by Alexis Coe
And yet, Washington managed to use diminished health to his advantage, succeeding where failure—and even mutiny—seemed all but guaranteed. There was unrest among the ranks over inaction and late pay. Congress was too distracted by peace negotiations, brokered by the French in Versailles, to take Washington’s countless letters about wages seriously. But to him, on the ground, it was obvious that “[t]he temper of the Army is much soured.”2 When he discovered that field officers were circulating a paper that urged mass desertion if the fighting continued—or, worse, a refusal to lay down arms when peace was achieved—he gathered them in Newburgh, New York, and read a lengthy letter about the various reasons their pay was delayed. They were justifiably unmoved until Washington, having stammered through line after line, took out his glasses.
“Gentleman, you must pardon me,” he said, putting on his new spectacles. “I have grown gray in your service and now find myself growing blind.”3 Softened by his sincerity, the soldiers accepted their fate. Some would wait for years after the war to be paid, but others would sign away their future earnings to parasitic lenders, settling wherever they could.
The British were resigned to a similar fate. As the redcoats departed the colonies for London and European theaters of war, they staged fire sales, some of which the Washingtons partook in, picking up French wine, beer, olives, nuts, water glasses, and china as they moved between Philadelphia, New York City, and West Point. They would save them for, at long last, private life—which they planned on starting as soon as the treaties were ratified. It was the only thing standing between Washington and the permanent retirement he craved, “from whence no Traveller returns.”4
* * *
When the time came, would Washington actually transfer power from the military to the civil government, or did he secretly aspire to be Caesar? The world had only known kings, despots, and dictators, and Washington held unprecedented authority in a new republic. Although he always spoke the language of democracy, his letters to Hamilton and other members of Congress made it hard to tell how ready he was to step down. These letters sometimes numbered five pages or more, touching on governmental concerns far outside a general’s purview. He didn’t like the Articles of Confederation, which had guided the United States through the latter years of the war. He worried about financial solvency, economic vitality, and the constant bickering and squabbling among state representatives. All of it signaled division and weakness rather than unity and strength.
But after the peace treaty—negotiated by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Laurens, and John Jay—was finally signed in Paris on September 3, 1783, Washington moved quickly. Whatever concerns he had were outweighed by his desire to return to Mount Vernon in time for Christmas. Within days of hearing about the treaty, he issued a farewell address to his army. When the last redcoat evacuated New York in November, he formally turned the city over to George Clinton, the new American governor. And when Congress was finally ready to accept his resignation, he left the means up to them. On December 20, 1783, he wrote to its president, Thomas Mifflin, asking for guidance: “[I]t is essential for me to know [Congress’s] pleasure, and in what manner it will be most proper to offer my resignation, whether in writing, or at an Audience; I shall therefore request to be honored with the necessary information, that being apprized of the sentiments of Congress I may regulate my Conduct accordingly.”5
He also provided them with his intended address, which inspired delegates Thomas Jefferson, James McHenry, and Elbridge Gerry to plan a public event at the State House in Annapolis, Maryland. It was an opportunity to demonstrate to skeptics worldwide that the new republic would remain as mannered, honorable, and righteous as any European power.
Washington made the journey to Maryland with a small entourage of fewer than a dozen men, including Billy Lee, a handful of his most trusted officers, and their slaves. It was an eye-opening ride. Washington had grown accustomed to the reverence he felt as he moved among his troops, but that paled in comparison to being America’s first real celebrity.
Everywhere he went, crowds celebrated the man who had united the colonies and made a nation out of them; they cheered at word of his approach, and when he arrived, they thrust letters and accolades and toasts at him. Washington received it all with just enough grace for onlookers to note, but if one reads between the lines of their hagiographic descriptions, it’s easy to see a man who is deeply uncomfortable with attention. “[Y]ou must permit me to say, that the genuine approbation of my fellow-Citizens is far more satisfactory, than the most lavish encomiums could be.”6 By the time Washington was welcomed to Annapolis by thirteen blasts of cannon fire followed by thirteen dinner toasts, he had likely reached his limits. In his own speech, he got right to the point: “Competent powers to Congress for general purposes,” he said.
The next stop, a ball, was far more tolerable. “The general danced every set, that all the ladies might have the pleasure of dancing with him, or, as it has since been handsomely expressed, get a touch of him,” Dr. James Tilton wrote on Christmas Day. First up was Martha Rolle Maccubin, a twenty-two-year-old belle who wore her hair in thirteen carefully crafted curls. No one noted the time he left, but he was up early enough the next morning to write Baron von Steuben, who had served him as inspector general and chief of staff, “the last Letter I shall ever write while I continue in the service of my Country.” It was dated December 23, and “the hour of my resignation is fixed at twelve this day; after which I shall become a private Citizen on the Banks of the Potomack.”7
First, though, there was the small matter of his farewell address, which a congressional committee had been choreographing. There was no precedent, and no protocol. It was the first time in Western history that a general would be addressing his civilian superiors as he left military service.
