George Washington

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• Born: 22 February 1732
• Birthplace: Westmoreland County, Virginia
• Died: 14 December 1799
• Best Known As: The first President of the United States

George Washington is called "the father of his country" for his crucial role in fighting for, creating and leading the United States of America in its earliest days. Washington was a surveyor, farmer and soldier who rose to command the Colonial forces in the Revolutionary War. He held the ragtag Continental Army together -- most famously during a frigid encampment at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania during the winter of 1777-78 -- and eventually led them to victory over the British. His success in the war made him a tremendously popular figure in America even after he retired to his farm at Mount Vernon in 1783. He was the natural choice to serve as the country's first president in 1789 after the new United States Constitution was ratified. He served two terms, refused a third, and returned to his Virginia farm. In 1798 he was again commissioned as Commander in Chief of the Army, a title he held until his death 18 months later. He was succeeded as president by John Adams.

Washington married the widow Martha Dandridge Custis in 1759; they had no children together, but Washington adopted Martha's children John and Martha... Washington was land-rich but often cash-poor, and had to borrow money in order to get to his first inauguration... Washington had false teeth but, contrary to popular rumor, they were not made of wood. According to the Mount Vernon official site, Washington's dentures "were probably more uncomfortable than wood. They were made of cow's teeth, human teeth, and elephant ivory set in a lead base with springs that allowed him to open and close his mouth"... The story of Washington chopping down a cherry tree is also not true; it was invented by an early biographer of Washington, Parson Mason Weems.

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George Washington, oil painting by Gilbert Stuart, 1796; in the White House. (credit: Scala/Art Resource, New York)

(born Feb. 22, 1732, Westmoreland county, Va. — died Dec. 14, 1799, Mount Vernon, Va., U.S.) American Revolutionary commander-in-chief (1775 – 83) and first president of the U.S. (1789 – 97). Born into a wealthy family, he was educated privately. In 1752 he inherited his brother's estate at Mount Vernon, including 18 slaves; their ranks grew to 49 by 1760, though he disapproved of slavery. In the French and Indian War he was commissioned a colonel and sent to the Ohio Territory. After Edward Braddock was killed, Washington became commander of all Virginia forces, entrusted with defending the western frontier (1755 – 58). He resigned to manage his estate and in 1759 married Martha Dandridge Custis (1731 – 1802), a widow. He served in the House of Burgesses (1759 – 74), where he supported the colonists' cause, and later in the Continental Congress (1774 – 75). In 1775 he was elected to command the Continental Army. In the ensuing American Revolution, he proved a brilliant commander and a stalwart leader, despite several defeats. With the war effectively ended by the capture of Yorktown (1781), he resigned his commission and returned to Mount Vernon (1783). He was a delegate to and presiding officer of the Constitutional Convention (1787) and helped secure ratification of the Constitution in Virginia. When the state electors met to select the first president (1789), Washington was the unanimous choice. He formed a cabinet to balance sectional and political differences but was committed to a strong central government. Elected to a second term, he followed a middle course between the political factions that later became the Federalist Party and the Democratic Party. He proclaimed a policy of neutrality in the war between Britain and France (1793) and sent troops to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion (1794). He declined to serve a third term (thereby setting a 144-year precedent) and retired in 1797 after delivering his "Farewell Address." Known as the "father of his country," he is universally regarded as one of the greatest figures in U.S. history.

For more information on George Washington, visit Britannica.com.

Washington, Gen George (1732-99), first president (1789-97) and the founding father of the USA. He stands as one of the three men—the others being Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt—who came to power at the most critical moments in US history, and perforce shaped the nation in his image.

Washington's military career dated back to the French and Indian war, which gave him ample opportunity to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the British army. Twenty years later this background, plus New England's desire to make common cause with his home state Virginia, made him the unanimous choice to command the newly formed Continental Army, besieging Boston. Eventually he bluffed Howe into evacuating the city with some heavy artillery brought from Fort Ticonderoga, and a large number of dummy cannon. Moving to New York, he suffered a series of defeats that would have broken the spirit of a lesser commander. Half his army was routed at Brooklyn Heights with a loss of 5, 000 men, and the other half simply ran away at Kip's Bay. After further setbacks he was compelled to retreat into New Jersey, with desertion reducing his forces to no more than 6, 000 men. He was not well served by his subordinates, and at Christmas 1776 he himself led a successful attack on Trenton with only 2, 500 men, capturing 1, 000 prisoners. When this drew Cornwallis at the head of 8, 000 men, Washington performed a flank march by night to win another stinging victory at Princeton.

During 1777, while Gates was defeating Burgoyne's invasion from Canada at Saratoga, Washington confronted a larger British force at Brandywine Creek on 11 September, trying to prevent the capture of Philadelphia. Pinned by Howe's main force, he was outflanked by Cornwallis and nearly surrounded. That he salvaged the bulk of his army was probably his finest military achievement, but the congressmen forced to flee Philadelphia at short notice were not inclined to appreciate this. Washington survived the following winter at Valley Forge, without the means to pay or even clothe his men and undermined by a cabal of opportunists seeking to replace him with Gates. He did this mainly by force of personality, but he also built a 40 foot (12 metre) gallows to emphasize that there was force as well as personality involved.

In June 1778, after his protégé Lafayette helped to bring about a French alliance to balance the strategic equation, Washington's plan to cut off British forces under their new commander Clinton, retreating from Philadelphia to New York, failed because of behaviour akin to treachery by Charles Lee at Monmouth Courthouse. This was one of the very few occasions where Washington was seen to lose his legendary self-control, and Lee came close to being suspended not only from command, but from the neck as well.

With Clinton bottled up in New York it was patience that brought the war to a successful conclusion: patience with dilatory French assistance; patience with an army that mutinied twice; patience with a Congress that demanded but did not provide; patience while Greene lost the battles but won the war in the south; patience that was at last rewarded when the French navy briefly won control of the sea around Yorktown, enabling Washington to deliver the coup de grâce.

There being little dispute that his austerity and personal modesty put an abiding stamp on the quasi-monarchical office of president, created with him very much in mind, criticism of him tends to focus on his military leadership. All that needs to be said in rebuttal is that he won, and it is unlikely that anyone else could have maintained unity of purpose among the secessionists, during a very protracted struggle. One has only to compare his performance to that of the similarly situated Davis in 1861-5 to see how easily sectional interests could have prevailed, and doomed the rebellion.

By refusing to serve more than two terms, he set an example followed by all his successors save Franklin Roosevelt, and since 1951 enshrined in the 22nd amendment to the Constitution. George III observed that his retirement and his resignation as army C-in-C fourteen years earlier ‘placed him in a light the most distinguished character of the age’. Upon his death, Congress unanimously voted his memory the eloquent encomium proposed by ‘Light Horse Harry’ Lee (father of Robert E. Lee and not to be confused with Charles of that ilk): ‘first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen’.

Bibliography

• Brookhiser, Richard, Founding Father (New York, 1996)

— Hugh Bicheno

Born into a family on the margins of the Virginia aristocracy, Washington advanced rapidly to local prominence owing to his brother Lawrence's brief career in the British military establishment and to Lawrence's marriage into the powerful Fairfax family. Ambitious and intelligent, though lacking formal education, Washington obtained the office of regional militia adjutant, the assignment of warning the French in the Ohio Valley to depart from lands claimed by Virginia, and afterward the position of special aide to Gen. Edward Braddock. Washington's heroic performance during Braddock's defeat on the Monongahela helped earn him the command of Virginia's frontier defenses during the French and Indian War. Hampered by problems of inadequate manpower and supplies, he performed well, though displaying a lack of respect for higher civil and military authority. His regiment won the praise of crown officers for its training and degree of professionalism, although Washington failed in repeated efforts to have his forces taken into the British army.

Washington's drive and determination, essential qualities for any military commander and revolutionary leader, manifested themselves before 1775 in acquiring still other public posts: county surveyor, vestryman, and legislator. As a planter, he had already shown skill in obtaining land before he inherited Mount Vernon after his brother Lawrence's death. Recognizing the hazards of tobacco growing, he profitably converted much of his acreage to wheat prior to the Revolution, and he continued to accumulate western lands through claims based on his colonial military service.

An early critic of Britain's new colonial policy after 1763, Washington strongly supported boycotting British goods and advocated other forms of nonviolent resistance. Beginning in 1774, he played the leading role in organizing and reforming the Virginia militia, and as a member of the Continental Congress he wore his Virginia uniform to indicate his willingness to serve after hostilities erupted at Lexington and Concord. Because of his military background and experience in dealing with legislative bodies, the highly visible Washington was the obvious choice, and Congress appointed him commander in chief of the Continental army in June 1775.

Sensitive to civil‐military relations and to the problems of conducting warfare without the resources of a strong government, Washington had learned much since his earlier wartime service in the 1750s. He communicated regularly with the state governors and with the Congress, aware that he was something of a diplomat in a coalition war involving a weak central authority and thirteen sovereign states. His patience and deference added enormously to his stature and respect, as did certain symbolic acts during the war, such as his refusal to accept military pay and his repeatedly expressed wish to retire quietly to Mount Vernon and eschew subsequent honors and office.

During the first major phase of the Revolutionary War, 1775–78, the conflict was fought largely in the northern and middle states, and Washington's immediate command bore the brunt of the British efforts to crack the rebellion. After Washington's siege of the British in Boston, he moved south to meet the enemy at New York in the summer of 1776. His army fought stubbornly but suffered a succession of defeats before Washington retreated and regrouped on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River. Counterattacks that picked off British posts at Trenton and Princeton in New Jersey during the Christmas season reinvigorated the American cause, but the army suffered important defeats the following year at Brandywine and Germantown in Pennsylvania. Yet Washington was a fighter, not a Fabian, as often portrayed, and he learned from his mistakes. He kept coming back, as when he battered the rear guard of the British army at Monmouth when it moved from Philadelphia back toward New York in 1778.

With the war stalemated in the North, Washington capitalized on France's entry into the conflict. Since the British dispersed some regiments to the West Indies and turned increasing attention to the American South, Washington spent the next three years keeping close watch on British forces in New York City and endeavoring to keep his own army up to strength, annual tasks that never eased. His opportunity for a bold stroke did not come again until 1781, when he raced south to cooperate with French military and naval forces in capturing Charles Cornwallis's army on the Virginia Peninsula at the Battle of Yorktown, 19 October 1781.

Washington's stature actually increased during the war's final two years. He dramatically upstaged a band of conspiratorial officers at Newburgh, New York, in 1783, shaming them for their threatening behavior toward a weak Congress. He also wrote two of the great, if neglected, state papers of the Revolution: his “Circular to the States” on the need for a firmer union, and his “Sentiments on a Peace Establishment,” in which he advocated ideas about regular and militia forces that contributed to the debate on national defense in the Constitutional Convention.

Consistently a nationalist in 1775–76, Washington presided at that convention in 1787, threw his weight behind the Constitution's ratification, and accepted (albeit reluctantly) the presidency in 1789, serving two terms. He worked to build a viable peacetime military structure and federalized the militia to put down the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, at the same time avoiding a war with Britain over neutral rights, a conflict that he considered the country ill‐prepared to fight.

Washington always recognized that governments needed power to perform effectively. As general and president, he employed the power available to him but with moderation and restraint. In both his military and his civilian capacities, he set precedents that successful American generals and presidents still follow.

[See also Commander in Chief, President as; Revolutionary War: Military and Diplomatic Course.]

Bibliography

• Douglas Southall Freeman, George Washington, 7 vols., 1948–57.
• Marcus Cunliffe, George Washington: Man and Monument, 1958.
• James Thomas Flexner, George Washington, 4 vols., 1965–72.
• Edmund S. Morgan, The Genius of George Washington, 1980.
• Don Higginbotham, George Washington and the American Military Tradition, 1985.
• John E. Ferling, The First of Men, 1988

(b. Pope's Creek [now Wakefield], Westmoreland County, Va., 22 Feb. 1732; d. Mt. Vernon, Va., 14 Dec. 1799), commander in chief of the Continental Army, president, 1789–1797. Washington's most enduring legacy to the Supreme Court was the precedent he established in his selection criteria for the nomination of justices. During his two terms of office, he made fourteen nominations to the high court—a record that still stands and is unlikely to be surpassed.

Of Washington's fourteen Supreme Court nominations, only ten individuals served. The Senate confirmed twelve, but Robert H. Harrison and William Cushing (as chief justice) declined their appointments. Washington's recess appointment of John Rutledge for chief justice was ultimately rejected. Washington withdrew his selection of William Paterson but later successfully appointed him. Thus, the fourteen nominations involved eleven different men. The ten who served on the Court include the following with their dates of tenure: John Jay (chief justice, 1789–1795), John Rutledge (1789–1791), William Cushing (1789–1810), James Wilson (1789–1798), John Blair, Jr. (1789–1796), James Iredell (1790–1799), Thomas Johnson (1791–1793), William Paterson (1793–1806), Samuel Chase (1796–1811), and Oliver Ellsworth (chief justice, 1796–1800).

President Washington's considerations in naming Supreme Court justices are readily identifiable. First, he insisted that his nominees be political and ideological soul mates. A number of Washington's choices for the high court had established their loyalty to the nation through distinguished service during the Revolutionary War. Washington was particularly impressed with Thomas Johnson's war record, which included recruiting a force of 1,800 soldiers while governor of Maryland and personally leading them to the commander in chief's headquarters. Moreover, the first president insisted that future justices demonstrate support for and advocacy of the new U.S. Constitution. Indeed, all but three of the justices that Washington placed on the Court (Jay, Cushing, and Iredell) had participated in the Constitutional Convention. The first chief executive also established the precedent of choosing judicial nominees solely from his own political party, the Federalists.

Washington's second criterion for Supreme Court service was merit. In addition to having a distinguished record during the Revolutionary War, a Washington nominee had to display a “favorable reputation with his fellows.” For example, James Wilson, who had signed the Declaration of Independence and contributed his abundant talents to the Philadelphia convention, was considered among the outstanding lawyers and legal scholars of his day.

Third, Washington usually chose justices with whom he had forged personal ties. John Blair, for instance, was a fellow Virginian, who had joined Washington and James Madison as the only members of their state delegation to support the entire Constitution.

Fourth, America's first president established the tradition of balancing the nation's highest court along representational lines. Although his predecessors would expand the list of representative criteria to include religious affiliation, race, and gender, Washington focused on the Court's geographic balance. In appointing James Iredell, the president commented: “He is of a State [North Carolina] of some importance in the Union that has given no character to a federal office.”

Finally, he searched for nominees who had political experience at the state or local level or judicial experience on the lower courts. Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut was an illustrative appointee with his previous service as a state judge and as a member of Congress.

See also History of the Court: Establishment of the Union; Selection of Justices.

Bibliography

• Henry J. Abraham, Justices, Presidents, and Senators: A History of the U.S. Supreme Court Appointments from Washington to Clinton, rev. ed. (1999).
• Henry J. Abraham and Barbara A. Perry, The Father of Our Country as Court‐Packer‐in‐Chief: George Washington and the Supreme Court, in George Washington and the Origins of the American Presidency, edited by Mark J. Rozell, William D. Pederson, and Frank J. Williams (2000)

— Barbara A. Perry

Washington, George (1732-1799) Revolutionary army officer and U.S. president. Born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, George Washington got his first military experience during the French and Indian War (1754-63). He won the conflict's first small engagement after he built Fort Necessity near Fort Pitt in 1754, but soon had to surrender to a superior force. As an aide to Gen. Edward Braddock the next year, Washington organized an orderly retreat after the general was killed in the ambush that decimated his force. Washington commanded all Virginia forces before resigning his commission in 1758. He began the Revolutionary War as a delegate to the Continental Congress, but in June 1775 they selected him unanimously to be commander of chief of the new Continental army. After managing a successful siege of Boston, Washington lost most of his army in a series of disastrous battles around the city of New York in 1776. He revived Patriot fortunes with winter victories at Trenton and Princeton. In 1777 he lost battles at Brandywine and Germantown, as well as the city of Philadelphia. His army dwindled during the hard winter of 1777-1778 at Valley Forge, but Baron von Steuben's training and the French alliance improved the American situation. Washington's forces performed much better at Monmouth in 1778 as the British withdrew from Philadelphia to New York. Activity in the northern theater quieted after the British shifted their primary efforts to the South, but in 1781 Washington took a combined French-American army south to join with Gen. Nathanael Greene's forces at Yorktown, and with the assistance of the French fleet they forced the capitulation of Lord Charles Cornwallis's army. Washington remained in command of American forces until late 1783, awaiting the peace and quelling discontent in his poorly-paid army. After the war he presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and was elected the new nation's first president in 1789. He served wisely and well before leaving office in 1797. He had one last appointment to military service in 1798, when President John Adams made Washington a lieutenant general in charge of a Provisional Army preparing for possible war with France, but the crisis passed and he never took the field. He died at his plantation at Mount Vernon.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

George Washington (1732-1799) was commander in chief of the American and French forces in the American Revolution and became the first president of the United States.

