20, 1755, from Mount Vernon:
I am now preparing for, and shall in a few days set off, to serve
in the ensuing campaign, with different views, however, from those
I had before. For here, if I can gain any credit, or if I am
entitled to the least countenance and esteem, it must be from
serving my country without fee or reward; for I can truly say, I
have no expectation of either. To merit its esteem, and the good
will of my friends, is the sum of my ambition, having no prospect
of attaining a commission, being well assured it is not in Gen'l
Braddock's power to give such an one as I would accept of. The
command of a Company is the highest commission vested in his gift.
He was so obliging as to desire my company this campaign, has
honoured me with particular marks of his esteem, and kindly
invited me into his family--a circumstance which will ease me of
expences that otherwise must have accrued in furnishing
stores, camp equipages, etc. Whereas the cost will now be easy
(comparatively speaking), as baggage, horses, tents, and some
other necessaries, will constitute the whole of the charge.[1]
[Footnote 1: Ford, I, 146-49.]
The army began to move about the middle of May, but it went very
slowly. During June Washington was taken with an acute fever, in
spite of which he pressed on, but he became so weak that he had to be
carried in a cart, as he was unable to sit his horse. Braddock, with
the main army, had gone on ahead, and Washington feared that the
battle, which he believed imminent, would be fought before he came up
with the front. But he rejoined the troops on July 8th. The next day
they forded the Monongahela and proceeded to attack Fort Duquesne.
Writing from Fort Cumberland, on July 18th, Washington gave Governor
Dinwiddie the following account of Braddock's defeat. The one thing
happened which Washington had felt anxious about--a surprise by the
Indians. He had more than once warned Braddock of this danger, and
Benjamin Franklin had warned him too before the expedition started,
but Braddock, with perfect British contempt, had replied that though
savages might be formidable to raw Colonials, they could make
no impression on disciplined troops. The surprise came and thus
Washington reports it:
When we came to this place, we were attacked (very unexpectedly)
by about three hundred French and Indians. Our numbers consisted
of about thirteen hundred well armed men, chiefly Regulars, who
were immediately struck with such an inconceivable panick, that
nothing but confusion and disobedience of orders prevailed among
them. The officers, in general, behaved with incomparable bravery,
for which they greatly suffered, there being near 60 killed and
wounded--a large proportion, out of the number we had!
The Virginia companies behaved like men and died like soldiers;
for I believe out of three companies that were on the ground that
day scarce thirty were left alive. Capt. Peyroney and all his
officers, down to a corporal, were killed; Capt. Polson had
almost as hard a fate, for only one of his escaped. In short, the
dastardly behaviour of the Regular troops (so-called) exposed
those who were inclined to do their duty to almost certain death;
and, at length, in despite of every effort to the contrary, broke
and ran as sheep before hounds, leaving the artillery, ammunition,
provisions, baggage, and, in short, everything a prey to the
enemy. And when we endeavored to rally them, in hopes of regaining
the ground and what we had left upon it, it was with as little
success as if we had attempted to have stopped the wild bears of
the mountains, or rivulets with our feet; for they would break by,
in despite of every effort that could be made to prevent it.
The General was wounded in the shoulder and breast, of which he
died three days after; his two aids-de-camp were both wounded, but
are in a fair way of recovery; Colo. Burton and Sr. John St. Clair
are also wounded, and I hope will get over it; Sir Peter Halket,
with many other brave officers, were killed in the field. It is
supposed that we had three hundred or more killed; about that
number we brought off wounded, and it is conjectured (I believe
with much truth) that two thirds of both received their shot from
our own cowardly Regulars, who gathered themselves into a body,
contrary to orders, ten or twelve deep, would then level, fire and
shoot down the men before them.[1]
[Footnote 1: Ford, I, 173-74-75.]
In this admirable letter Washington tells nothing about his own
prowess in the battle, where he rode to all parts of the field, trying
to stem the retreat, and had two horses shot under him and four bullet
holes in his coat. He tried to get the troops to break ranks and to
screen themselves behind rocks and trees, but Braddock, helpless
without his rules, drove them back to regular formation with the flat
of his sword, and made them an easy mark for the volleys of the enemy.
Washington's personal valor could not fail to be admired, although his
audacity exposed him to unjustified risks.
On reaching Fort Cumberland he wrote to his brother John, on July
18th:
As I have heard, since my arrival at this place, a circumstantial
account of my death and dying speech, I take this early
opportunity of contradicting the first, and assuring you, that
I have not as yet composed the latter. But, by the all-powerful
dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all
human probability and expectation.[1]
[Footnote 1: Ibid. 175-76.]
The more he thought over the events of that day, the more was he
amazed--"I join very heartily with you in believing," he wrote Robert
Jackson on August 2d, "that when this story comes to be related in
future annals, it will meet with unbelief and indignation, for had I
not been witness to the fact on that fatal day, I should scarce have
given credit to it even _now_."[1]
[Footnote 1: Ford, I, 177.]
Although Washington was thoroughly disgusted by the mismanagement of
military affairs in Virginia, he was not ready to deny the appeals
of patriotism. From Mount Vernon, on August 14, 1755, he wrote his
mother:
Honored Madam, If it is in my power to avoid going to the Ohio
again, I shall; but if the command is pressed upon me, by the
general _voice_ of the country, and offered upon such terms as
cannot be objected against, it would reflect dishonor upon me to
refuse; and _that_, I am sure must or _ought_ to give you greater
uneasiness, than my going in an honorable command, for upon no
other terms I will accept of it. At present I have no proposals
made to me, nor have I any advice of such an intention, except
from private hands.[1]
[Footnote 1: Ibid. 180-81.]
Braddock's defeat put an end to campaigning in Virginia for some time.
The consternation it caused, not only held the people of the sparse
western settlements in alarm but agitated the tidewater towns and
villages. The Burgesses and many of the inhabitants had not yet
learned their lesson sufficiently to set about reorganizing their army
system, but the Assembly partially recognized its obligation to the
men who had fought by voting to them a small sum for losses during
their previous service. Washington received £300, but his patriotic
sense of duty kept him active. In the winter of 1758, however, owing
to a very serious illness, he resigned from the army and returned to
Mount Vernon to recuperate.
During the long and tedious weeks of sickness and recovery, Washington
doubtless had time to think over, to clarify in his mind, and to pass
judgment on the events in which he had shared during the past six or
seven years. From boyhood that was his habit. He must know the meaning
of things. An event might be as fruitless as a shooting star unless he
could trace the relations which tied it to what came before and after.
Hence his deliberation which gave to his opinions the solidity of
wisdom. Audacious he might be in battle, but perhaps what seems to us
audacity seemed to him at the moment a higher prudence. If there were
crises when the odds looked ten to one against him, he would take the
chance. He knew the incalculable value of courage. His experiences
with the British regulars and their officers left a deep impression on
him and colored his own decisions in his campaigns against the British
during the Revolutionary War. To genius nothing comes amiss, and by
genius nothing is forgotten. So we find that all that Washington saw
and learned during his years of youth--his apprenticeship as surveyor,
his vicissitudes as pioneer, tasks as Indian fighter and as companion
of the defeated Braddock--all contributed to fit him for the supreme
work for which Fate had created him and the ages had waited.