Washington arrived in military dress shortly before his call time, and was seated on the dais. In the audience, twenty representatives watched from their seats, careful not to rise, hats securely on their heads; the British would have considered them commoners, and demanded they pay their respects by standing, heads bare, genuflecting in the direction of royal and noble birth. After that, the freemen and women of Maryland crowded into the hall, with ladies seated in the gallery and men gathered wherever they could, to watch the performance.
REPORT OF A COMMITTEE ON ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE PUBLIC AUDIENCE
[22 December 1783]
Order for a publick Audience of General Washington.
1st. The president and Members are to be seated and covered, and the Secretary to be standing by the Side of the president.
2dly. The Arrival of the General is to be announced by the Messenger to the Secretary, who is thereupon to introduce the General attended by his Aids to the Hall of Congress.
3dly. The General being conducted to the Chair by the Secretary, is to be seated with an Aid on each side, standing, and the Secretary is to resume his place.
4thly. After a proper Time for the Arrangement of Spectators, Silence is to be ordered by the Secretary if necessary, and the president is to address the General in the following Words “Congress sir are prepared to receive your Communications” Whereupon the General is to rise and address Congress, after which he is to deliver his commission and a Copy of his Address to the president.
5thly. The General having resumed his place, the president is to deliver the Answer of Congress, which the General is to receive standing.
6thly. The president having finished, the Secretary is to deliver the General a Copy of the Answer from the president, and the General is then to take his Leave.
N. B. When the General rises to make his Address, and also when he retires, he is to bow to Congress, which they are to return by uncovering without bowing.8
Following the stage directions, Washington rose to deliver his speech. His voice was surprisingly ragged and his hands were shaking, but the words he spo
ke were consistent with everything he’d said before: He was unworthy of the role of general, but aspired to the cause, and succeeded because of Divine Providence and the men who served under him.
“I consider it an indispensable duty to close this last solemn act of my Official life, by commending the Interests of our dearest Country to the protection of Almighty God, and those who have the superintendence of them, to his holy keeping,” he said. “Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of Action.” He concluded, “[A]nd bidding an Affectionate farewell to this August body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my Commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life.”9
“Many tears were shed” in the audience as Washington reached into his blue uniform coat, shoulders laden with gold tassels. He took out his original commission papers and handed them, along with his speech, to Mifflin. (Later, he asked for the papers back, hoping to give them to his “Grand Children some fifty or a hundd. years hence for a theme to ruminate upon.”) Then, turning to Congress, he bowed and ceded the stage.10
Mifflin read a response “without any shew of feelings, tho’ with much dignity.”11
The U.S. in congress assembled receive with emotions too affecting for utterance this solemn deposit of the authorities under which you have led us with safety and triumph through a long, a perilous, and a doubtful war.12
With that, Washington bowed again and, with each handshake he exchanged with delegates, moved closer to the door. He didn’t linger, and made it back home just in time for Christmas. Nothing is known about his first dinner home, but he probably enjoyed a festive meal and the squealing joy of his young wards far more than his wartime Christmases, which he spent eating drab camp fare.
The country celebrated his voluntary resignation, and in London, subjects of the British crown marveled over “a Conduct so novel, so inconceivable to People, who, far from giving up powers they possess, are willing to convulse to the Empire to acquire more.” King George himself allegedly said, upon hearing of the plan, “If [Washington] does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.” America would spark an age of revolutions. When France experienced its own, led by Napoleon Bonaparte, he did not step down from power, but rather declared himself emperor. Years later, he would say, “They wanted me to be another Washington.”13 But he couldn’t be. No one could.
PART III
Mr. President
FRENEMIES
When Washington assumed the presidency, his reputation was beyond reproach. Everywhere he went, the public celebrated him, and everyone he met respected him, wanted to be his friend, and seemed eager to serve him in any capacity. But by the end of two terms in office, Washington was estranged from three of his four original cabinet members, as well as three out of four future presidents. Half the country considered itself politically opposed to him.