George Washington was born at Bridges Creek, later known as Wakefield, in Westmoreland County, Va., on Feb. 22, 1732. His father died when George was eleven years old, and the boy spent the next few years with his mother at Ferry Farm near Fredericksburg, with relatives in Westmoreland, and with his half brother at Mount Vernon. By the time he was 16 he had a rudimentary education, studying mathematics, surveying, reading, and the usual subjects of his day. In 1749 Washington was appointed county surveyor, and his experience on the frontier led to his appointment as a major in the Virginia militia in 1752.

French and Indian War

Virginia governor Robert Dinwiddie appointed the 21-year-old Washington to warn the French moving into the Ohio Valley against encroaching on English territory. Washington published the results of this expedition, including the French rejection of the ultimatum, in the Journal of Major George Washington … (1754). Dinwiddie then commissioned Washington a lieutenant colonel with orders to dislodge the French at Ft. Duquesne, but a superior French force bested the Virginia troops. This conflict triggered the French and Indian War, and Great Britain dispatched regular troops under Gen. Edward Braddock in 1755 to oust the French. Braddock appointed Washington as aide-de-camp.

Later in the year, after Braddock's death, Dinwiddie promoted Washington to colonel and made him commander in chief of all Virginia troops. Throughout 1756 and 1757 Washington pursued a defensive policy, fortifying the frontier with stockades, recruiting men, and establishing discipline. In 1758, with the title of brigadier, he accompanied British regulars on the campaign that forced the French to abandon Ft. Duquesne. With the threat of frontier violence removed, Washington resigned his commission, soon married the widow Martha Custis, and devoted himself to life at Mount Vernon.

Washington took seriously his role of stepfather and guardian of Martha's two children; it was his duty, he wrote, to be "generous and attentive, " and he was. His stepdaughter's death at 17 was an emotional shock to him. When his stepson died in 1781, after serving in the Virginia militia at Yorktown, Washington virtually adopted two of his four children.

Early Political Career

Washington inherited local prominence from his family, just as he inherited property and social position. His grandfather and great-grandfather had been justices of the peace, a powerful county position in 18th-century Virginia, and his father had served as sheriff and church warden, as well as justice of the peace. His half brother Lawrence had been a representative from Fairfax County, and George Washington's entry into politics was based on an alliance with the family of Lawrence's father-in-law, Lord Fairfax.

Washington was elected as a representative to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1758 from Frederick County. From 1760 to 1774 he served as a justice of Fairfax County, and he was a longtime vestryman of Truro parish. His experience on the county court and in the colonial legislature molded his views on Parliamentary taxation of the Colonies after 1763. He opposed the Stamp Act in 1765, arguing that Parliament "hath no more right to put their hands into my pocket, without my consent, than I have to put my hands into yours for money." As a member of the colonial legislature, he backed nonimportation as a means of reversing British policy in the 1760s, and in 1774 he attended the rump session of the dissolved Assembly, which called for a Continental Congress to take united colonial action against the Boston Port Bill and other "Intolerable Acts" directed against Massachusetts.

In July 1774 Washington presided at the county meeting which adopted the Fairfax Resolves, which he had helped write. These resolves influenced the adoption of the Continental Association, the plan devised by the First Continental Congress for enforcing nonimportation of British goods. They also proposed the creation in each county of a militia company independent of the royal governor's control, the idea from which the Continental Army developed. By May 1775 Washington, who headed the Fairfax militia company, had been chosen to command the companies of six other counties. The only man in uniform when the Second Continental Congress met after the battles of Lexington and Concord, he was elected unanimously as commander in chief of all Continental Army forces. From June 15, 1775, until Dec. 23, 1783, he commanded the Continental Army and, after the French alliance of 1778, the combined forces of the United States and France in the War of Independence against Great Britain.

Revolutionary Years

Throughout the Revolutionary years Washington developed military leadership, administrative skills, and political acumen, functioning from 1775 to 1783 as the de facto chief executive of the United States. His wartime experiences gave him a continental outlook, and his Circular Letter to the States in June 1783 made it clear that he favored a strong central government.

Washington returned to Mount Vernon at the end of the Revolution. "I have not only retired from all public employments, " he wrote his friend the Marquis de Lafayette, "but I am retiring within myself." But there was little time for sitting "under the shadow of my own vine and my own fig tree." He kept constantly busy with farming, western land interests, and navigation of the Potomac. Finally, Washington presided at the Federal Convention in 1787 and supported ratification of the Constitution in order to "establish good order and government and to render the nation happy at home and respected abroad."

First American President

The position of president of the United States seemed shaped by the Federal Convention on the assumption that Washington would be the first to occupy the office. In a day when executive power was suspect - when the creation of the presidency, as Alexander Hamilton observed in The Federalist, was "attended with greater difficulty" than perhaps any other - the Constitution established an energetic and independent chief executive. Pierce Butler, one of the Founding Fathers, noted that the convention would not have made the executive powers so great "had not many of the members cast their eyes toward General Washington as President, and shaped their ideas of the Powers to be given a President, by their opinions of his Virtue."

After his unanimous choice as president in 1789, Washington helped translate the new constitution into a workable instrument of government: the Bill of Rights was added, as he suggested, out of "reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen"; an energetic executive branch was established, with the executive departments - State, Treasury, and War - evolving into an American Cabinet; the Federal judiciary was inaugurated; and the congressional taxing power was utilized to pay the Revolutionary War debt and to establish American credit at home and abroad.

As chief executive, Washington consulted his Cabinet on public policy, presided over their differences - especially those between Thomas Jefferson and Hamilton - with a forbearance that indicated his high regard for his colleagues, and he made up his mind after careful consideration of alternatives. He approved the Federalist financial program and the later Hamiltonian proposals - funding of the national debt, assumption of the state debts, the establishment of a Bank of the United States, the creation of a national coinage system, and an excise tax. He supported a national policy for disposition of the public lands and presided over the expansion of the Federal union from eleven states (North Carolina and Rhode Island ratified the Constitution after Washington's inaugural) to 16 (Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee were admitted between 1791 and 1796). Washington's role as presidential leader was of fundamental importance in winning support for the new government's domestic and foreign policies. "Such a Chief Magistrate, " Fisher Ames noted, "appears like the pole star in a clear sky….His Presidency will form an epoch and be distinguished as the Age of Washington."

Despite his unanimous election, Washington expected that the measures of his administration would meet opposition, and they did. By the end of his first term the American party system was developing. When he mentioned the possibility of retirement in 1792, therefore, both Hamilton and Jefferson agreed that he was "the only man in the United States who possessed the confidence of the whole" and "no other person … would be thought anything more than the head of a party." "North and South, " Jefferson urged, "will hang together if they have you to hang on."

Creation of a Foreign Policy

Washington's second term was dominated by foreign-policy considerations. Early in 1793 the French Revolution became the central issue in American politics when France, among other actions, declared war on Great Britain and appointed "Citizen" Edmond Genet minister to the United States. Determined to keep "our people in peace, " Washington issued a neutrality proclamation, although the word "neutrality" was not used. His purpose, Washington told Patrick Henry, was "to keep the United States free from political connections with every other country, to see them independent of all and under the influence of none. In a word, I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others."

Citizen Genet, undeterred by the proclamation of neutrality, outfitted French privateers in American ports and organized expeditions against Florida and Louisiana. For his undiplomatic conduct, the Washington administration requested and obtained his recall. In the midst of the Genet affair, Great Britain initiated a blockade of France and began seizing neutral ships trading with the French West Indies. Besides violating American neutral rights, the British still held posts in the American Northwest, and the Americans claimed that they intrigued with the Indians against the United States.

Frontier provocations, ship seizures, and impressment made war seem almost inevitable in 1794, but Washington sent Chief Justice John Jay to negotiate a settlement of the differences between the two nations. Although Jay's Treaty was vastly unpopular - the British agreed to evacuate the Northwest posts but made no concessions on neutral rights or impressment - Washington finally accepted it as the best treaty possible at that time. The treaty also paved the way for Thomas Pinckney's negotiations with Spanish ministers, now fearful of an Anglo-American entente against Spain in the Western Hemisphere. Washington happily signed Pinckney's Treaty, which resolved disputes over navigation of the Mississippi, the Florida boundary, and neutral rights.

While attempting to maintain peace with Great Britain in 1794, the Washington administration had to meet the threat of domestic violence in western Pennsylvania. The Whiskey Rebellion, a reaction against the first Federal excise tax, presented a direct challenge to the power of the Federal government to enforce its laws. After a Federal judge certified that ordinary judicial processes could not deal with the opposition to the laws, Washington called out 12, 000 state militiamen "to support our government and laws" by crushing the rebellion. The resistance quickly melted, and Washington showed that force could be tempered with clemency by pardoning the insurgents.

Washington's Contributions

Nearly all observers agree that Washington's 8 years as president demonstrated that executive power was completely consistent with the genius of republican government. Putting his prestige on the line in an untried office under an untried constitution, Washington was fully aware, as he pointed out in his First Inaugural Address, that "the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people."

Perhaps Washington's chief strength - the key to his success as a military and a political leader - was his realization that in a republic the executive, like all other elected representatives, would have to measure his public acts against the temper of public opinion. As military commander dealing with the Continental Congress and the state governments during the Revolution, Washington had realized the importance of administrative skills as a means of building public support of the army. As president, he applied the same skills to win support for the new Federal government.

Despite Washington's abhorrence of factionalism, his administrations and policies spurred the beginnings of the first party system. This ultimately identified Washington, the least partisan of presidents, with the Federalist party, especially after Jefferson's retirement from the Cabinet in 1793. Washington's Farewell Address, though it was essentially a last will and political testament to the American people, inevitably took on political coloration in an election year. Warning against the divisiveness of excessive party spirit, which tended to separate Americans politically as "geographical distinctions" did sectionally, he stressed the necessity for an American character free of foreign attachments. Two-thirds of his address dealt with domestic politics and the baleful influence of party; the rest of the document laid down a statement of firs principles of American foreign policy. But even here, Washington's warning against foreign entanglements was especially applicable to foreign interference in the domestic affairs of the United States.

His Retirement

Washington's public service did not end with his retirement from the presidency. During the "half war" with France, President John Adams appointed him commander in chief, and Washington accepted with the understanding that he would not take field command until the troops had been recruited and equipped. Since Adams settled the differences with France by diplomatic negotiations, Washington never assumed actual command. He continued to reside at Mount Vernon, where he died on Dec. 14, 1799, after contracting a throat infection.

At the time of Washington's death, Congress unanimously adopted a resolution to erect a marble monument in the nation's capital "to commemorate the great events of his military and political life"; Congress also directed that "the family of General Washington be requested to permit his body to be deposited under it." The Washington Monument was finally completed in 1884, but Washington's remains were never moved there.

Further Reading

The most thorough biography of Washington is Douglas Southall Freeman's monumental six-volume George Washington, completed in a seventh volume by John A. Carroll and Mary Wells Ashworth (1948-1957). The one-volume condensation of Freeman's work by Richard Harwell (1968) offers a well-rounded portrait of Washington as a person and as a public figure. Another major work is the splendidly written study by James Thomas Flexner, George Washington (1965-1972).

The best brief surveys are Esmond Wright, Washington and the American Revolution (1957); Marcus Cunliffe, George Washington: Man and Monument (1958); and James Morton Smith, ed., George Washington: A Profile (1969), a group of essays by 11 historians. Assessments of Washington by contemporaries and by historians appear in Morton Borden, comp., George Washington (1969). For details on the first presidential elections see Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., ed., History of American Presidential Elections (4 vols., 1971).

Recommended for general historical background are Merrill Jensen, The New Nation: A History of the United States during the Confederation, 1781-1789 (1950), John C. Miller, Federalist Era, 1789-1801 (1960); and John Richard Alden, A History of the American Revolution (1969).

Washington, George (1732-99). First president of the USA. Washington's ancestors came from Northamptonshire and settled in Virginia in 1657. He inherited the Mount Vernon estate in 1752 when his half-brother died. Washington's first military experience was gained in the Virginia militia. He was appointed commander of the Virginia forces at the age of 23, and elected to the state legislature. After attending the first and second continental congresses in 1774 and 1775, he was elected commander of the congress forces. His first victory of any importance was at Trenton in December 1776 and he held his army together through the terrible winter at Valley Forge in 1777-8. At the end of hostilities, on 19 April 1783, he led the triumphal march into New York. When the Federal constitution was adopted, Washington was the obvious choice for the presidency, and was unanimously elected and re-elected in 1789 and 1793. He retired in 1797 to spend his last two years back in Mount Vernon.

• Born: Feb. 22, 1732, Westmoreland County, Va.
• Political party: none
• Education: schooling through age 15
• Military service: adjutant, Southern District of Virginia, 1752; lieutenant colonel and colonel, Virginia Regiment, 1754; commander of Virginia Military, 1755–58; commander in chief of Continental Army, 1775–83
• Previous government service: surveyor, Culpeper County, Va., 1749–51; Virginia House of Burgesses, 1759–74; justice of the peace, Fairfax County, Va., 1760–74; First Continental Congress, 1774; Second Continental Congress, 1775; presiding officer, Constitutional Convention, 1787
• Elected President, 1789; served, 1789–97
• Died: Dec. 14, 1799, Mount Vernon, Va.

George Washington was the victorious commander in chief of the American military during the revolutionary war, the presiding officer at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and the first President of the United States. Without Washington's leadership the country might have remained a British colony and evolved into a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations. And without Washington's work at the convention there would be no office of the Presidency as we know it today.

George Washington was born on one of six plantations owned by his father, Augustine Washington. George's father died in 1743, leaving the family 10, 000 acres and 50 slaves. Thereafter George was raised by his half-brother Lawrence, who was 14 years his senior, at the Epsewasson plantation at Little Hunting Creek, which Lawrence renamed Mount Vernon. His schooling ended at age 15, when he became a plantation supervisor and land surveyor. After Lawrence married a daughter of Colonel William Fairfax, one of the largest and most powerful landowners in Virginia, George was invited to survey Fairfax lands in the Shenandoah Valley, receiving 550 acres in compensation. Between 1749 and 1751 he was surveyor of Culpeper County. In 1752, after Lawrence died, George inherited the 2, 500-acre estate (with its 18 slaves) at Mount Vernon, becoming a large plantation owner at age 20.

Washington was soon influential in public affairs. In February 1753 he was named a major and adjutant of the Virginia Militia. In October he was sent by Governor Robert Dinwiddie to the frontier on Lake Erie to warn the French against occupying lands claimed by Great Britain, but the French rejected the ultimatum. The following year he was commissioned a lieutenant colonel and returned to the West. On May 28 he fought an engagement with the French that led to his promotion to colonel. He then constructed Fort Necessity and awaited a French counterattack. On July 4 the superior French forces captured the fort, accepted Washington's surrender, and let him return to Virginia, but only after he signed capitulation papers (written in French) admitting that he had fired on French officers while they had been under a flag of truce—a statement Washington later disavowed, saying he had not understood the language. These battles marked the start of the French and Indian War in the Americas and of the Seven Years War throughout the world.

Washington accompanied General Edward Braddock on an expedition against Fort Duquesne—near where Pittsburgh stands today—in 1755. The general disregarded Washington's advice on how to fight the Indians allied with the French. On July 9 Braddock was killed during the fighting, and Washington prevented the British defeat from becoming a complete rout. “I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me,” Washington later wrote. On his return he was named commander of the Virginia Militia. By 1758 he had defeated the French at Fort Duquesne and renamed it Fort Pitt.

In 1759 Washington resigned his commission with the rank of brigadier general and married a widow named Martha Dandridge Custis, who had two children by her previous marriage and plantations of 15, 000 acres, much of the land near Williamsburg, Virginia. Washington resumed tobacco farming, served in the Virginia House of Burgesses, and was a justice of the peace. He began opposing British colonial policies, particularly the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which discouraged settlement in the West (where Washington owned land in the Ohio Valley), and the Stamp Act of 1765, which taxed imports. After the governor disbanded the House of Burgesses for protesting the Stamp Act, Washington played a major role in their unauthorized meetings at Raleigh Tavern in 1770 (when it drew up resolutions calling on people not to import British goods, so that they would not pay the hated stamp tax) and in 1774 (when it called for a meeting of a continental congress). He was a delegate to the First Continental Congress of 1774, where he declared, “I will raise one thousand men, subsist them at my own expense, and march myself at their head for the relief of Boston.” On June 15, 1775, the Second Continental Congress named Washington commander in chief of the Continental Army. He refused to take any pay for the position.

