His Excellency_George Washington

by Joseph J. Ellis

  8. Diaries 2:37–39, 105, and PWC 9:67–69, for the foxhunts and hounds; PWC 7:158–59, for the role of Thomas Bishop; ibid., 407, for the role of Lund Washington; ibid., 458–59, for a typical wine order; PWC 10:222–23, for card-playing expenses for two years.

  9. Washington to Charles Lawrence, 28 September 1760, PWC 6:459–60, for the first complaint about size; Washington to Charles Lawrence, 20 July 1767, PWC 8:8, for the quotation; Washington to Jonathan Boucher, 21 May 1772, PWC 9:49, for his description of the Peale sitting: “Inclination having yielded to Importunity, I am now contrary to all expectation under the hands of Mr. Peale, but in so grave—so sullen a Mood—and now and then under the influence of Morpheus, when some critical strokes are making, that I fancy the skill of the Gentleman’s Pencil will be put to it, in describing to the World what manner of Man I am.” See also Diaries 3:108–9.

  10. PWC 7:143–51, for typically meticulous instructions to his overseers; 296–97, for his Truro Parish duties. Diaries 1:230, 266, 293–94, and 2:102–3, for representative examples of his busy routines.

  11. Dorothy Twohig, “ ‘That Species of Property’: Washington’s Role in the Controversy Over Slavery,” GWR 114–38, was the best scholarly study of the subject until the more recent book by Henry Wiencek, An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves and the Creation of America (New York, 2003). Though my interpretation is somewhat different than Wiencek’s, I benefited greatly from reading his book while making final revisions in mine. See Advertisement for Runaway Slaves, 11 August 1761, PWC 7:65–68, and the editorial note, PWC 8:520–21, for an escaped slave from one of the Custis plantations. For the quotation on Tom, see Washington to Joseph Thompson, 2 July 1766, PWC 7:453.

  12. Washington to Daniel Jenifer Adams, 20 July 1772, PWC 9:70. See Washington to Gilbert Simpson, 23 February 1773, ibid., 185–87, for his recognition of the need to avoid breaking up families when selling slaves. Dalzell and Dalzell, Mount Vernon, 129–49, offers the best account of the slave community at Mount Vernon. The two outstanding studies of slavery in the Chesapeake during the revolutionary era are Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (New York, 1975), and Philip D. Morgan, Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Low Country (Chapel Hill, 1998).

  13. The record of Washington’s behavior in this mode defies a full accounting. See the correspondence and editorial notes in the following for the most salient examples: PWC 6:383, 407–16, 422–25, 478; PWC 7:61, 157, 459, 482–91; PWC 8:68–69; PWC 10:55–58. The quotation is from Washington to Valentine Crawford, 30 March 1774, ibid., 12–18.

  14. For background on attitudes within Virginia’s planter aristocracy, see Louis B. Wright, First Gentlemen of Virginia: Intellectual Qualities of the Early Colonial Ruling Class (San Marino, 1940), and T. H. Breen, Tobacco Culture: The Mentality of the Great Tidewater Planters on the Eve of the Revolution (Princeton, 1985).

  15. Washington to Robert Cary & Company, 12 June 1759, PWC 6:326–27. For the litany of complaints during these early years of the relationship with Cary & Company, see the following correspondence with Cary, whose responses have not survived: PWC 6:348–52, 448–51; 7:76–77, 135–37, 153–55, 202–05, 251–53, 444–47; 8:9–12.

  16. For the terms of the Custis will with regard to the “dower plantations,” see PWC 7:81–93. For the dominant role of tobacco on these plantations, see PWC 8:421–24. For the size of the slave population in 1771, see 587–92.

  17. Washington to Robert Cary & Company, 13 February 1764, PWC 8:286–87. For background on the evolution of the tobacco economy in the Chesapeake, the following books convey the complicated story: Jacob Price, Capital and Credit in the British Overseas Trade: The View from the Chesapeake (Cambridge, 1980); Alan Kulikoff, Tobacco and Slaves: The Development of Southern Culture in the Chesapeake, 1680–1800 (Chapel Hill, 1986); Bruce A. Ragsdale, A Planters’ Republic: The Search for Economic Independence in Revolutionary Virginia (Madison, 1996). On the consumer revolution sweeping England and Virginia, see T. H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence (New York, 2004).