BEFORE WASHINGTON BECAME PRESIDENT
AFTER WASHINGTON BECAME PRESIDENT
FINAL RELATIONSHIP STATUS
John Adams
“I glory in the character of Washington because I know him to be an exemplification of the American character.”1
“Too illiterate, unlearned, unread for his station and reputation.”2
Friends
Thomas Jefferson
“In War we have produced a Washington, whose memory will be adored while liberty shall have votaries, whose name will triumph over time, and will in future ages assume its station among the most celebrated worthies of the world.”3
“His colloquial talents were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas, nor fluency of words. in public when called on for a sudden opinion, he was unready, short, and embarrassed.”4
Estranged
Thomas Paine
“I shall never suffer a hint of dishonor or even a deficiency of respect to you to pass unnoticed.”5
“And as to you, Sir, treacherous in private friendship (for so you have been to me, and that in the day of danger) and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any.”6
Estranged
James Madison
“The conduct of Washington does equal honor to his prudence and to his virtue.”7
“[Washington’s conduct is] improper & indelicate.”8
Estranged
James Monroe
“I have a boundless confidence in him, nor have I any reason to believe he will ever furnish occasion for withdrawing it.”9
“[T]he labours of y[ou]r more early life contributed to promote the liberties of y[ou]r country; but those of y[ou]r latter days to enthral[l] & enslave it.”10
Estranged
CHAPTER 14
Unretirement
By late 1785, Washington had happily retreated into private life, and all the small dramas that went with it. That October, he and Martha had thrown George Augustine, Washington’s favorite nephew, and Fanny Bassett, Martha’s favorite niece, a champagne-soaked wedding. The young couple had each lost a parent, and so they lived at Mount Vernon, where the Washingtons watched them grow closer over the years. George Augustine stayed on as Washington’s plantation manager, and Martha’s attachment to Fanny deepened. “She is a child to me,” Martha wrote to Elizabeth Powel, a friend in Philadelphia, “and I am very lonesome when she is absent.”1
Then, in December, after a couple of failed attempts, Washington finally got the jackass he’d always wanted. He believed that mules—a cross between a male donkey and a female horse—were the future of American farming, because they could do an equivalent amount of work to horses with less food and water. The best donkeys in the world came from Spain, but it was illegal to export them. Fortunately, Thomas Jefferson, then U.S. minister to France, had informed the Spanish king about Washington’s mule mania. Charles II ordered “two of the very best to be procured & sent you as a mark of his respect.”2 Only one donkey survived the voyage; Washington named him Royal Gift, and ran ads in the local papers offering the stud’s services. There were plenty of takers who were, at first, disappointed by the animal’s lukewarm libido. America’s mares just didn’t seem to do it for him. As Washington remarked to his nephew Bushrod, “at present he seems too full of royalty, to have anything to do with a plebeian race.”3 Eventually, though, Washington had a breakthrough: Royal Gift was a big fan of females of his own species, so if a couple of American jennies were in view “by way of stimulus, when he is in those slothful humours,” he would successfully perform with horses.4 For a small price, of course; Washington charged five guineas a season.
Washington wanted nothing more than to make some of those recently issued United States dollars. “Having closed all my transactions with the public, it now behooves me to look into my own private business, no part of which seems to call louder for attention, than my concerns with you,” he wrote to Gilbert Simpson in 1784. Together, he and Simpson owned a hundred and fifty acres of Pennsylvania meadow, which included an apple orchard and a gristmill; the property should have been a moneymaker but had not brought in a dime. Washington blamed Simpson for being “much more attentive to your own interest than to mine” and ultimately put the land up for auction.5 He then headed out west of the Appalachians, where he collected overdue rent and forced squatters off his forty thousand acres there. And on and on it went. Since returning home, he’d had to address one frustrating discovery after another.
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There was never enough time. Being a living legend and international sensation was a constant distraction. “Many, mistakingly, think that I am retired to ease, & that kind of tranquillity which would grow tiresome, for want of employment, but at no period of my life—not in the eight years I served the public, have I been obliged to write so much myself as I have done since retirement,” he complained to Richard Henry Lee, who had called for the colonies’ independence from the British Empire in 1776.6 Congress had waived postage fees on any letters addressed to Washington, which meant he was inundated with mail, but was, for the first time, without a secretary. He eventually hired Tobias Lear, a twenty-three-year-old Harvard graduate with good handwriting, to handle his correspondence and tutor his grandchildren.
“The general has adopted them and loves them deeply,” Marquis de Lafayette wrote of Eleanor “Nelly” Parke Custis and George Washington “Wash” Parke Custis. The two youngest children of the late Jacky Custis remained with their grandparents after their mother remarried and moved to Alexandria with her two older children. “It is quite funny when i arrived to see the curious looks on those two small faces who had heard nothing but talk of me the entire day and wanted to see if I looked like my portrait,” Lafayette reported back to his wife, Adrienne, during a trip to Mount Vernon in 1784. “[T]he general loved reading your letter and that of Anastasie,” he added. (Anastasie, their seven-year-old daughter, had sent a sweet letter from France: “I hope that papa whill com back Son here. . . . i am very sorry for the loss of him, but I am very glade for you self.”7) The Washington that Lafayette described to Adrienne indulged in the silly, tender cares of young children and was thoroughly content in his retirement. And the Washington he described to Philippe de Noailles, a French aristocrat (and soon-to-be victim of the guillotine), knew how to have a good time: “[T]he general and I got a little tipsy.”8 That may have made their predawn rides around his five farms challenging, though Lafayette must have found the sight sobering; he hoped that Washington would emancipate his slaves and, in so doing, set an example for the country. By 7 a.m. each day, they were back at the mansion house eating breakfast, and then out again. Washington probably showed him the greenhouse he had constructed to house all the rare plants and flowers sent to him.