Washington assumed command of his volunteers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on July 3, 1775, shortly after the Battle of Bunker Hill. He forced the British to evacuate Boston in March 1776 and concentrate their forces in New York. Washington was defeated at the Battle of Long Island in August and at the Battles of Manhattan and White Plains. He retreated into New Jersey and then into Pennsylvania. On Christmas night, 1776, he crossed the Delaware River and defeated British forces at Trenton, New Jersey. Then he captured Princeton and Morristown. But British reinforcements forced his withdrawal, and he was defeated at Brandywine Creek and Germantown, leading to the loss of Philadelphia. The Conway Conspiracy, a plot to replace Washington with General Horatio Gates, the hero of the Battle of Saratoga, went nowhere, as Congress reaffirmed its support for the beleaguered commander. Washington's forces regrouped at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, in October 1777. Three thousand of his troops deserted.

Although badly supplied, the troops who stuck it out during the harsh winter emerged from Valley Forge in the spring of 1778 as a disciplined army with superb morale. And the French had decided to help the Americans. With the British withdrawing from Philadelphia and regrouping in New York to await the arrival of a French fleet, Washington won the Battle of Monmouth in June 1778. He then surrounded and kept British forces in New York at bay while other military units fought in the South and won in the North west. But in 1780 there were new defeats: Charleston, South Carolina, fell and General Gates lost the Battle of Camden. Some troops mutinied when rations were cut.

In 1781 Washington's forces feigned preparations for an attack on New York. He and the French general Rochambeau secretly went south to face the British in Virginia. They joined up with another French general who was commanding American troops, the Marquis de Lafayette, and lay siege to the British. The arrival of a French fleet in the midst of the York-town campaign of 1781 forced British general Lord Charles Cornwallis to surrender his 8, 000-man force on October 19, 1781. This defeat ended hostilities. Washington then took his army to Newburgh, New York, to await the articles of peace, which were signed in November 1782, to become effective January 20, 1783. On March 15, 1783, Washington quelled a mutiny by senior officers who wished to disperse Congress and name Washington as an American king. His refusal to join the “Newburgh mutiny” and his insistence on preserving civil government made him the most influential political figure in the country.

Washington retired from the army on December 4, 1783, bidding farewell to his officers at Fraunces' Tavern in New York City. He resumed farming at Mount Vernon and toured the lands Congress had given him in the West. In 1785 Mount Vernon was the setting for a conference between representatives from Maryland and Virginia, who settled issues involving navigation on the Potomac River. That meeting led to the Annapolis Convention of 1786, which, in turn, called for a new constitutional convention for the following year.

In 1787 James Madison and others prevailed upon Washington to attend the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, and on May 25 he was named presiding officer. His participation ensured the success of the enterprise, especially because Washington played the key role in ensuring ratification of the new constitution by Virginia.

By unanimous vote of the electoral college on February 4, 1789, Washington was elected the first President of the United States. On April 30, he was inaugurated on the balcony of Federal Hall in New York City. In his inaugural address to Congress he appealed for a Bill of Rights to be added to the Constitution. He refused to accept a salary as President.

Washington had several goals for his Presidency. The first was to establish precedents, or set examples, that would preserve a republican form of government after his term of office. He also aimed to put the finances of the nation on a sound footing, to normalize relations with the British, and to develop the frontier. The methods that he and his Treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, devised to achieve these goals created divisions within his administration.

Hamilton wanted a “strong and energetic executive” who would dominate Congress and take control of policy-making. He wanted to levy taxes on whiskey and other goods to raise revenues and pay government debts. He also wanted an alliance (or at least a treaty of friendship) with the British in order to encourage British investment in new U.S. industries.

The President generally supported Hamilton in his plans for industrialization, assumption of the states' revolutionary war debts, creation of a national bank, protective tariffs on imported goods to help U.S. industry, excise taxes on whiskey to raise revenue, and strict neutrality in the wars between Great Britain and France. Hamilton was opposed on many of these policies by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who proposed closer relations with the French and disagreed with Hamilton's revenue measures, his idea of a national bank, and his plans to industrialize the nation.

Near the end of his first term, Washington accepted Jefferson's resignation. Now firmly in the camp of the Federalists organized by Hamilton, Washington was reelected by a unanimous vote of the electoral college in February 1793. He then allowed Hamilton to raise revenues through a whiskey excise tax. When Western farmers rebelled against paying the tax, Washington and Hamilton used military force to put down the Whiskey Rebellion in the summer of 1794. Washington cemented the alliance with Great Britain with Jay's Treaty, ratified in 1795. He accepted the resignation of his new secretary of state, Edmund Randolph, because Randolph had been bribed by the French to oppose the treaty. Washington's strong government secured the West as well: the new frontier state of Kentucky was created in 1792, and Tennessee joined the Union in 1796.

Washington retired after his second term at the age of 64, publishing a farewell address to the nation on September 17, 1796, that warned of the perils of “foreign entanglements” and of “the baneful effects of the spirit of party” in domestic affairs. On July 4, 1798, in the midst of a crisis with France, Congress named him commander in chief of the Army of the United States, but he never took actual command of forces. For the last years of his life he pursued agricultural interests at Mount Vernon and enjoyed his family, especially Martha's grandchildren, two of whom he adopted after the death of their father. He died of pulmonary complications suffered during a snowstorm on December 14, 1799. In Philadelphia, one of his officers, Henry Lee, gave the famous eulogy, “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

See also Adams, John; Articles of Confederation; Creation of the Presidency; Washington's Farewell Address

Sources

• Richard Brookhiser, Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington (1996; reprint, New York: Free Press, 1997). Marcus Cunliffe, George Washington: Man and Monument, rev. ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1982). James Thomas Flexner, Washington: The Indispensable Man (New York: New American Library, 1979). Ralph Ketcham, Presidents above Party: The First American Presidency, 1789–1829 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984)

(1732-1799), Virginia planter, commander of the Continental army, and first president of the United States. Washington was the son of Augustine Washington, a Virginia planter of modest wealth. When he died in 1743, George went to live with his older brother at Mount Vernon.

As a youth, Washington worked as a surveyor and in 1754 was sent with a military expedition to maintain Virginia's claim to Ohio lands against the French. In a battle fought in the wilderness he and most of his men were forced to surrender. After his release, he was appointed head of Virginia's militia on the frontier and served until 1758.

In 1759, Washington married Martha Custis, a wealthy widow. Marriage and the responsibilities of running a plantation helped him mature emotionally and intellectually. By 1770 he was an experienced leader--a vestryman, a justice of the peace, and a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. He was a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses, where John Adams remarked on his "soldier-like air" and, along with everyone else, thought he was the natural leader of the Continental army when it took shape in 1775.

As military commander, Washington's strategy grew from a clear vision of the large political objective of the Revolution: independence. His task was to hold the army together and maintain an armed resistance to the British forces in America while Congress sought foreign aid and recognition. The army had to remain intact to persuade Britain that the Americans were not going to surrender; only when that conviction pervaded British governing circles would independence be won.

During the war Washington suffered several defeats, but he held his forces together and won at Trenton and Princeton (1776-1777), and most important, at Yorktown (1781). His leadership and sense of strategy made him a superb commander in chief. His respect for civilian control, despite the weakness of Congress, proved especially important to the new Republic.

When the war ended, Washington returned to Mount Vernon and the life of a tobacco planter. But he was called out of retirement to preside at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 at Philadelphia. His great prestige supported the new government and made his election as the first president of the United States almost inevitable.

Washington's achievements as president were also enormous. He was creating a new government--its institutions, offices, and practices were not completely described in the Constitution--and he persuaded the American people that their future lay in a union under a strong central authority.

Cabinet members Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson soon disagreed over domestic and foreign policy. Washington backed Hamilton on key issues--the funding of the national debt, the assumption of state debts, and the establishment of a national bank chartered by the federal government--but he did not favor Hamilton's plan for the support of manufactures. Washington felt more confident of his knowledge of foreign affairs than he did of domestic policy. In 1790 when Spain seized three British ships in Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island, territory claimed by the Spanish, Washington maintained American neutrality and did the same in 1793 when war broke out between France and England. Jefferson objected, urging that the Treaty of Alliance with France be upheld, and left the government not long after. Washington settled outstanding issues with Britain through Jay's Treaty (1795) and with Spain through Pinckney's Treaty (1795). He put down the farmers in western Pennsylvania who instigated the Whiskey Rebellion (1794) and dealt a blow to the Indians of Ohio, after they were defeated by Gen. Anthony Wayne, in the Treaty of Greenville (1795).

In Washington's first term, an opposition began to make itself heard, and in his second term, the outlines of the first party system, composed of the Democratic-Republican and Federalist parties, became clear. Washington never understood the need for political parties, seeing something sinister in them. Fatigued and somewhat discouraged, he retired to Mount Vernon after he left the presidency.

Bibliography:

Douglas Southhall Freeman, George Washington: A Biography, completed by J. A. Carroll and M. W. Ashworth, 7 vols. (1948-1957).

Author:

Robert Middlekauff

See also Continental Congresses; Elections: 1789 , 1792; Federalist Party; Philadelphia Convention; Presidency; Revolution. For events during Washington's administration, see Bank of the United States; Bill of Rights; Chisholm v. Georgia ; Jay's Treaty; Judiciary Act of 1789; Report on Manufactures .

Early Life

He was born on Feb. 22, 1732 (Feb. 11, 1731, O.S.), the first son of Augustine Washington and his second wife, Mary Ball Washington, on the family estate (later known as Wakefield) in Westmoreland co., Va. Of a wealthy family, Washington embarked upon a career as a surveyor and in 1748 was invited to go with the party that was to survey Baron Fairfax's lands W of the Blue Ridge. In 1749 he was appointed to his first public office, surveyor of newly created Culpeper co., and through his half-brother Lawrence Washington he became interested in the Ohio Company, which had as its object the exploitation of Western lands. After Lawrence's death (1752), George inherited part of his estate and took over some of Lawrence's duties as adjutant of the colony. As district adjutant, which made (Dec., 1752) him Major Washington at the age of 20, he was charged with training the militia in the quarter assigned him.

The French and Indian War

Washington first gained public notice late in 1753 when he volunteered to carry a message from Gov. Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia to the French moving into the Ohio country, warning them to quit the territory, which was claimed by the British. In delivering the message Washington learned that the French were planning a further advance. He hastened back to Virginia, where he was commissioned lieutenant colonel by Dinwiddie and sent with about 400 men to reinforce the post that Dinwiddie had ordered built at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers.

The French, however, captured the post before he could reach it, and on hearing that they were approaching in force, Washington retired to the Great Meadows to build (July) an entrenched camp (Fort Necessity). Late in May he had won his first military victory (and his colonelcy) when he surprised (through the intelligence of his Native American allies) a small body of French troops. The French soon avenged this defeat, overwhelming him with a superior force at Fort Necessity on July 3, 1754. He surrendered on easy terms on July 4 and returned to Virginia with the survivors of his command. These battles marked the beginning of the last of the French and Indian Wars in America, in which Washington continued to figure.

As an aide to Edward Braddock he acquitted himself with honor in that general's disastrous expedition against Fort Duquesne in 1755. After the debacle he was appointed commander in chief of the Virginia militia to defend the frontier, and in 1758 he commanded one of the three brigades in the expedition headed by Gen. John Forbes that took an abandoned Fort Duquesne. With this episode his pre-Revolutionary military career ended.

The American Revolution

In 1759, Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis, a rich young widow, and settled on his estate at Mt. Vernon. He was a member (1759-74) of the house of burgesses, became a leader in Virginian opposition to the British colonial policy, and served (1774-75) as a delegate to the First Continental Congress. After the American Revolution broke out at Concord and Lexington, the Congress organized for defense, and, largely through the efforts of John Adams, Washington was named (June 15, 1775) commander in chief of the Continental forces.

He took command (July 3, 1775) at Cambridge, Mass., and found not an army but a force of unorganized, poorly disciplined, short-term enlisted militia, officered by men who were often insubordinate. He was faced with the problem of holding the British at Boston with a force that had to be trained in the field, and he was constantly hampered by congressional interference. Washington momentarily overcame these handicaps with the brilliant strategic move of occupying Dorchester Heights, forcing the British to evacuate Boston on Mar. 17, 1776.

Against his wishes the Continental Congress compelled him to attempt to defend New York City with a poorly equipped and untrained army against a large British land and sea force commanded by Sir William Howe. He was not yet experienced enough to conduct a large-scale action, and he committed a military blunder by sending part of his force to Brooklyn, where it was defeated (see Long Island, battle of) and surrounded. With the British fleet ready to close the only escape route, Washington saved his army with a masterly amphibious retreat across the East River back to Manhattan. Seeing that his position was completely untenable, he began a retreat northward into Westchester co., which was marked by delaying actions at Harlem Heights and White Plains and by the treacherous insubordination of Charles Lee. The retreat continued across the Hudson River through New Jersey into Pennsylvania, as Washington developed military skill through trial and error.

With colonial morale at its lowest ebb, he invaded New Jersey. On Christmas night, 1776, he crossed the Delaware, surrounded and defeated the British at Trenton, and pushed on to Princeton (Jan. 3, 1777), where he defeated a second British force. In 1777 he attempted to defend Philadelphia but was defeated at the battle of Brandywine (Sept. 11). His carefully planned counterattack at Germantown (Oct. 4, 1777) went awry, and with this second successive defeat certain discontented army officers and members of Congress tried to have Washington removed from command. Horatio Gates was advanced as a likely candidate to succeed him, but Washington's prompt action frustrated the so-called Conway Cabal.

After Germantown, Washington went into winter quarters at Valley Forge. Seldom in military history has any general faced such want and misery as Washington did in the winter of 1777-78. He proved equal to every problem, and in the spring he emerged with increased powers from Congress and a well-trained striking force, personally devoted to him. The attack (June 28, 1778) on the British retreating from Philadelphia to New York was vitiated by the actions of Charles Lee, but Washington's arrival on the field prevented a general American rout (see Monmouth, battle of). The fortunes of war soon shifted in favor of the colonial cause with the arrival (1780) of French military and naval forces, and victory finally came when General Cornwallis surrendered to Washington on Oct. 19, 1781. Washington made the American Revolution successful not only by his personal military triumphs but also by his skill in directing other operations.

Presidency

At the war's end he was the most important man in the country. He retired from the army (at Annapolis, Md., Dec. 23, 1783), returned to Mt. Vernon, and in 1784 journeyed to the West to inspect his lands there. Dissatisfied with the weakness of the government (see Confederation, Articles of), he soon joined the movement intent on reorganizing it. In 1785 commissioners from Virginia and Maryland met at Mt. Vernon to settle a dispute concerning navigation on the Potomac. This meeting led to the Annapolis Convention (1786) and ultimately to the Constitutional Convention (1787). Washington presided over this last convention, and his influence in securing the adoption of the Constitution of the United States is incalculable.

After a new government was organized, Washington was unanimously chosen the first President and took office (Apr. 30, 1789) in New York City. He was anxious to establish the new national executive above partisanship, and he chose men from all factions for the administrative departments. Thomas Jefferson became Secretary of State, and Alexander Hamilton Secretary of the Treasury. His efforts to remain aloof from partisan struggles were not successful. He approved of Hamilton's nationalistic financial measures, and although he was by no means a tool in the hands of the Secretary of the Treasury, he consistently supported Hamilton's policies. In the Anglo-French war (1793) he decided against Jefferson, who favored fulfilling the 1778 military alliance with France, and he took measures against Edmond Charles Édouard Genet. Jefferson left the cabinet, and despite Washington's efforts to preserve a political truce the Republican party (later the Democratic party) and the Federalist party emerged.

Washington was unanimously reelected (1793), but his second administration was Federalist and was bitterly criticized by Jeffersonians, especially for Jay's Treaty with England. Washington was denounced by some as an aristocrat and an enemy of true democratic ideals. The Whiskey Rebellion and trouble with the Native Americans, British, and Spanish in the West offered serious problems. The crushing of the rebellion, the defeat of the Native Americans by Anthony Wayne at Fallen Timbers, and the treaty Thomas Pinckney negotiated with Spain settled some of these troubles. Foreign affairs remained gloomy, however, and Washington, weary with political life, refused to run for a third term. Washington's Farewell Address (Sept. 17, 1796), a monument of American oratory, contained the famous (and much misquoted) passage warning the United States against "permanent alliances" with foreign powers. Washington returned to Mt. Vernon, but when war with France seemed imminent (1798) he was offered command of the army. War, however, was averted. He died on Dec. 14, 1799, and was buried on his estate.

There are many portraits and statues of Washington, among them the familiar, idealized portraits by Gilbert Stuart; the statue by Jean Antoine Houdon, who also executed the famous portrait bust from a life mask; and paintings by Charles Willson Peale, John Trumbull, and John Singleton Copley. His figure also has bulked large in drama, poetry, fiction, and essays in American literature. The national capital is named for him; one state, several colleges and universities, and scores of counties, towns, and villages of the United States bear his name. Wakefield and Mt. Vernon are national shrines.