  18. The invoices for this cornucopia of goods are reproduced in PWC 6:317–18, 327–36, 392–402, 461–66; 7:22–31, 124–31, 198–99, 253–57, 287–95, 353–57, 418–23, 432–33, 470–76; 8:44–50, 130–36, 295–99, 397–400, 558–66; 9:103–9. The best brief treatment of Washington’s economic relationship with Cary & Company is Bruce A. Ragsdale, “George Washington, the British Tobacco Trade, and Economic Opportunity in Pre-Revolutionary Virginia,” GWR, 67–93.

  19. Washington to Robert Stewart, 27 April 1763, PWC 7:205–8; Washington to Robert Cary, 1 May 1764, ibid., 305–6; Thomas Jefferson to Maria Jefferson Eppes, 7 January 1798, Sarah N. Randolph, The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson (Charlottesville, 1978), 247; Thomas Jefferson, Answers to Demeunier’s Additional Queries, January–February 1786, Jefferson 10:27.

  20. Washington to Robert Cary & Company, 10 August 1764, 20 September 1765, PWC 7:323–26, 398–402.

  21. See the abovementioned essay by Bruce A. Ragsdale in GWR 67–93, for the best distillation of the scholarly literature. The old standard by Avery O. Craven, Soil Exhaustion as a Factor in the Agricultural History of Virginia and Maryland, 1660–1860 (Urbana, 1926), is still excellent. My summary of the scholarship is most indebted to Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom; Kulikoff, Tobacco and Slaves; and Breen, Tobacco Culture.

  22. Washington to Francis Dandridge, 20 September 1765, Washington to Robert Cary, 20 September 1765, PWC 7:395–96, 401. The classic study of the colonial response to the Stamp Act is Edmund S. and Helen S. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution (Chapel Hill, 1953).

  23. For correspondence with various merchants about his wheat crop, with ship captains about his flour, and for spinning and weaving records at Mount Vernon, see PWC 7:359–61, 509; 8:85–86, 154–55; 10:210, note 6.

  24. Washington to John Posey, 24 June 1767, PWC 8:3; Dalzell and Dalzell, Mount Vernon, 52–53, for the symbolic significance of the westward entrance.

  25. The earliest correspondence on the improvement of the Potomac, destined to occupy Washington until the very end, is in PWC 7:175–78; 8:284–90, 349–54.

  26. Dismal Swamp Land Company Articles of Agreement, 3 November 1763, and Appraisment of Dismal Swamp Slaves, 4 July 1764, PWC 7:269–74, 315–16. See also Charles Royster, The Fabulous History of the Dismal Swamp Company: A Story of George Washington’s Times (New York, 1999).

  27. The standard study of the subject, old but reliable, is Thomas P. Abernethy, Western Lands and the American Revolution (New York, 1939). The issue receives thoughtful and poignant treatment in Anderson, Crucible of War, 518–28, 565–71.

  28. Washington to William Crawford, 17 September 1767, PWC 8:26–30.

  29. The intricate, indeed tortured, speculative scheme is capable of being followed in the following correspondence and editorial notes: PWC 7:219–25, 242–50, 415–16, 511–13; 8:62–65, 149–53, 307–9, 378–80. The quotation is from Washington to Thomas Lewis, 17 February 1774, PWC 9:483.

  30. During the entire pre-revolutionary era, no single concern generated as much correspondence from Washington as this one. See PWC 8:257–58, 272–79, 300–04, 366, 428–29, 439–41; 9:477; 10:230–33, for the key letters. For the surveying trip to the Great Kanawha, see Diaries 2:277–328. For the total acreage Washington claimed, see Advertisements for Western lands, 15 July 1773, PWC 9:278–80.