Writings

The Univ. of Virginia is preparing a new edition of the complete writings of Washington. Under the editorship of D. Jackson, W. W. Abbott, D. Twohig, P. D. Chase, and others, more than 60 volumes have been published (1976-). The long-standing edition of Washington's writings (39 vol., 1931-44) was edited by J. C. Fitzpatrick. His journals-that of his Barbados journey in 1751-52 (1892), that of his journey to the West (1905), and his diaries (ed. by J. C. Fitzpatrick, 4 vol., 1925)-were also edited separately. An old standard edition of his writings is that by W. C. Ford (14 vol., 1889-93), and S. Commins edited a one-volume selection, Basic Writings (1948). Other standard sources of his works are The Washington Papers (1955, repr. 1967), edited by S. K. Padover, and The George Washington Papers (1964), edited by F. Donovan. There have been innumerable editions of his Farewell Address and many separate editions of others of his works.

Bibliography

There have been a great many studies of phases and incidents of Washington's career and a continual stream of biographies; the definitive biography is by D. S. Freeman (7 vol., 1948-57; abr. ed. 1968); Volume VII was written after Freeman's death by J. A. Carroll and M. W. Ashworth of his staff. The biography (1940) begun by N. W. Stephenson and completed by W. H. Dunn is full and eminently useful; so is the four-volume biography by J. T. Flexner (1965-72). The early biography by "Parson" M. L. Weems is important chiefly because it contains many of the now-famous Washington legends, such as that of the cherry tree. Biographies of Washington by eminent men of another day include those by J. Marshall, J. Sparks, and W. Irving. Other biographies include those by P. L. Ford (1896, repr. 1971), W. Wilson (1896, repr. 1969), J. Corbin (1930, repr. 1972), L. M. Sears (1932), J. C. Fitzpatrick (1933, repr. 1970), N. Callahan (1972), R. Brookhiser (1996), J. M. Burns and S. Dunn (2004), J. J. Ellis (2004), P. Johnson (2005), and R. Chernow (2010).

See also W. C. Ford, Washington as Employer and Importer of Labour (1889, repr. 1971); G. A. Eisen, Portraits of Washington (3 vol., 1932); E. S. Whitely, Washington and His Aides-de-Camp (1936, repr. 1968); F. R. Bellamy, The Private Life of George Washington (1951); C. P. Nettels, George Washington and American Independence (1951); M. Cunliffe, George Washington: Man and Monument (1958); L. M. Sears, George Washington and the French Revolution (1960); B. Knollenberg, Washington and the Revolution (1940, repr. 1968) and George Washington, the Virginia Period, 1732-1775 (1964); T. N. Dupuy, The Military Life of George Washington (1969); F. MacDonald, The Presidency of George Washington (1974); E. S. Morgan, The Genius of George Washington (1980); G. Wills, Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment (1984); J. E. Ferling, The First of Men (1988) and The Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon (2009); G. Vidal, Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson (2003); H. Wiencek, An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America (2003); D. McCullough, 1776 (2005); J. P. Kaminski, The Great Virginia Triumvirate: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison in the Eyes of Their Contemporaries (2010); B. Schecter, George Washington's America: A Biography Through His Maps (2010).

The first president of the United States, and the commanding general of the victorious American army in the Revolutionary War. The best known of the Founding Fathers, Washington is called the father of his country. He was born in 1732 in Virginia and showed early talent as a surveyor and farmer. He served as an army officer in the French and Indian War, as a member of the Virginia legislature, and as a delegate to the Continental Congress. In the summer of 1775, a few weeks after the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, he took command of the American army. He and his men won early victories over the British in New Jersey at Trenton and Princeton, despite a great lack of training and supplies. Washington is particularly remembered for keeping up morale during the hardships of winter encampment at Valley Forge. His victory at the Battle of Yorktown ended the fighting.

Washington presided at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and in 1789 he was unanimously elected the first president under the new Constitution. As president, he pursued a careful foreign policy, endorsed the financial program of Alexander Hamilton, and put down the Whisky Rebellion. Refusing to seek a third term as president, he retired from the office in 1797, issuing a Farewell Address that advised against party politics at home and against permanent alliances abroad. After he died in 1799, he was praised by Congress as “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

George Washington was a U.S. military leader, statesperson, and the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. A leader of mythic proportion in U.S. history, Washington's leadership from the American Revolution to the end of his presidential administrations proved crucial to winning independence from Great Britain and establishing a national union of states based on the U.S. Constitution.

Washington was born on February 22, 1732, in Westmoreland County, Virginia. Born into the colonial aristocracy, Washington attended local schools and supplemented his formal education by reading widely. As a young man he became a surveyor, and in 1749 he was appointed county surveyor for Culpeper County, Virginia. In 1752, at the age of twenty, Washington inherited the family estate at Mount Vernon and embarked on a military career.

During the French and Indian War, Washington gained his first military experience. The war was fought to determine whether France or Great Britain would rule North America. In 1753 Washington requested and received the assignment of delivering an ultimatum to the French, ordering them to retreat from the Ohio Valley. The French refused, and Washington led troops against them. Although Washington won an initial victory in 1754, the French counterattacked in force and Washington had to surrender his camp at Fort Necessity, Pennsylvania. He resigned his commission, but in May 1755 Washington became an unpaid volunteer, serving as aide-de-camp to the British general Edward Braddock. Braddock was ambushed and killed later that year near Fort Duquesne, and Washington himself narrowly escaped. In August 1755 Washington was promoted to colonel and given command of the Virginia militia, which defended the western frontier of the colony. During the remainder of the war, Washington successfully protected the frontier.

In 1759 Washington returned to Mount Vernon, where he married Martha Custes, a young widow with a large estate. The marriage made Washington one of the wealthiest men in Virginia. He was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1759, serving until 1774. During this period, colonial anger at British taxation and control began to steadily build. Great Britain believed that the taxes were justified to help repay the war debt and recognize British efforts to successfully remove France from North America. Washington, like many other colonial leaders, joined the protest against British interference and in 1774 endorsed the Fairfax Resolves, which called for a stringent boycott of British imports. In 1774 and 1775 he attended the First and Second Continental Congresses as a delegate from Virginia.

In 1775, as the Revolutionary War was imminent, the Congress appointed Washington commander in chief of the American forces, which were known as the Continental Army. It was hoped that Washington's appointment would promote unity between Virginia and New England.

Washington's years as commander in chief were a mix of defeats and victories. In March 1776 he successfully forced the British out of Boston, but in August the British defeated his forces at New York City. Washington then sought safety in New Jersey and emerged victorious again with his surprise attack on Trenton on December 25, 1776. On January 3, 1777, Washington's troops defeated the British at Princeton, New Jersey. The two victories were critical to maintaining colonial morale, and by the spring of 1777, more than eight thousand new soldiers had joined the Continental Army.

The tide turned, however, in September 1777, when Washington unsuccessfully tried to stop British forces from advancing on Philadelphia at the battle of Brandywine Creek. After the British occupied Philadelphia, Washington made a futile attack at nearby Germantown. During the winter of 1777 and 1778, Washington's troops stayed at Valley Forge, west of Philadelphia. The conditions were adverse, requiring all of Washington's leadership skills to hold his army together. During the winter his actions aroused dissent in Congress, and his critics sought to have General Horatio Gates replace Washington as commander in chief. Several congressmen and military officers backed Gates, but the public rallied behind Washington.

In June 1778 Washington attacked the British at Monmouth, New Jersey, but again was defeated. He then shifted his military strategy, keeping his troops encamped around British forces in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. In 1781 Washington defeated General Charles Cornwallis at the Battle of Yorktown in Virginia. The surrender of Cornwallis marked the end of major military actions in the Revolutionary War. The signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 officially ended the conflict, with Great Britain recognizing the independence of the thirteen colonies and the geographic boundaries of the new nation.

After the war Washington returned to Mount Vernon, but he was soon drawn back into politics. The Articles of Confederation proved ineffective for governing the national affairs of the thirteen states. Shays's Rebellion, named after its leader Daniel Shays, was an armed insurrection in Massachusetts in 1787 and 1788 that convinced U.S. political leaders that a strong national government was needed. Washington agreed and consented to serve as president at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia. Though he played no part in the drafting of the Constitution and did not participate in behind-the-scenes political discussions, Washington's presence lent legitimacy to the effort to craft a new government.

As the leading national figure, Washington was the logical choice to become the first president of the United States. His election in 1788 helped shape the executive branch of federal government. Washington decided to surround himself with a group of national leaders as his advisors and administrators. Though the presidential cabinet is not discussed in the Constitution, Washington's use of it made it a traditional part of a president's administration.

The first cabinet included Thomas Jefferson as secretary of state and Alexander Hamilton as secretary of the treasury. Washington was sympathetic to Hamilton's belief that a strong national government was needed, including the establishment of a national bank. In contrast, Jefferson believed that the states should continue to be dominant, with the national government confined to the enumerated powers contained in the Constitution. The conflict between Hamilton and Jefferson dominated Washington's administration.

Jefferson supported the French Revolution, whereas Hamilton favored British efforts to organize a coalition to topple the new regime through warfare. As events unfolded, Washington announced in the Neutrality Proclamation of 1793 that the United States favored neutrality in the war between France and the British coalition. U.S. neutrality clearly favored the British. When the French emissary Edmond-Charles Genet tried to recruit U.S. soldiers to serve as volunteers for the French cause, Washington had Genet recalled and repudiated the 1778 treaty with France. Jefferson opposed Washington's actions and resigned as secretary of state, causing a rift in the Republican party and precipitating the formation of the Federalist party, with Hamilton as its leader.

Reelected in 1792, Washington faced domestic problems in 1794 with the Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania. Organized as a protest against a federal liquor tax, the Pennsylvania uprising was quelled when Washington ordered the militia to maintain peace.

In 1795 Washington faced opposition to the Jay Treaty with Great Britain, which John Jay had negotiated to settle commerce and navigation rights. One section of the treaty permitted the British to search U.S. ships. The treaty was adopted because of Washington's popularity, but both the president and the treaty were severely criticized.

Washington did not seek reelection in 1796. In his celebrated Farewell Address, he advised against "entangling alliances" with European nations. He returned to Mount Vernon, where he spent the rest of his years managing his estate.

Washington died on December 14, 1799, at Mount Vernon.

Quotes:

"Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all."

"Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God."

"It is well, I die hard, but I am not afraid to go."

"I know of no pursuit in which more real and important services can be rendered to any country than by improving its agriculture, its breed of useful animals, and other branches of a husbandman's cares."

"Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth."

"The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves."

See more famous quotes by George Washington

This article is about the first President of the United States. For other uses, see George Washington (disambiguation).

George Washington
1st President of the United States
In office April 30, 1789* – March 4, 1797
Vice President	John Adams
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	John Adams
Senior Officer of the Army
In office July 13, 1798 – December 14, 1799
Appointed by	John Adams
Preceded by	James Wilkinson
Succeeded by	Alexander Hamilton
Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army
In office June 15, 1775 – December 23, 1783
Appointed by	Continental Congress
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Senior Officer of the Army
Delegate to the Second Continental Congress from Virginia
In office May 10, 1775 – June 15, 1775
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Thomas Jefferson
Delegate to the First Continental Congress from Virginia
In office September 5, 1774 – October 26, 1774
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Position abolished
Personal details
Born	February 22, 1732(1732-02-22) Westmoreland, Virginia Colony
Died	December 14, 1799(1799-12-14) (aged 67) Mount Vernon, Virginia, U.S.
Political party	Independent
Spouse(s)	Martha Dandridge Custis
Profession	Planter Officer
Religion	Church of England / Episcopal
Signature
Military service
Allegiance	Great Britain United States
Service/branch	Virginia provincial militia Continental Army United States Army
Years of service	Militia: 1752–1758 Continental Army: 1775–1783 Army: 1798–1799
Rank	Lieutenant general General of the Armies (posthumous: 1976)
Commands	Virginia Colony's regiment Continental Army United States Army
Battles/wars	French and Indian War  • Battle of Jumonville Glen  • Battle of Fort Necessity  • Braddock Expedition  • Battle of the Monongahela  • Forbes Expedition American Revolutionary War  • Boston campaign  • New York and New Jersey campaign  • Philadelphia campaign  • Yorktown campaign
Awards	Congressional Gold Medal Thanks of Congress
*March 4 is the official start of the first presidential term. April 6 is when Congress counted the votes of the Electoral College and certified a president. April 30 is when Washington was sworn in.

George Washington (February 22, 1732 [O.S. February 11, 1731] – December 14, 1799) was the first President of the United States of America, serving from 1789 to 1797, and dominant military and political leader of the United States from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of the Constitution in 1787. Washington became the first president by unanimous choice, and oversaw the creation of a strong, well-financed national government that maintained neutrality in the wars raging in Europe, suppressed rebellion and won acceptance among Americans of all types. His leadership style established many forms and rituals of government that have been used since, such as using a cabinet system and delivering an inaugural address. Washington is universally regarded as the "Father of his country".

Washington was born into the provincial gentry of a wealthy, well-connected Colonial Virginia family who owned tobacco plantations and slaves. After both his father and older brother died young, Washington became personally and professionally attached to the powerful William Fairfax, who promoted his career as a surveyor and soldier. Washington quickly became a senior officer in the colonial forces during the first stages of the French and Indian War. Chosen by the Second Continental Congress in 1775 to be commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in the American Revolution, Washington managed to force the British out of Boston in 1776, but was defeated and almost captured later that year when he lost New York City. After crossing the Delaware River in the dead of winter, he defeated the British in two battles, retook New Jersey and restored momentum to the Patriot cause. Because of his strategy, Revolutionary forces captured two major British armies at Saratoga in 1777 and Yorktown in 1781. Historians laud Washington for his selection and supervision of his generals, encouragement of morale and ability to hold together the arm, coordination with the state governors and state militia units, relations with Congress and attention to supplies, logistics, and training. In battle, however, Washington was repeatedly outmaneuvered by British generals with larger armies. After victory had been finalized in 1783, Washington resigned rather than seize power, proving his opposition to dictatorship and his commitment to American republicanism. He retired from the presidency in 1797 and returned to his home, Mount Vernon, and his domestic life where he managed a variety of enterprises. He freed all his slaves by his final 1799 will.

Dissatisfied with the weaknesses of Articles of Confederation, in 1787 Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention that drafted the United States Constitution. Elected as the first President of the United States in 1789, he attempted to bring rival factions together to unify the nation. He supported Alexander Hamilton's programs to pay off all state and national debt, to implement an effective tax system and to create a national bank (despite opposition from Thomas Jefferson). Washington proclaimed the U.S. neutral in the wars raging in Europe after 1793. He avoided war with Great Britain and guaranteed a decade of peace and profitable trade by securing the Jay Treaty in 1795, despite intense opposition from the Jeffersonians. Although never officially joining the Federalist Party, he supported its programs. Washington's "Farewell Address" was an influential primer on republican virtue and a warning against partisanship, sectionalism, and involvement in foreign wars.

Washington had a vision of a great and powerful nation that would be built on republican lines using federal power. He sought to use the national government to preserve liberty, improve infrastructure, open the western lands, promote commerce, found a permanent capital, reduce regional tensions and promote a spirit of American nationalism.^[1] At his death, Washington was hailed as "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen".^[2] The Federalists made him the symbol of their party but for many years, the Jeffersonians continued to distrust his influence and delayed building the Washington Monument. As the leader of the first successful revolution against a colonial empire in world history, Washington became an international icon for liberation and nationalism, especially in France and Latin America.^[3] He is consistently ranked among the top three presidents of the United States, according to polls of both scholars and the general public.

Contents 1 Early life (1732–1753) 2 French and Indian War (or 'Seven Years War', 1754–1758) 2.1 Braddock disaster 1755 2.2 Commander of Virginia Regiment 2.3 Lessons learned 3 Between the wars: Mount Vernon (1759–1774) 4 American Revolution (1775–1787) 4.1 Commander in chief 4.2 Victory at Boston 4.3 Defeat at New York City and Fabian tactics 4.4 1777 campaigns 4.5 Valley Forge 4.6 Victory at Yorktown 4.7 Demobilization 5 Constitutional Convention (1787) 6 Presidency (1789–1797) 6.1 Domestic issues 6.2 Foreign affairs 6.3 Farewell Address 7 Retirement (1797–1799) 7.1 Death 8 Legacy 8.1 Cherry tree 8.2 Monuments and memorials 8.3 Papers 9 Personal life 9.1 Slavery 9.2 Religion 9.3 Freemasonry 10 Postage and currency 11 See also 12 Notes 13 References 14 Bibliography 15 External links

Early life (1732–1753)

Further information: Ancestry of George Washington

The first child of Augustine Washington (1694–1743) and his second wife, Mary Ball Washington (1708–1789), George Washington was born on their Pope's Creek Estate near present-day Colonial Beach in Westmoreland County, Virginia. According to the Julian calendar, which was in use at the time, Washington was born on February 11, 1731; according to the Gregorian calendar, implemented in 1752, according to the provisions of the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750, the date was February 22, 1732.^{[4][5][Note 1]} Washington's ancestors were from Sulgrave, England; his great-grandfather, John Washington, had immigrated to Virginia in 1657.^[6] George's father Augustine was a slave-owning tobacco planter who later tried his hand in iron-mining ventures.^[7] In George's youth, the Washingtons were moderately prosperous members of the Virginia gentry, of "middling rank" rather than one of the leading families.^[8]

Six of George's siblings reached maturity, including two older half-brothers, Lawrence and Augustine, from his father's first marriage to Jane Butler Washington and four full siblings, Samuel, Elizabeth (Betty), John Augustine and Charles. Three siblings died before becoming adults: his full sister Mildred died when she was about one,^[9] his half-brother Butler died while an infant,^[10] and his half-sister Jane died at the age of 12, when George was about 2.^[9] George's father died when George was 11 years old, after which George's half-brother Lawrence became a surrogate father and role model. William Fairfax, Lawrence's father-in-law and cousin of Virginia's largest landowner, Thomas, Lord Fairfax, was also a formative influence.

Washington spent much of his boyhood at Ferry Farm in Stafford County near Fredericksburg. Lawrence Washington inherited another family property from his father, a plantation on the Potomac River which he later named Mount Vernon. George inherited Ferry Farm upon his father's death, and eventually acquired Mount Vernon after Lawrence's death.^[11]

The death of his father prevented Washington from crossing the Atlantic to receive the rest of his education at England's Appleby School, as his older brothers had done. He received the equivalent of an elementary school education from a variety of tutors,^[12] and also a school run by an Anglican clergyman in or near Fredericksburg.^[13] Talk of securing an appointment in the Royal Navy for him when he was 15 was dropped when his mother learned how hard that would be on him.^[14] Thanks to Lawrence's connection to the powerful Fairfax family, at age 17 in 1749, Washington was appointed official surveyor for Culpeper County, a well-paid position which enabled him to purchase land in the Shenandoah Valley, the first of his many land acquisitions in western Virginia. Thanks also to Lawrence's involvement in the Ohio Company, a land investment company funded by Virginia investors, and Lawrence's position as commander of the Virginia militia, Washington came to the notice of the new lieutenant governor of Virginia, Robert Dinwiddie. Washington was hard to miss: At exactly six feet, he towered over most of his contemporaries.^[15]

In 1751, Washington travelled to Barbados with Lawrence, who was suffering from tuberculosis, with the hope that the climate would be beneficial to Lawrence's health. Washington contracted smallpox during the trip, which left his face slightly scarred, but immunized him against future exposures to the dreaded disease.^[16] Lawrence's health did not improve; he returned to Mount Vernon, where he died in 1752.^[17] Lawrence's position as Adjutant General (militia leader) of Virginia was divided into four offices after his death. Washington was appointed by Governor Dinwiddie as one of the four district adjutants in February 1753, with the rank of major in the Virginia militia.^[18] Washington also joined the Freemasons in Fredericksburg at this time.^[19]

French and Indian War (or 'Seven Years War', 1754–1758)

Main article: George Washington in the French and Indian War

See also: Military career of George Washington, Battle of Jumonville Glen, Battle of Fort Necessity, and Forbes Expedition

Washington's map, accompanying his Journal to the Ohio (1753–1754)

In 1753, the French began expanding their military control into the "Ohio Country", a territory also claimed by the British colonies of Virginia and Pennsylvania. These competing claims led to a war in the colonies called the French and Indian War (1754–62), and contributed to the start of the global Seven Years' War (1756–63). Washington was at the center of its beginning. The Ohio Company was one vehicle through which British investors planned to expand into the territory, opening new settlements and building trading posts for the Indian trade. Governor Dinwiddie received orders from the British government to warn the French of British claims, and sent Major Washington in late 1753 to deliver a letter informing the French of those claims and asking them to leave.^[20] Washington also met with Tanacharison (also called "Half-King") and other Iroquois leaders allied to Virginia at Logstown to secure their support in case of conflict with the French; Washington and Tanacharison became friends and allies. Washington delivered the letter to the local French commander, who politely refused to leave.^[21]

Governor Dinwiddie sent Washington back to the Ohio Country to protect an Ohio Company group building a fort at present-day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania but before he reached the area, a French force drove out the company's crew and began construction of Fort Duquesne. A small detachment of French troops led by Joseph Coulon de Jumonville, was discovered by Tanacharison and a few warriors east of present-day Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Along with their Mingo allies, Washington and some of his militia unit then ambushed the French. What exactly happened during and after the battle is a matter of some controversy, but the immediate outcome was that Jumonville was injured in the initial attack and then was killed - whether tomahawked by Tanacharison in cold blood or somehow shot by another onlooker with a musket as the injured man sat with Washington is not completely clear.^[22][23] The French responded by attacking and capturing Washington at Fort Necessity in July 1754.^[24] However, he was allowed to return with his troops to Virginia. Historian Joseph Ellis concludes that the episode demonstrated Washington's bravery, initiative, inexperience and impetuosity.^[25] These events had international consequences; the French accused Washington of assassinating Jumonville, who they claimed was on a diplomatic mission.^[25] Both France and Great Britain were ready to fight for control of the region and both sent troops to North America in 1755; war was formally declared in 1756.^[26]

Braddock disaster 1755

Main article: Braddock Expedition

In 1755, Washington was the senior American aide to British General Edward Braddock on the ill-fated Braddock expedition. This was the largest British expedition to the colonies, and was intended to expel the French from the Ohio Country. The French and their Indian allies ambushed Braddock, who was mortally wounded in the Battle of the Monongahela. After suffering devastating casualties, the British retreated in disarray; however, Washington rode back and forth across the battlefield, rallying the remnants of the British and Virginian forces to an organized retreat.^[27]

Commander of Virginia Regiment

Governor Dinwiddie rewarded Washington in 1755 with a commission as "Colonel of the Virginia Regiment and Commander in Chief of all forces now raised in the defense of His Majesty's Colony" and gave him the task of defending Virginia's frontier. The Virginia Regiment was the first full-time American military unit in the colonies (as opposed to part-time militias and the British regular units). Washington was ordered to "act defensively or offensively" as he thought best.^[28] In command of a thousand soldiers, Washington was a disciplinarian who emphasized training. He led his men in brutal campaigns against the Indians in the west; in 10 months units of his regiment fought 20 battles, and lost a third of its men. Washington's strenuous efforts meant that Virginia's frontier population suffered less than that of other colonies; Ellis concludes "it was his only unqualified success" in the war.^[29][30]

In 1758, Washington participated in the Forbes Expedition to capture Fort Duquesne. He was embarrassed by a friendly fire episode in which his unit and another British unit thought the other was the French enemy and opened fire, with 14 dead and 26 wounded in the mishap. Washington was not involved in any other major fighting on the expedition, and the British scored a major strategic victory, gaining control of the Ohio Valley, when the French abandoned the fort. Following the expedition, Washington retired from his Virginia Regiment commission in December 1758. He did not return to military life until the outbreak of the revolution in 1775.^[31]

Lessons learned

Although Washington never gained the commission in the British army he yearned for, in these years the young man gained valuable military, political, and leadership skills.^[32][33] He closely observed British military tactics, gaining a keen insight into their strengths and weaknesses that proved invaluable during the Revolution. He demonstrated his toughness and courage in the most difficult situations, including disasters and retreats. He developed a command presence—given his size, strength, stamina, and bravery in battle, he appeared to soldiers to be a natural leader and they followed him without question.^[34][35] Washington learned to organize, train, drill, and discipline his companies and regiments. From his observations, readings and conversations with professional officers, he learned the basics of battlefield tactics, as well as a good understanding of problems of organization and logistics.^[36] He gained an understanding of overall strategy, especially in locating strategic geographical points.^[37] Historian Ron Chernow is of the opinion that his frustrations in dealing with government officials during this conflict led him to advocate the advantages of a strong national government and a vigorous executive agency that could get results;^[32] other historians tend to ascribe Washington's position on government to his later American Revolutionary War service.^{[Note 2]} He developed a very negative idea of the value of militia, who seemed too unreliable, too undisciplined, and too short-term compared to regulars.^[38] On the other hand, his experience was limited to command of at most 1000 men, and came only in remote frontier conditions that were far removed from the urban situations he faced during the Revolution at Boston, New York, Trenton and Philadelphia.^[39]

Between the wars: Mount Vernon (1759–1774)

A mezzotint of Martha Washington, based on a 1757 portrait by Wollaston

On January 6, 1759, Washington married the wealthy widow Martha Dandridge Custis. Surviving letters suggest that he may have been in love at the time with Sally Fairfax, the wife of a friend.^[40] Nevertheless, George and Martha made a compatible marriage, because Martha was intelligent, gracious, and experienced in managing a planter's estate.^[41] Together the two raised her two children from her previous marriage, John Parke Custis and Martha Parke Custis, affectionately called "Jackie" and "Patsy" by the family. Later the Washingtons raised two of Mrs. Washington's grandchildren, Eleanor Parke Custis and George Washington Parke Custis. George and Martha never had any children together – his earlier bout with smallpox in 1751 may have made him sterile.^[42] Washington may not have been able to admit to his own sterility while privately he grieved over not having his own children.^[43][44] The newlywed couple moved to Mount Vernon, near Alexandria, where he took up the life of a planter and political figure.

Washington's marriage to Martha greatly increased his property holdings and social standing, and made him one of Virginia's wealthiest men. He acquired one-third of the 18,000-acre (73 km²) Custis estate upon his marriage, worth approximately $100,000, and managed the remainder on behalf of Martha's children, for whom he sincerely cared.^[45] He frequently bought additional land in his own name and was granted land in what is now West Virginia as a bounty for his service in the French and Indian War. By 1775, Washington had doubled the size of Mount Vernon to 6,500 acres (26 km²), and had increased the slave population there to over 100. As a respected military hero and large landowner, he held local office and was elected to the Virginia provincial legislature, the House of Burgesses, beginning in 1758.^[46]

Washington enlarged the house at Mount Vernon after his marriage

Washington lived an aristocratic lifestyle—fox hunting was a favorite leisure activity.^[47] He also enjoyed going to dances and parties, in addition to the theater, races, and cockfights. Washington also was known to play cards, backgammon, and billiards.^[48] Like most Virginia planters, he imported luxuries and other goods from England and paid for them by exporting his tobacco crop.^[49]

Washington began to pull himself out of debt in the mid 1760s by diversifying his previously tobacco-centric business interests into other ventures^[49] and paying more attention to his affairs.^[50] In 1766, he started switching Mount Vernon's primary cash crop away from tobacco to wheat, a crop that could be processed and then sold in various forms in the colonies, and further diversified operations to include flour milling, fishing, horse breeding, spinning, weaving and (in the 1790s) whiskey production.^[49] Patsy Custis's death in 1773 from epilepsy enabled Washington to pay off his British creditors, since half of her inheritance passed to him.^[51]

A successful planter, he was a leader in the social elite in Virginia. From 1768 to 1775, he invited some 2000 guests to his Mount Vernon estate, mostly those he considered "people of rank". As for people not of high social status, his advice was to "treat them civilly" but "keep them at a proper distance, for they will grow upon familiarity, in proportion as you sink in authority".^[52] In 1769, he became more politically active, presenting the Virginia Assembly with legislation to ban the importation of goods from Great Britain.^[53]

In 1754, Lieutenant Governor Dinwiddie had promised land bounties to the soldiers and officers who volunteered to serve during the French and Indian War.^[54] Washington tried for years to get the lands promised to him and his men. Governor Norborne Berkeley finally fulfilled that promise in 1769–1770,^[54][55] with Washington subsequently receiving title to 23,200 acres (94 km²) near where the Kanawha River flows into the Ohio River, in what is now western West Virginia.^[56]

American Revolution (1775–1787)

Main article: George Washington in the American Revolution

See also: Military career of George Washington

Although he expressed opposition to the 1765 Stamp Act, the first direct tax on the colonies, he did not take a leading role in the growing colonial resistance until protests of the Townshend Acts (enacted in 1767) became widespread. In May 1769, Washington introduced a proposal, drafted by his friend George Mason, calling for Virginia to boycott English goods until the Acts were repealed.^[57] Parliament repealed the Townshend Acts in 1770. However, Washington regarded the passage of the Intolerable Acts in 1774 as "an Invasion of our Rights and Privileges".^[58] In July 1774, he chaired the meeting at which the "Fairfax Resolves" were adopted, which called for the convening of a Continental Congress, among other things. In August, Washington attended the First Virginia Convention, where he was selected as a delegate to the First Continental Congress.^[59]

Commander in chief

After the Battles of Lexington and Concord near Boston in April 1775, the colonies went to war. Washington appeared at the Second Continental Congress in a military uniform, signaling that he was prepared for war.^[60] Washington had the prestige, military experience, charisma and military bearing of a military leader and was known as a strong patriot. Virginia, the largest colony, deserved recognition, and New England—where the fighting began—realized it needed Southern support. Washington did not explicitly seek the office of commander and said that he was not equal to it, but there was no serious competition.^[61] Congress created the Continental Army on June 14, 1775. Nominated by John Adams of Massachusetts, Washington was then appointed Major General and Commander-in-chief.^[62]

Washington had three roles during the war. In 1775–77, and again in 1781 he led his men against the main British forces. Although he lost many of his battles, he never surrendered his army during the war, and he continued to fight the British relentlessly until the war's end. He plotted the overall strategy of the war, in cooperation with Congress.^[63]

Second, he was charged with organizing and training the army. He recruited regulars and assigned Baron and General Friedrich von Steuben, a veteran of the Prussian general staff, to train them. The war effort and getting supplies to the troops were under the purview of Congress,^[64] but Washington pressured the Congress to provide the essentials.^[65] In June 1776, Congress' first attempt at running the war effort was established with the committee known as "Board of War and Ordnance", succeeded by the Board of War in July 1777, a committee which eventually included members of the military.^[64] The command structure of the Americans' armed forces was a hodgepodge of Congressional appointees (and Congress sometimes made those appointments without Washington's input) with state-appointments filling the lower ranks and of all of the militia-officers.^[66] The results of his general staff were mixed, as some of his favorites (like John Sullivan) never mastered the art of command. Eventually he found capable officers, like General Nathaniel Greene, and his chief-of-staff Alexander Hamilton. The American officers never equalled their opponents in tactics and maneuver, and consequently they lost most of the pitched battles. The great successes, at Boston (1776), Saratoga (1777) and Yorktown (1781), came from trapping the British far from base with much larger numbers of troops.^[63]

Third, and most important, Washington was the embodiment of armed resistance to the Crown—the representative man of the Revolution. His enormous stature and political skills kept Congress, the army, the French, the militias, and the states all pointed toward a common goal. By voluntarily stepping down and disbanding his army when the war was won, he permanently established the principle of civilian supremacy in military affairs. And yet his constant reiteration of the point that well-disciplined professional soldiers counted for twice as much as erratic amateurs helped overcome the ideological distrust of a standing army.^[67]

Victory at Boston

Washington assumed command of the Continental Army in the field at Cambridge, Massachusetts in July 1775, during the ongoing siege of Boston. Realizing his army's desperate shortage of gunpowder, Washington asked for new sources. American troops raided British arsenals, including some in the Caribbean, and some manufacturing was attempted. They obtained a barely adequate supply (about 2.5 million pounds) by the end of 1776, mostly from France.^[68] Washington reorganized the army during the long standoff, and forced the British to withdraw by putting artillery on Dorchester Heights overlooking the city. The British evacuated Boston in March 1776 and Washington moved his army to New York City.^[69]

Although highly disparaging toward most of the Patriots, British newspapers routinely praised Washington's personal character and qualities as a military commander. These articles were bold, as Washington was an enemy general who commanded an army in a cause that many Britons believed would ruin the empire.^[70]

Defeat at New York City and Fabian tactics

General George Washington at Trenton by John Trumbull, Yale University Art Gallery (1792)

In August 1776, British General William Howe launched a massive naval and land campaign designed to seize New York. The Continental Army under Washington engaged the enemy for the first time as an army of the newly independent United States at the Battle of Long Island, the largest battle of the entire war. The Americans were heavily outnumbered, many men deserted, and Washington was badly beaten. Subsequently, Washington was forced to retreat across the East River at night. He did so without loss of life or materiel.^[71] Washington retreated north from the city to avoid encirclement, enabling Howe to take the offensive and capture Fort Washington on November 16 with high Continental casualties. Washington then retreated across New Jersey; the future of the Continental Army was in doubt due to expiring enlistments and the string of losses.^[72] On the night of December 25, 1776, Washington staged a comeback with a surprise attack on a Hessian outpost in western New Jersey. He led his army across the Delaware River to capture nearly 1,000 Hessians in Trenton, New Jersey. Washington followed up his victory at Trenton with another over British regulars at Princeton in early January. The British retreated back to New York City and its environs, which they held until the peace treaty of 1783. Washington's victories wrecked the British carrot-and-stick strategy of showing overwhelming force then offering generous terms. The Americans would not negotiate for anything short of independence.^[73] These victories alone were not enough to ensure ultimate Patriot victory, however, since many soldiers did not reenlist or deserted during the harsh winter. Washington and Congress reorganized the army with increased rewards for staying and punishment for desertion, which raised troop numbers effectively for subsequent battles.^[74]