  31. Washington to George Muse, 29 January 1774, PWC 9:460–61.

  32. Washington to George Mercer, 7 November 1771, PWC 8:541–45.

  33. Washington to Thomas Lewis, 17 February 1774; Washington to James Wood, 20 February 1774, PWC 9:481–83, 490.

  34. Washington to Robert Cary & Company, 21 July 1766, PWC 7:457.

  35. Washington’s attendance record at the sessions in Williamsburg was decent but not diligent. He left town before Patric
k Henry delivered his famous challenge to George III in 1765 and missed altogether the session in spring 1768. After 1765 he became a delegate from Fairfax County rather than Frederick County. He usually lodged and took his meals at Christiana Campbell’s tavern and used the trip to visit the Custis estates nearby.

  36. Washington to George Mason, 5 April 1769, PWC 8:177–81. On the appeal of austerity offered by the non-importation agreements, see Edmund S. Morgan, “The Puritan Ethic and the American Revolution,” WMQ 24 (1967), 3–43.

  37. For Washington’s role in presenting Mason’s plan, see the editorial note, PWC 8:187–90; Washington to Robert Cary & Company, 25 July 1769, ibid., 229–31. The best biography of Mason is Robert A. Rutland, George Mason: Reluctant Statesman (Williamsburg, 1961).

  38. Washington to George William Fairfax, 10–15 June 1774, Washington to Bryan Fairfax, 4 July 1774, PWC 10:94–101, 109–11.

  39. The scholarly literature on radical Whig ideology is vast, but the two seminal works are Bernard Bailyn, Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, 1967), and Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (New York, 1969).

  40. Fairfax County Resolves, 18 July 1774, PWC 10:119–28; Donald M. Zweig, “A New-Found Washington Letter of 1774 and the Fairfax Revolves,” WMQ 40 (1983), 283–91. See also Washington to Bryan Fairfax, 20 July 1774, PWC 10:128–31.

  41. Washington to Bryan Fairfax, 24 August 1774, PWC 10:154–56.

  42. William J. Van Schreeven and Robert L. Scribner, eds., Revolutionary Virginia: The Road to Independence, 2 vols. (Charlottesville, 1973–75), 1:230–39; PWC 10:142–43; Cunliffe, Man and Monument, 74.

  43. Robert McKenzie to Washington, 13 September 1774, Washington to Robert McKenzie, 9 October 1774, PWC 10:151–62, 171–72. For the items purchased in Philadelphia, William Milnor to Washington, 29 November 1774, ibid., 189–98.

  44. Washington to John Connolly, 25 February 1774, ibid., 273–74.

  45. For the correspondence describing these various activities, see PWC 10:242–44, 288–92, 314–15, 320–22. He had begun to make plans for the renovations of Mount Vernon a year earlier, so the decision described here represents a commitment to persist in his plans.

  46. Van Schreeven and Scribner, eds., Revolutionary Virginia 2:347–86; PWC 10:308–9.

  47. Diaries 3:320–25; Longmore, Invention of Washington, 154–56, for Mason’s proposal about officer rotation.

  48. JCC 2:13–45; Washington to George William Fairfax, 31 May 1775, PWC 10:367–68. For the purchases, see 369–70.

  49. Lyman Butterfield, ed., The Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 4 vols. (Cambridge, 1961), 3:322–23. Flexner 1:336–40, tends to accept the Adams version. Knollenberg, Washington: The Virginia Period, 113–16, and Longmore, Invention of Washington, 162–67, do not.

  50. Benjamin Rush to Thomas Ruston, 29 October 1775, in Lyman Butterfield, ed., The Letters of Benjamin Rush, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1951), 1:92. Cunliffe, Man and Monument, 74, also suggests that his silence and reserve in the Continental Congress impressed his talkative colleagues.

  51. JCC 2:49–66. The Adams quotation is in Butterfield, ed., Diary and Autobiography 2:117.

  52. Address to the Continental Congress, 16 June 1775, PWC 1:1–3; Diaries 3:336–37; JCC 2:91–94.

  53. Washington to Martha Washington, 18 June 1775, Washington to John Augustine Washington, 20 June 1775, Washington to Burwell Bassett, 19 June 1775, PWR 1:3–4, 12–14, 19–20.

  54. I am making an argument here about the improbability of the American Revolution succeeding that I make more fully in Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (New York, 2000), 3–19.

  55. The thoughts about a retreat to the western wilderness is based on Washington’s later reminiscence about his distressed state of mind at that moment. See Flexner 1:336. He actually arrived at Cambridge on July 2, but officially assumed command the following day. See PWR 1:49–50.