Historians debate whether or not Washington preferred a Fabian strategy^{[Note 3]} to harass the British with quick, sharp attacks followed by a retreat so the larger British army could not catch him, or whether he preferred to fight major battles.^{[Note 4]} While his southern commander Greene in 1780–81 did use Fabian tactics, Washington only did so in fall 1776 to spring 1777, after losing New York City and seeing much of his army melt away. Trenton and Princeton were Fabian examples. By summer 1777, however, Washington had rebuilt his strength and his confidence and stopped using raids and went for large-scale confrontations, as at Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth and Yorktown.^[75]

1777 campaigns

In the late summer of 1777 the British under John Burgoyne sent a major invasion army south from Quebec, with the intention of splitting off rebellious New England. General Howe in New York took his army south to Philadelphia instead of going up the Hudson River to join with Burgoyne near Albany. It was a major strategic mistake for the British, and Washington rushed to Philadelphia to engage Howe, while closely following the action in upstate New York. In pitched battles that were too complex for his relatively inexperienced men, Washington was defeated. At the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777, Howe outmaneuvered Washington, and marched into the American capital at Philadelphia unopposed on September 26. Washington's army unsuccessfully attacked the British garrison at Germantown in early October. Meanwhile, Burgoyne, out of reach from help from Howe, was trapped and forced to surrender his entire army at Saratoga, New York.^[76] It was a major turning point militarily and diplomatically. France responded to Burgoyne's defeat by entering the war, openly allying with America and turning the Revolutionary War into a major worldwide war. Washington's loss of Philadelphia prompted some members of Congress to discuss removing Washington from command. This attempt failed after Washington's supporters rallied behind him.^[77]

Valley Forge

Main article: Valley Forge

Washington and Lafayette look over the troops at Valley Forge

Washington's army of 11,000^[78] went into winter quarters at Valley Forge north of Philadelphia in December 1777. Over the next six months, the deaths in camp numbered in the thousands (the majority being from disease),^[79] with historians' death toll estimates ranging from 2000^[79] to 2500,^[80][81] to over 3000 men.^[82] The next spring, however, the army emerged from Valley Forge in good order, thanks in part to a full-scale training program supervised by General von Steuben.^[83] The British evacuated Philadelphia to New York in 1778,^[84] shadowed by Washington. Washington attacked them at Monmouth, fighting to an effective draw in one of the war's largest battles.^[85] Afterwards, the British continued to head towards New York, and Washington moved his army outside of New York.^[84]

Victory at Yorktown

The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown October 19, 1781 by John Trumbull, Yale University Art Gallery (1787- ca. 1828)

General George Washington Resigning His Commission by John Trumbull, Capitol Rotunda (commissioned 1817)

In the summer of 1779 at Washington's direction, General John Sullivan carried out a scorched earth campaign that destroyed at least 40 Iroquois villages in central and upstate New York; the Indians were British allies who had been raiding American settlements on the frontier.^[86] In July 1780, 5,000 veteran French troops led by General Comte Donatien de Rochambeau arrived at Newport, Rhode Island to aid in the war effort.^[87] The Continental Army having been funded by $20,000 in French gold, Washington delivered the final blow to the British in 1781, after a French naval victory allowed American and French forces to trap a British army in Virginia. The surrender at Yorktown on October 17, 1781, marked the end of major fighting in continental North America.^[88]

Demobilization

Washington could not know that after Yorktown the British would not reopen hostilities. They still had 26,000 troops occupying New York City, Charleston and Savannah, together with a powerful fleet. The French army and navy departed, so the Americans were on their own in 1782–83. The treasury was empty, and the unpaid soldiers were growing restive, almost to the point of mutiny or possible coup d'état. Washington dispelled unrest among officers by suppressing the Newburgh Conspiracy in March 1783, and Congress came up with the promise of a five years bonus.^[89]

By the Treaty of Paris (signed that September), Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States. Washington disbanded his army and, on November 2, gave an eloquent farewell address to his soldiers.^[90]

On November 25, the British evacuated New York City, and Washington and the governor took possession. At Fraunces Tavern on December 4, Washington formally bade his officers farewell and on December 23, 1783, he resigned his commission as commander-in-chief. Historian Gordon Wood concludes that the greatest act in his life was his resignation as commander of the armies—an act that stunned aristocratic Europe.^[91] King George III called Washington "the greatest character of the age" because of this.^[92]

Constitutional Convention (1787)

Washington's retirement to Mount Vernon was short-lived. He made an exploratory trip to the western frontier in 1784,^[62] was persuaded to attend the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, and was unanimously elected president of the Convention. He participated little in the debates (though he did vote for or against the various articles), but his high prestige maintained collegiality and kept the delegates at their labors. The delegates designed the presidency with Washington in mind, and allowed him to define the office once elected.^[93] After the Convention, his support convinced many to vote for ratification; the new Constitution was ratified by all thirteen states.^[94]

Presidency (1789–1797)

George Washington by Rembrandt Peale, De Young Museum (ca. 1850)

Main article: Presidency of George Washington

The Electoral College elected Washington unanimously as the first president in 1789,^{[Note 5]} and again in the 1792 election; he remains the only president to have received 100 percent of the electoral votes.^{[Note 6]} John Adams, who received the next highest vote total, was elected Vice President. At his inauguration, Washington took the oath of office as the first President of the United States of America on April 30, 1789, on the balcony of Federal Hall in New York City.^[96]

The 1st United States Congress voted to pay Washington a salary of $25,000 a year—a large sum in 1789. Washington, already wealthy, declined the salary, since he valued his image as a selfless public servant. At the urging of Congress, however, he ultimately accepted the payment, to avoid setting a precedent whereby the presidency would be perceived as limited only to independently wealthy individuals who could serve without any salary.^[97] The president, aware that everything he did set a precedent, attended carefully to the pomp and ceremony of office, making sure that the titles and trappings were suitably republican and never emulated European royal courts. To that end, he preferred the title "Mr. President" to the more majestic names suggested.^[98]

Washington proved an able administrator. An excellent delegator and judge of talent and character, he talked regularly with department heads and listened to their advice before making a final decision.^[99] In handling routine tasks, he was "systematic, orderly, energetic, solicitous of the opinion of others ... but decisive, intent upon general goals and the consistency of particular actions with them."^[100]

Washington reluctantly served a second term. He refused to run for a third, establishing the customary policy of a maximum of two terms for a president.^[101]

Domestic issues

See also: Whiskey Rebellion

Washington was not a member of any political party and hoped that they would not be formed, fearing conflict that would undermine republicanism.^[102] His closest advisors formed two factions, setting the framework for the future First Party System. Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton had bold plans to establish the national credit and build a financially powerful nation, and formed the basis of the Federalist Party. Secretary of the State Thomas Jefferson, founder of the Jeffersonian Republicans, strenuously opposed Hamilton's agenda, but Washington typically favored Hamilton over Jefferson, and it was Hamilton's agenda that went into effect. Jefferson's political actions, his support of Philip Freneau's National Gazette,^[103] and his attempt to undermine Hamilton, nearly led George Washington to dismiss Jefferson from his cabinet.^[104] Though Jefferson left the cabinet voluntarily, Washington never forgave him, and never spoke to him again.^[104]

The Residence Act of 1790, which Washington signed, authorized the President to select the specific location of the permanent seat of the government, which would be located along the Potomac River. The Act authorized the President to appoint three commissioners to survey and acquire property for this seat. Washington personally oversaw this effort throughout his term in office. In 1791, the commissioners named the permanent seat of government "The City of Washington in the Territory of Columbia" to honor Washington. In 1800, the Territory of Columbia became the District of Columbia when the federal government moved to the site according to the provisions of the Residence Act.^[105]

In 1791, Congress imposed an excise tax on distilled spirits, which led to protests in frontier districts, especially Pennsylvania. By 1794, after Washington ordered the protesters to appear in U.S. district court, the protests turned into full-scale defiance of federal authority known as the Whiskey Rebellion. The federal army was too small to be used, so Washington invoked the Militia Act of 1792 to summon militias from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey.^[106] The governors sent the troops and Washington took command, marching into the rebellious districts. The rebels dispersed and there was no fighting, as Washington's forceful action proved the new government could protect itself. These events marked the first time under the new constitution that the federal government used strong military force to exert authority over the states and citizens.^[107]

Foreign affairs

In spring 1793 a major war broke out between conservative Great Britain and its allies and revolutionary France, launching an era of large-scale warfare that engulfed Europe until 1815. Washington, with cabinet approval, proclaimed American neutrality. The revolutionary government of France sent diplomat Edmond-Charles Genêt, called "Citizen Genêt," to America. Genêt was welcomed with great enthusiasm and propagandized the case for France in the French war against Great Britain, and for this purpose promoted a network of new Democratic Societies in major cities. He issued French letters of marque and reprisal to French ships manned by American sailors so they could capture British merchant ships. Washington, warning and mistrustful of the influence of Illuminism that had been so strong in the French Revolution (as recounted by John Robison and Abbé Augustin Barruel) and its Reign of Terror, demanded the French government recall Genêt, and denounced the societies.^[108]

Hamilton and Washington designed the Jay Treaty to normalize trade relations with Great Britain, remove them from western forts, and resolve financial debts left over from the Revolution.^[109] John Jay negotiated and signed the treaty on November 19, 1794. The Jeffersonians supported France and strongly attacked the treaty. Washington's strong support mobilized public opinion and proved decisive in securing ratification in the Senate by the necessary two-thirds majority.^[110] The British agreed to depart from their forts around the Great Lakes, subsequently the U.S.-Canadian boundary had to be re-adjusted, numerous pre-Revolutionary debts were liquidated, and the British opened their West Indies colonies to American trade. Most importantly, the treaty delayed war with Great Britain and instead brought a decade of prosperous trade with Great Britain. The treaty angered the French and became a central issue in many political debates.^[111] Relations with France deteriorated after the treaty was signed, leaving his successor, John Adams, with the prospect of war.^[112][113]

Farewell Address

Main article: George Washington's Farewell Address

Washington's Farewell Address (September 19, 1796)

Washington's Farewell Address (issued as a public letter in 1796) was one of the most influential statements of republicanism. Drafted primarily by Washington himself, with help from Hamilton, it gives advice on the necessity and importance of national union, the value of the Constitution and the rule of law, the evils of political parties, and the proper virtues of a republican people. He called morality "a necessary spring of popular government". He said, "Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."^[114]

Washington's public political address warned against foreign influence in domestic affairs and American meddling in European affairs. He warned against bitter partisanship in domestic politics and called for men to move beyond partisanship and serve the common good. He warned against "permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world",^[115] saying the United States must concentrate primarily on American interests. He counseled friendship and commerce with all nations, but warned against involvement in European wars and entering into long-term "entangling" alliances. The address quickly set American values regarding foreign affairs.^[116]

Retirement (1797–1799)

After retiring from the presidency in March 1797, Washington returned to Mount Vernon with a profound sense of relief. He devoted much time to farming and other business interests, including his distillery which produced its first batch of spirits in February 1797.^[117] As Chernow (2010) explains, his farm operations were at best marginally profitable. The lands out west yielded little income because they were under attack by Indians and the squatters living there refused to pay him rents. However most Americans assumed he was truly rich because of the well-known "glorified façade of wealth and grandeur" at Mount Vernon.^[118] Historians estimate his estate was worth about $1 million in 1799 dollars, equivalent to about $18 million in 2009 purchasing power.^[119]

By 1798, relations with France had deteriorated to the point that war seemed imminent, and on July 4, 1798, President Adams offered Washington a commission as lieutenant general and Commander-in-chief of the armies raised or to be raised for service in a prospective war. He reluctantly accepted, and served as the senior officer of the United States Army between July 13, 1798, and December 14, 1799. He participated in the planning for a Provisional Army to meet any emergency that might arise, but avoided involvement in details as much as possible, delegating most of the work, including leadership of the army, to Hamilton.^[120][121]

Death

Washington's tomb at Mount Vernon, Virginia

On Thursday December 12, 1799, Washington spent several hours inspecting his farms on horseback, in snow, hail and freezing rain—later that evening eating his supper without changing from his wet clothes. Friday morning, he awoke with a severe sore throat (either quinsy or acute epiglottitis) and became increasingly hoarse as the day progressed. Sometime around 3 am that Saturday morning, he awoke his wife and said he felt ill. Following common medical practice at the time, he was bled; initially by an employee and later again by physicians. "A vein was opened, but no relief afforded. Couriers were dispatched to Dr. Craik, the family, and Drs. Dick and Brown, the consulting physicians, all of whom came with speed. The proper remedies were administered, but without producing their healing effects; while the patient, yielding to the anxious looks of all around him, waived his usual objections to medicines, and took those which were prescribed without hesitation or remark."^[122] Washington died at home around 10 pm on Saturday December 14, 1799, aged 67. The last words in his diary were "'Tis well."^{[Note 7]}

Throughout the world, men and women were saddened by Washington's death. Napoleon ordered ten days of mourning throughout France; in the United States, thousands wore mourning clothes for months.^[123] To protect their privacy, Martha Washington burned the correspondence between her husband and herself following his death. Only a total of five letters between the couple are known to have survived, two letters from Martha to George and three from George to Martha.^[124][125]

On December 18, 1799, a funeral was held at Mount Vernon, where his body was interred.^[126] Congress passed a joint resolution to construct a marble monument in the United States Capitol for his body, supported by Martha. In December 1800, the United States House passed an appropriations bill for $200,000 to build the mausoleum, which was to be a pyramid that had a base 100 feet (30 m) square. Southern opposition to the plan defeated the measure because they felt it was best to have his body remain at Mount Vernon.^[127]

A sculpture of George Washington in Kensico Cemetery

In 1831, for the centennial of his birth, a new tomb was constructed to receive his remains. That year, an attempt was made to steal the body of Washington, but proved to be unsuccessful.^[128] Despite this, a joint Congressional committee in early 1832 debated the removal of Washington's body from Mount Vernon to a crypt in the Capitol, built by Charles Bulfinch in the 1820s. Yet again, Southern opposition proved very intense, antagonized by an ever-growing rift between North and South. Congressman Wiley Thompson of Georgia expressed the fear of Southerners when he said:

“

Remove the remains of our venerated Washington from their association with the remains of his consort and his ancestors, from Mount Vernon and from his native State, and deposit them in this capitol, and then let a severance of the Union occur, and behold the remains of Washington on a shore foreign to his native soil.[127]

”

This ended any talk of the movement of his remains, and he was moved to the new tomb that was constructed there on October 7, 1837, presented by John Struthers of Philadelphia.^[129] After the ceremony, the inner vault's door was closed and the key was thrown into the Potomac.^[130]

Legacy

Main article: George Washington's legacy

See also: Historical rankings of Presidents of the United States and Cultural depictions of George Washington

Congressman Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, a Revolutionary War comrade, famously eulogized Washington:^[131]

First in war—first in peace—and first in the hearts of his countrymen, he was second to none in the humble and enduring scenes of private life; pious, just, humane, temperate, and sincere; uniform, dignified, and commanding, his example was as edifying to all around him as were the effects of that example lasting. To his equals he was condescending, to his inferiors kind, and to the dear object of his affections exemplarily tender; correct throughout, vice shuddered in his presence, and virtue always felt his fostering hand; the purity of his private character gave effulgence to his public virtues. His last scene comported with the whole tenor of his life—although in extreme pain, not a sigh, not a groan escaped him; and with undisturbed serenity he closed his well-spent life. Such was the man America has lost—such was the man for whom our nation mourns.

Lee's words set the standard by which Washington's overwhelming reputation was impressed upon the American memory. Washington set many precedents for the national government, and the presidency in particular, and was called the "Father of His Country" as early as 1778.^{[Note 8][132][133][134]} Washington's Birthday (celebrated on Presidents' Day), is a federal holiday in the United States.^[135]

During the United States Bicentennial year, George Washington was posthumously appointed to the grade of General of the Armies of the United States by the congressional joint resolution Public Law 94-479 passed on January 19, 1976, with an effective appointment date of July 4, 1976.^[62] This restored Washington's position as the highest-ranking military officer in U.S. history.^{[Note 9]}

George Washington by Gilbert Stuart (finished by Rembrandt Peale), Clark Art Institute (after 1796)

Cherry tree

See also: Parson Weems#The cherry-tree anecdote

Apocryphal stories about Washington's childhood include a claim that he skipped a silver dollar across the Potomac River at Mount Vernon, and that he chopped down his father's cherry tree and admitted the deed when questioned: "I can't tell a lie, Pa." The anecdote was first reported by biographer Parson Weems, who after Washington's death interviewed people who knew him as a child. The Weems version was very widely reprinted throughout the 19th century, for example in McGuffey Readers. Moralistic adults wanted children to learn moral lessons from the past from history, especially as taught by great national heroes like Washington. After 1890 however, historians insisted on scientific research methods to validate every story, and there was no evidence for this anecdote apart from Weems' report. Joseph Rodman in 1904 noted that Weems plagiarized other Washington tales from published fiction set in England. No one has found an alternative source for the cherry tree story, thus Weems' credibility is questioned.^[136][137]

Monuments and memorials

The George Washington Masonic National Memorial, Alexandria, Virginia

Starting with victory in their Revolution, there were many proposals to build a monument to Washington. After his death, Congress authorized a suitable memorial in the national capital, but the decision was reversed when the Republicans took control of Congress in 1801. The Republicans were dismayed that Washington had become the symbol of the Federalist Party; furthermore, the values of Republicanism seemed hostile to the idea of building monuments to powerful men.^[138] Further political squabbling, along with the North-South division on the Civil War, blocked the completion of the Washington Monument until the late 19th century. By that time, Washington had the image of a national hero who could be celebrated by both North and South, and memorials to him were no longer controversial.^[139] Predating the obelisk on the National Mall by several decades, the first public memorial to Washington was built by the citizens of Boonsboro, Maryland, in 1827.^[140]

Today, Washington's face and image are often used as national symbols of the United States.^[141] He appears on contemporary currency, including the one-dollar bill and the quarter coin, and on U.S. postage stamps. Along with appearing on the first postage stamps issued by the U.S. Post Office in 1847,^[142] Washington, together with Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, and Lincoln, is depicted in stone at the Mount Rushmore Memorial. The Washington Monument, one of the best known American landmarks, was built in his honor. The George Washington Masonic National Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia, was constructed between 1922 and 1932 with voluntary contributions from all 52 local governing bodies of the Freemasons in the United States.^[143][144]

Lieutenant General George Washington by Clark Mills, Washington Circle, Washington, D.C. (1860)

Many places and entities have been named in honor of Washington. Washington's name became that of the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., one of two national capitals across the globe to be named after an American president (the other is Monrovia, Liberia). The state of Washington is the only state to be named after a United States President.^[145] George Washington University and Washington University in St. Louis were named for him, as was Washington and Lee University (once Washington Academy), which was renamed due to Washington's large endowment in 1796. Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland (established by Maryland state charter in 1782) was supported by Washington during his lifetime with a 50 guineas pledge,^[146] and with service on the college's Board of Visitors and Governors until 1789 (when Washington was elected President).^[147] According to the 1993 US Census, Washington is the 17th most common street name in the United States,^[148] and the only person's name so honored.^{[Note 10]}

The Confederate Seal prominently featured George Washington on horseback,^[149] in the same position as a statue of him in Richmond, Virginia.^[150]

London hosts a standing statue of Washington, one of 22 bronze identical replicas. Based on Jean-Antoine Houdon's original marble statue in the Rotunda of the State Capitol in Richmond, Virginia, the duplicate was given to the British in 1921 by the Commonwealth of Virginia. It stands in front of the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square.^[151]

In 1917, the 886 Washingtonia asteroid was named in his honor.

Papers

Main article: The Papers of George Washington

The serious collection and publication of Washington's documentary record began with the pioneer work of Jared Sparks in the 1830s, Life and Writings of George Washington (12 vols., 1834–1837). The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745–1799 (1931–44) is a 37 volume set edited by John C. Fitzpatrick. It contains over 17,000 letters and documents and is available online from the University of Virginia.^[152]

The definitive letterpress edition of his writings was begun by the University of Virginia in 1968, and today comprises 52 published volumes, with more to come. It contains everything written by Washington, or signed by him, together with most of his incoming letters. Part of the collection is available online from the University of Virginia.^[153]

Personal life

George Washington [The Constable-Hamilton Portrait] by Gilbert Stuart, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas (1797)

Along with Martha's biological family, George Washington had a close relationship with his nephew and heir, Bushrod Washington, son of George's younger brother, John Augustine Washington. After his uncle's death, Bushrod became an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. George, however, apparently did not get along well with his mother, Mary Ball Washington (Augustine's second wife), who was a very demanding and difficult person.^[154]

As a young man, Washington had red hair.^[155] A popular myth is that he wore a wig, as was the fashion among some at the time. However, Washington did not wear a wig; instead, he powdered his hair,^[156][157] as is represented in several portraits, including the well-known, unfinished Gilbert Stuart depiction, The Athenaeum portrait.^[158]

Washington had unusually great physical strength that amazed younger men. While the story of him throwing a silver dollar across the Potomac River is untrue, he did throw a rock to the top of the 215 feet-tall Natural Bridge. Jefferson called Washington "the best horseman of his age", and both American and European observers praised his riding; the horsemanship benefited his hunting, a favorite hobby. Washington was an excellent dancer and frequently attended the theater, often referencing Shakespeare in letters.^[159] He drank in moderation and precisely recorded gambling wins and losses, but Washington disliked the excessive drinking, gambling, smoking, and profanity that was common in colonial Virginia. Although he grew tobacco, he eventually stopped smoking, and considered drunkenness a man's worst vice; Washington was glad that post-Revolutionary Virginia society was less likely to "force [guests] to drink and to make it an honor to send them home drunk."^[160]

Washington suffered from problems with his teeth throughout his life. He lost his first adult tooth when he was twenty-two and had only one left by the time he became President.^[161] John Adams claims he lost them because he used them to crack Brazil nuts but modern historians suggest the mercury oxide, which he was given to treat illnesses such as smallpox and malaria, probably contributed to the loss. He had several sets of false teeth made, four of them by a dentist named John Greenwood.^[161] Contrary to popular belief, none of the sets were made from wood. The set made when he became President was carved from hippopotamus and elephant ivory, held together with gold springs.^[162] The hippo ivory was used for the plate, into which human teeth (quite possibly from slaves)^[163] and bits of horses' and donkeys' teeth were inserted. Dental problems left Washington in constant pain, for which he took laudanum.^[164] This distress may be apparent in many of the portraits painted while he was still in office,^[164] including the one still used on the $1 bill.^{[158][Note 11]}

Slavery

Main article: George Washington and slavery

Regarding slavery, Washington is best known for setting the example of freeing his slaves in his 1799 will, to take effect upon the death of his widow. His will provided for training the younger slaves in useful skills, and created a fund for old age pensions for the older ones.^[165]

Upon the death of his father in 1743, the 11-year-old inherited 10 slaves. At the time of his marriage to Martha Custis in 1759, he personally owned at least 36 (and the widow's third of her first husband's estate brought at least 85 "dower slaves" to Mount Vernon). Using his wife's great wealth, he bought land, tripling the size of the plantation, and additional slaves to farm it. By 1774, he paid taxes on 135 slaves (this does not include the "dowers"). The last record of a slave purchase by him was in 1772, although he later received some slaves in repayment of debts.^[166] Washington also used some hired staff^[117] and white indentured servants; in April 1775, he offered a reward for the return of two runaway white servants.^[167]

One historian claims that Washington desired the material benefits from owning slaves and wanted to give his wife's family a wealthy inheritance.^[168] Before the American Revolution, Washington expressed no moral reservations about slavery, but in 1786, Washington wrote to Robert Morris, saying, "There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery."^[169] In 1779, he told his manager at Mount Vernon that he wished to sell his slaves when the war ended, if it ended in an American victory.^[170] Maintaining a large, and increasingly elderly, slave population at Mount Vernon was not economically profitable. Washington could not legally sell the "dower slaves," however, and because these slaves had long intermarried with his own slaves, he could not sell his slaves without breaking up families.^[171]

As president, Washington brought seven slaves to New York City in 1789 to work in the first presidential household. Following the transfer of the national capital to Philadelphia in 1790, he brought nine slaves to work in the President's House. At the time of his death, there were 317 slaves at Mount Vernon—123 owned by Washington, 154 "dower slaves," and 40 rented from a neighbor.^[172] Dorothy Twohig argues that Washington did not speak out publicly against slavery, because he did not wish to create a split in the new republic, with an issue that was sensitive and divisive.^[173]

By 1794, as he contemplated retirement, Washington began organizing his affairs so that he could free all the slaves he owned outright in his will.^[174] He did so. His will provided they be freed when Martha died, but she freed them 12 months after his death. Chernow says, "By freeing his slaves Washington accomplished ... what no other founding father dared to do. He brought the American experience that much closer to the ideals of the American revolution."^[175]

Religion

Main article: George Washington and religion

Stained glass window of Washington kneeling in prayer, Capitol Prayer Room, U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C.

Washington was an outspoken leader in calling for religious liberty and tolerance, and used his prestige as general and president to promote good will among Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. He sought to create a national ethos that would enable every American to, in his paraphrase of the Book of Micah,^[176] "sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid." In private and in public he strongly rejected any sign of intolerance, prejudice, and "every species of religious persecution", while hoping that "bigotry and superstition" would be overcome by "truth and reason" in the United States.^[177] In a letter to George Mason in 1785, Washington wrote that he was not among those alarmed by a bill "making people pay towards the support of that [religion] which they profess," but felt that it was "impolitic" to pass such a measure, and wished it had never been proposed, believing that it would disturb public tranquility.^[178] As president he made a point of being seen attending services at numerous churches, including Presbyterian, Quaker, Congregational and Catholic.

As president he officially saluted 22 religious groups and proclaimed his general support for religion.^[179] Washington was known for his generosity. Highly gregarious, he attended many charity events and donated money to colleges, schools and to the poor. As Philadelphia's leading citizen, President Washington took the lead in providing charity to widows and orphans hit by the yellow fever epidemic that devastated the capital city in 1793.^[180] In Virginia, Washington was a member of the Anglican Church,^[181] which had 'established status' (meaning tax money was used to pay its minister). As a leading land owner he served on the vestry (governing board) for Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia and for Pohick Church near his Mount Vernon home until the war began. The parish was the unit of local government and the vestry dealt mostly with civic affairs such as roads and poor relief.^[182]

The exact nature of Washington's religious beliefs have been debated by historians and biographers for over two hundred years. Washington rarely discussed or wrote about his religious and philosophical opinions in any great detail, yet he frequently displayed a humble and gracious respect towards God in his personal letters and public speeches. Washington frequently accompanied his wife to church services. Although there are third-hand reports that he took communion,^[183] he is usually characterized as never or rarely participating in the rite.^[184][185] He would regularly leave services before communion with the other non-communicants (as was the custom of the day), until, after being admonished by a rector, he ceased attending at all on communion Sundays.^[186] Eyewitness accounts exist of Washington engaging in morning devotions. Biographer Jared Sparks recorded the following account from Washington's nephew George W. Lewis: "Mr. Lewis said he had accidentally witnessed [Washington's] private devotions in his library both morning and evening; that on those occasions he had seen him in a kneeling position with a Bible open before him and that he believed such to have been his daily practice."^[187] During the Revolutionary war, General Robert Porterfield stated he "found him on his knees, engaged in his morning's devotions." Alexander Hamilton corroborated Porterfield's account, stating "such was his most constant habit."^[188] A French citizen who knew Washington well during the Revolutionary War and the presidency stated "Every day of the year, he rises at five in the morning; as soon as he is up, he dresses, then prays reverently to God."^[189] Indeed, Washington had purchased a prayer book "with the New Version of Psalms & good plain Type" a few years before the Revolutionary War.^[190]

Historians have different views on the question. Paul F. Boller, Jr. has argued that "Washington was in fact a typical 18th-century deist."^[191][192] David L. Holmes describes Washington as a Christian deist by arguing that his religious behavior fell somewhere between that of an orthodox Christian and a strict deist.^[193] Historian Peter Lillback argues in his book George Washington's Sacred Fire that Washington was an orthodox Christian within the framework of his time.^[194] Lillback has explained more recently that evidence unavailable to earlier historians shows that:

Washington referred to himself frequently using the words “ardent,” “fervent,” “pious,” and “devout.” There are over one hundred different prayers composed and written by Washington in his own hand, with his own words, in his writings....Although he never once used the word “Deist” in his voluminous writings, he often mentioned religion, Christianity, and the Gospel....Historians ought no longer be permitted to do the legerdemain of turning Washington into a Deist even if they found it necessary and acceptable to do so in the past. Simply put, it is time to let the words and writings of Washington’s faith speak for themselves.^[195]

Biographer Ron Chernow, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Washington: A Life, has acknowledged the profound role Washington attributed to Providence:

There has been a huge controversy, to put it mildly, about Washington's religious beliefs. Before the Revolutionary War he was Anglican – Church of England – which meant after the war, he was Episcopalian. So, he was clearly Christian... He was quite intensely religious, because even though he uses the word Providence, he constantly sees Providence as an active force in life, particularly in American life. I mean, every single victory in war he credits to Providence. The miracle of the Constitutional Convention he credits to Providence. The creation of the federal government and the prosperity of the early republic, he credits to Providence... I was struck at how frequently in his letters he's referring to Providence, and it's Providence where there's a sense of design and purpose, which sounds to me very much like religion... Unfortunately, this particular issue has become very very politicized.^[196]

Freemasonry

Washington was initiated into Freemasonry in 1752.^[197] Washington had a high regard for the Masonic Order and often praised it, but he seldom attended lodge meetings. He was attracted by the movement's dedication to the Enlightenment principles of rationality, reason and fraternalism; the American lodges did not share the anti-clerical perspective that made the European lodges so controversial.^[198] In 1777, a convention of Virginia lodges recommended Washington to be the Grand Master of the newly established Grand Lodge of Virginia; however, Washington declined, due to his necessity to lead the Continental Army at a critical stage, and because he had never been installed as Master or Warden of a lodge, he did not consider it Masonically legal to serve as Grand Master.^[199] In 1788, Washington, with his personal consent, was named Master in the Virginia charter of Alexandria Lodge No. 22.^[200]

Postage and currency

See also: US Presidents on US postage stamps

Since 1847, one of the defining hallmarks of a U.S. President is his appearance on U.S. currency and postage. George Washington appears on contemporary U.S. currency, including the one-dollar bill and the U.S. quarter dollar. On U.S. postage stamps Washington, along with Benjamin Franklin, appeared on the nation's first postage stamps in 1847, thereafter appearing numerous times, more than all other presidents combined.^[142]

Selected issues

Washington, general issue of 1862, 24c   Washington, general issue of 1895, 2c   Washington-Franklin Issue of 1917, 5c   Washington at Prayer, Valley Forge, issue of 1928, 2c

See also

	Biography portal
	Government of the United States portal
	Military of the United States portal
	United States portal
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	Book: George Washington Book: Presidents of the United States (1789–1860)
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

• 1932 Washington Bicentennial
• Genealogical relationships of Presidents of the United States
• List of federal judges appointed by George Washington
• List of Presidents of the United States, sortable by previous experience
• Town Destroyer, a nickname given to Washington by the Iroquois

Notes

1. ^ Contemporary records, which used the Julian calendar, recorded his birth as February 11, 1731. The provisions of the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750, implemented in 1752, altered the official British dating method to the Gregorian calendar with the start of the year on January 1 (it had been March 25). These changes resulted in dates being moved forward 11 days, and for those between January 1 and March 25, an advance of one year. For a further explanation, see: Old Style and New Style dates.
2. ^ Ellis and Ferling, for example, do not discuss this stance in reference to Washington's French and Indian War service, and cast it almost exclusively in terms of his negative experiences dealing with the Continental Congress during the Revolution. See Ellis (2004, p. 218); Ferling (2009, pp. 32–33, 200, 258–272, 316). Don Higginbotham places Washington's first formal advocacy of a strong central government in 1783. Higginbotham (2002, p. 37).
3. ^ The term comes from the Roman strategy used by General Fabius against Hannibal's invasion in the Second Punic War.
4. ^ Ferling and Ellis argue that Washington favored Fabian tactics and Higginbotham denies it. Ferling (2010, pp. 212, 264); Ellis (2004, p. 11); Higginbotham (1971, p. 211).
5. ^ Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress called its presiding officer "President of the United States in Congress Assembled". That person had no executive powers, but the similarity of titles has confused some into thinking there were other presidents before Washington.^[95]
6. ^ Under the system in place at the time, each elector cast two votes, with the winner becoming president and the runner-up vice president. All electors in the elections of 1789 and 1792 cast one of their votes for Washington; thus it may be said that he was elected president unanimously.
7. ^ At least three modern medical authors (Wallenborn (1997), Shapiro 1975, Scheidemandel 1976) have concluded that Washington most probably died from acute bacterial epiglottitis complicated by the treatments given (all of which were accepted medical practice of that era). See Vadakan (2005, Footnotes) for these references, also his article's quotation of Doctors James Craik and Elisha C. Dick's account in the Times of Alexandria (newspaper) of what happened during their treatment of Washington. These treatments included multiple doses of calomel, as well as performing extensive bloodletting, with a total of 3.75 liters of blood taken and the massive deliberate blood-loss contributing to the additional serious complication of shock.
8. ^ The earliest known image in which Washington is identified as the Father of (His/Our/the) Country is in the frontispiece of a 1779 German-language almanac. With calculations by David Rittenhouse and published by Francis Bailey in Lancaster County Pennsylvania, Der Gantz Neue Nord-Americanishe Calendar has Fame appearing with an image of Washington, holding a trumpet to her lips from which the words "Der Landes Vater" (translated as "the father of the country" or "the father of the land") comes forth.
9. ^ In Bell (2005), William Gardner Bell states that when Washington was recalled back into military service from his retirement in 1798, "Congress passed legislation that would have made him General of the Armies of the United States, but his services were not required in the field and the appointment was not made until the Bicentennial in 1976, when it was bestowed posthumously as a commemorative honor." How many U.S. Army five-star generals have there been and who were they? states that with Public Law 94-479, President Ford specified that Washington would "rank first among all officers of the Army, past and present. "General of the Armies of the United States" is only associated with two people...one being Washington and the other being John J. Pershing.
10. ^ The rest of the Top 20 street names are all descriptive (Hill, View and so on), arboreal (Pine, Maple, etc.) or numeric (Second, Third, etc.).
11. ^ The Smithsonian Institution states in "The Portrait — George Washington: A National Treasure" that:

    Stuart admired the sculpture of Washington by French artist Jean-Antoine Houdon, probably because it was based on a life mask and therefore extremely accurate. Stuart explained, "When I painted him, he had just had a set of false teeth inserted, which accounts for the constrained expression so noticeable about the mouth and lower part of the face. Houdon's bust does not suffer from this defect. I wanted him as he looked at that time." Stuart preferred the Athenaeum pose and, except for the gaze, used the same pose for the Lansdowne painting.^[164]

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159. ^ Chernow (2010, pp. 172–176)
160. ^ Chernow (2010, pp. 187–189)
161. ^ ^{a b} Lloyd, John; Mitchinson, John (2006). The Book of General Ignorance. New York: Harmony Books. p. 97. ISBN 978-0-307-39491-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=1Mjd2GCRPmAC&lpg=PA97&pg=PA97. Retrieved 2011-07-03. 
162. ^ Glover, Barbara (Summer/Fall 1998). "George Washington — A Dental Victim". The Riversdale Letter. http://www.americanrevolution.org/dental.html. Retrieved 2006-06-30. 
163. ^ Morgan, Philip D. (2005). "'To Get Quit of Negroes': George Washington and Slavery". Journal of American Studies (Cambridge University Press) 39 (3): 403–429. http://www.georgewashingtonchapter.com/education/Morgan-2009.pdf. Retrieved 2011-12-20. 
164. ^ ^{a b c} "The Portrait — George Washington:A National Treasure". Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. http://www.georgewashington.si.edu/portrait/face.html. Retrieved 2011-01-21. 
165. ^ Ferling (2009, p. 364)
166. ^ Hirschfeld (1997, pp. 11–12)
167. ^ Haworth, Paul Leland (2004) [1915]. George Washington: Farmer. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing. pp. 78–80. ISBN 1-4191-2162-6. http://books.google.com/books?id=5k5aiqI6p-QC&lpg=PA79&pg=PA78#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-11-14. 
168. ^ Ferling (2000, pp. 275–276)
169. ^ Washington, George (April 12, 1786). "Letter to Robert Morris". The Papers of George Washington: The Confederation Series, Volume 4. University of Virginia. http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/project/volumes/confederation/essay4.html#fn9. Retrieved 14 November 2011. 
170. ^ Ellis (2004, p. 192)
171. ^ Slave raffle linked to Washington's reassessment of slavery: Wiencek (2003, pp. 135–36, 178–88). Washington's decision to stop selling slaves: Hirschfeld (1997, p. 16). Influence of war and Wheatley: Wiencek (2003, ch. 6). Dilemma of selling slaves: Wiencek (2003, p. 230); Ellis (2004, pp. 164–167); Hirschfeld (1997, pp. 27–29).
172. ^ "The Will of George Washington: Slave Lists". The Papers of George Washington. University of Virginia. June 1799. http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/will/slavelist.html. Retrieved 2009-08-06. 
173. ^ Twohig, Dorothy (October 1994). "'That Species of Property': Washington's Role in the Controversy Over Slavery". The Papers of George Washington. University of Virginia. http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/articles/twohig_2.html#33. Retrieved 14 November 2011. 
174. ^ Grizzard (2005, pp. 285–286)
175. ^ Chernow (2010, ch. 66)
176. ^ Micah 4:3–4.
177. ^ Boller, Paul F. (October 1960). "George Washington and Religious Liberty". The William and Mary Quarterly (Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture) 17 (4): 486–506. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1943414. 
178. ^ Washington, George (October 3, 1785). "Letter to George Mason". Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs. http://www.teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=305. Retrieved 11 November 2011. 
179. ^ Chernow (2010, ch. 15, note 37; ch.12, notes 24, 29)
180. ^ Chernow (2010, ch. 57, note 10; ch. 12, note 312)
181. ^ Allitt, Patrick N. (2001). American Religious History (Sound recording). Teaching Co. Event occurs at Lecture 7: Religion and revolution; track 1. OCLC 74742161. "Other revolutionary leaders like Benjamin Franklin and George Washington were clearly lukewarm in their religion. Washington was an Anglican; he went through the motions, but he clearly wasn't a man of particular piety or devotion." 
182. ^ Grizzard (2002, p. 249)
183. ^ Johnson (1919, pp. 87–195)
184. ^ Chernow (2010, ch. 12)
185. ^ Espinosa (2009, p. 52)
186. ^ Chernow (2010, ch. 12, note 14)
187. ^ Sparks, Jared (1839). The Life of George Washington. Boston: F. Andrews. pp. 522–523. OCLC 843523. http://books.google.com/books?id=dBQOAAAAIAAJ&vq=in%20a%20kneeling%20position&pg=PA522. Retrieved 2011-12-20. 
188. ^ Meade, William (1897). Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia. 2. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co. p. 492. OCLC 608471217. http://books.google.com/books?id=SWF5AAAAMAAJ&vq=such%20was%20his%20most%20constant%20habit&pg=PA492. Retrieved 2011-12-20. 
189. ^ Chinard, Gilbert (1940). George Washington As the French Knew Him: A Collection of Texts. Princeton, N. J: Princeton University Press. p. 119. OCLC 477599749. 
190. ^ "Enclosure: Invoice to Robert Cary & Company". The Papers of George Washington: Colonial Series (University of Virginia Press) 8: 509. July 18, 1771. http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/GEWN-02-08-02-0339-0002. 
191. ^ Boller (1995, p. 31)
192. ^ "... the father of his country ... died as he had lived, in dignity and peace; but he left behind him not one word to warrant the belief that he was other than a sincere deist." in Boller (1963, p. 16)
193. ^ The Founding Fathers, Deism, and Christianity at Encyclopædia Britannica
194. ^ Lillback, Peter A.; Newcombe, Jerry (2006). George Washington's Sacred Fire. Bryn Mawr, Pa: Providence Forum Press. ISBN 0-9786052-5-X. 
195. ^ Lillback, Peter A. (2007-02-10). "Why Have Scholars Underplayed George Washington’s Faith?". History News Network. http://hnn.us/articles/34925.html. Retrieved 20 December 2011. 
196. ^ Chernow, Ron (2010-10-18). "Ron Chernow on George Washington" (MP3). We The People Stories (Philadelphia, Pa: National Constitution Center). http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NCCPrograms/~3/gI-rJ7T46_o/ron_chernow_10-18-10_(64).mp3. Retrieved 2011-12-29. 
197. ^ Mackey, Albert G. (November 4, 1852). "Washington as a Freemason". Charleston, SC: Phoenixmasonry Masonic Museum and Library. http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/washington_as_a_freemason.htm. Retrieved 2010-02-17. 
198. ^ Chernow (2010, pp. 27, 704)
199. ^ Harris, R. W. Claude (25 August 2000). "Washington and Freemasonry". Lodge Anecdotes. Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22, A.F. & A.M. http://www.aw22.org/documents/Anecdote5_Washington.pdf. Retrieved 28 December 2011. 
200. ^ "History". Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22, A.F. & A.M. http://www.aw22.org/history.html. Retrieved 28 December 2011. 

Bibliography

For a list of written works, see George Washington bibliography.

• Anderson, Fred (2000). Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-375-40642-3. 
• Anderson, Fred (2005). The War That Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War (abridged ed.). New York: Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-03454-3. 
• Bell, William Gardner (2005) [1983]. Commanding Generals and Chiefs of Staff, 1775–2005: Portraits & Biographical Sketches of the United States Army's Senior Officer. Washington, D.C: Center of Military History, United States Army. pp. 52–53, 66–67. ISBN 0-16-072376-0. CMH Pub 70–14. http://www.history.army.mil/books/CG&CSA/CG-TOC.htm. 
• Boller, Paul F. (1963). George Washington & Religion. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press. OCLC 563800860. 
• Boller, Paul F. (1995). Not So!: Popular Myths About America from Columbus to Clinton. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509186-8. 
• Brookhiser, Richard (1996). Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington. New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-684-82291-1. 
• Buchanan, John (2004). The Road to Valley Forge: How Washington Built the Army That Won the Revolution. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-471-44156-4. 
• Bumgarner, John R. (1994). The Health of the Presidents: The 41 United States Presidents Through 1993 from a Physician's Point of View. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Co. ISBN 0-89950-956-8. 
• Carp, E. Wayne (1990) [1984]. To Starve the Army at Pleasure: Continental Army Administration and American Political Culture, 1775–1783. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. p. 220. ISBN 978-0-8078-4269-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=DL66YCXMbZ8C&lpg=PP1&pg=PA220#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-11-13. 
• Chernow, Ron (2010). Washington: A Life. New York: Penguin Press. ISBN 978-1-59420-266-7. , Pulitzer Prize
• Cunliffe, Marcus (1958). George Washington, Man and Monument. Boston: Little, Brown. OCLC 58007859. 
• Dalzell, Robert F., Jr.; Dalzell, Lee Baldwin (1998). George Washington's Mount Vernon: At Home in Revolutionary America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-512114-7. 
• Elkins, Stanley M.; McKitrick, Eric (1995) [1993]. The Age of Federalism. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-509381-0. , standard political history of 1790s
• Ellis, Joseph J. (2004). His Excellency: George Washington. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 1-4000-4031-0. 
• Espinosa, Gastón (2009). Religion and the American Presidency: George Washington to George W. Bush with Commentary and Primary Sources. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-14332-5. 
• Ferling, John E. (2000). Setting the World Ablaze: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and the American Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-513409-5. 
• Ferling, John E. (2009). The Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon. New York: Bloomsbury Press. ISBN 978-1-59691-465-0. 
• Ferling, John E. (2010) [1988]. First of Men: A Life of George Washington. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-539867-0. 
• Fischer, David Hackett (2004). Washington's Crossing. Oxford, England; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-517034-2. 
• Fishman, Ethan M.; Pederson, William D.; Rozell, Mark J., eds. (2001). George Washington, Foundation of Presidential Leadership and Character. Westport, Conn: Praeger. ISBN 0-275-96868-5. 
• Flexner, James Thomas (1965). George Washington: the Forge of Experience, 1732–1775. Boston: Little, Brown. OCLC 426484. 
• Flexner, James Thomas (1974). Washington: The Indispensable Man. Boston: Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-28605-2. 
• Freeman, Douglas Southall (1948). George Washington, a Biography. 7 v. New York: Scribner. OCLC 732644234. 
• Freeman, Douglas Southall (1968). Harwell, Richard Barksdale. ed. Washington. New York: Scribner. OCLC 426557. 
• Gregg, Gary L., II; Spalding, Matthew, eds. (1999). Patriot Sage: George Washington and the American Political Tradition. Wilmington, Del: ISI Books. ISBN 1-882926-38-2. 
• Grizzard, Frank E., Jr. (2002). George Washington: A Biographical Companion. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-57607-082-4. 
• Grizzard, Frank E., Jr. (2005). George!: A Guide to All Things Washington. Buena Vista, Va: Mariner Pub. ISBN 0-9768238-0-2. 
• Higginbotham, Don (1971). The War of American Independence: Military Attitudes, Policies, and Practice, 1763–1789. New York: Macmillan. OCLC 142627. 
• Higginbotham, Don (1985). George Washington and the American Military Tradition. Athens: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 0-8203-0786-6. 
• Higginbotham, Don, ed. (2001). George Washington Reconsidered. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. ISBN 0-8139-2005-1. 
• Higginbotham, Don (2002). George Washington: Uniting a Nation. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 0-7425-2208-3. 
• Hirschfeld, Fritz (1997). George Washington and Slavery: A Documentary Portrayal. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. ISBN 0-8262-1135-6. 
• Hofstra, Warren R., ed. (1998). George Washington and the Virginia Backcountry. Madison, Wis: Madison House. ISBN 0-945612-50-8. 
• Hughes, Rupert (1926). George Washington.... New York: W. Morrow & Co. OCLC 17399028. 
• Jensen, Merrill (1948). The Articles of Confederation: An Interpretation of the Social-Constitutional History of the American Revolution, 1774–1781. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. OCLC 498124. 
• Johnson, William (1919). George Washington, the Christian. New York: The Abingdon Press. OCLC 19524242. http://books.google.com/books?id=MzWruWAnHM0C&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-12-29. 
• Ketchum, Richard M. (1999) [1973]. The Winter Soldiers: The Battles for Trenton and Princeton. New York: Henry Holt. ISBN 0-8050-6098-7. 
• Lancaster, Bruce; Plumb, John H. (1985). The American Revolution. New York: American Heritage Press. ISBN 0-8281-0281-3. , heavily illustrated
• Lengel, Edward G. (2005). General George Washington: A Military Life. New York: Random House. ISBN 1-4000-6081-8. 
• Mann, Barbara Alice (2005). George Washington's War on Native America. Westport, Conn: Praeger. ISBN 0-275-98177-0. 
• McCullough, David (2005). 1776. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-2671-2. 
• O'Brien, Conor Cruise (2009). First in Peace: How George Washington Set the Course for America. Foreword by Christopher Hitchens. Cambridge: Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-81619-2. 
• Randall, Willard Sterne (1997). George Washington: A Life. New York: Henry Holt & Co. ISBN 0-8050-2779-3. 
• Rasmussen, William M. S.; Tilton, Robert S. (1999). George Washington-the Man Behind the Myths. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. ISBN 0-8139-1900-2. 
• Vadakan, Vibul V., M.D. (Winter/Spring 2005). "A Physician Looks At The Death of Washington". The Early America Review (DEV Communications) 6 (1). ISSN 1090-4247. http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/2005_winter_spring/washingtons_death.htm. 
• Wallenborn, White McKenzie, M.D. (5 November 1997). "George Washington's Terminal Illness: A Modern Medical Analysis of the Last Illness and Death of George Washington". The Papers of George Washington. University of Virginia. http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/articles/wallenborn.html. 
• Wiencek, Henry (2003). An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0-374-17526-8. 
• Wood, Gordon S. (1992). The Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: A.A. Knopf. ISBN 0-679-40493-7. 

External links

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• George Washington at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• American President: George Washington (1732–1799) at the Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia
• George Washington: A Resource Guide at the Library of Congress
• George Washington Resources at the University of Virginia Library
• George Washington at the White House
• The Papers of George Washington at the Avalon Project
• George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate, Museum & Gardens
  • Discover the Real George Washington: New Views from Mount Vernon, a traveling exhibit
• George Washington Birthplace National Monument, Virginia from the National Park Service
• Painting of John Gano Baptizing George Washington at William Jewell College, Liberty, Missouri
• Copies of the wills of General George Washington: the first president of the United States and of Martha Washington, his wife (1904), edited by E. R. Holbrook
• George Washington at C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits
• Rediscovering George Washington at PBS
• "What Made George Washington a Good Military Leader?". EDSITEment: Lesson Plans. National Endowment for the Humanities. http://edsitement.neh.gov/curriculum-unit/what-made-george-washington-good-military-leader. 
• Works by George Washington at Project Gutenberg

Offices and distinctions

Military offices New creation Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army 1775–1783 Succeeded by Henry Knox as Senior Officer of the Army Preceded by James Wilkinson Senior Officer of the Army 1798–1799 Succeeded by Alexander Hamilton Political offices New creation Republic proclaimed President of the United States 1789–1797 Succeeded by John Adams Honorary titles New title Oldest living President of the United States 1789–1799 Succeeded by John Adams

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Authority control: PND: 11876439X | LCCN: n86140996 | VIAF: 31432428 | WorldCat

Persondata
Name	Washington, George
Alternative names
Short description	First President of the United States, Commander in Chief of the Continental Army
Date of birth	1732-02-22
Place of birth	Colonial Beach, British Colony of Virginia
Date of death	1799-12-14
Place of death	Mount Vernon (plantation), Mount Vernon, Virginia, United States of America

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