  CHAPTER THREE

  1. The story of Lund Washington’s effort to appease the British naval officer and Washington’s hostile reaction to the effort is nicely told in Dalzell and Dalzell, Mount Vernon, xv–xvi. The most succinct overview of Washington’s military career during the Revolution is Glenn A. Phelps, “The Republican General,” GWR, 165–97.

  2. Washington to Joseph Reed, 10 February 1776, PWR 3:288; Washington to John Augustine Washington, 31 May–4 June 1776, PWR 4:412–13. See also Washington to Philip Schuyler, 4 October 1775, PWR 2:95–96.

  3. On the Bunker Hill casualties and lessons, see the letters in PWR 1:71, 134–36, 183–84, 289–90. The standard history of the battle itself is Richard Ketchum, The Battle for Bunker Hill (Garden City, 1962).

  4. For a typical expression of the belief that one decisive blow at Boston could end the war, see Richard Henry Lee to Washington, 29 August 1775, PWR 1:209–10. For the belief that volunteers would defeat mercenaries, see General Orders, 3 January 1776, PWR 3:14.

  5. Washington to John Hancock, 9 February 1776, PWR 3:274–75. See also Washington to Joseph Reed, 28 November 1775, PWR 2:448–51, for the inadequacy of militia.

  6. Address from the New York Provincial Congress, 26 June 1775, Address from the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, 3 July 1775, PWR 1:40, 52–53. Longmore, Invention of Washington, 184–201, is especially good on the quasi-king theme.

  7. Phillis Wheatley to Washington, 26 October 1775, PWR 2:252–54; Washington to Phillis Wheatley, 28 February 1776, PWR 3:387. Fritz Hirschfeld, George Washington and Slavery: A Documentary Portrayal (Columbia, MO, 1997), 93–94. Washington to Thomas Gage, 19 August 1775, PWR 1:326–28.

  8. Washington to Lund Washington, 20 August 1775, PWR 1:335–36; Washington to Joseph Reed, 15 December 1775, PWR 2:552; Washington to Joseph Reed, 14 January 1776 and 10 February 1776, PWR 3:87–92, 286–91.

  9. Washington to Charles Lee, 10 February 1776, PWR 3:282–84; Washington to Joseph Reed, 20 November 1775, PWR 2:407–9; General Orders, 27 February 1776, PWR 3:379–81; Washington to Joseph Reed, 23 January 1776, ibid., 172–75. For the role of Billy Lee, see Hirschfeld, Washington and Slavery, 96–111.

  10. Hugh Rankin, “Washington’s Lieutenants and the American Victory,” in John Ferling, ed., The World Turned Upside Down: The American Victory in the War for Independence (Westport, 1988), 71–90; John Shy, A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence (New York, 1976), 133–62; George Billias, ed., George Washington’s Generals and Opponents (New York, 1994).

  11. The case for Washington as a fundamentally insecure leader, nervous about the superior credentials of Lee and Gates, is made best by John Ferling, The First of Men: A Life of George Washington (Knoxville, 1988). A more succinct version is available in Ferling, ed., The World Turned Upside Down, 53–70.

  12. For typical examples of Washington’s deference to John Hancock as president of the Continental Congress, see his letters in PWR 2:444–47, 483–87, 533–35.

  13. General Orders, 20 August 1775, PWR 1:329–30, for “United Colonies”; Washington to Joseph Reed, 4 January 1776, PWR 3:23–27, for the “union flag”; Minutes of the Conference, 18–24 October 1775, PWR 2:190–95, for the meeting with the delegation of the Continental Congress.

  14. Washington to John Hancock, 4 January 1776, PWR 3:18–21. See also, General Orders, 1 January 1776, ibid., 1–5, especially the editorial note, for the transition problem as troops came and went.

  15. Council of War, 8 October 1775, PWR 2:123–38; General Orders, 12 November 1775, ibid., 353–55; Washington to John Hancock, 31 December 1775, ibid., 623.

  16. Circular to the General Officers, 8 September 1775, PWR 1:432–34; Council of War, 16 January 1776, PWR 3:103–4; Council of War, 16 February 1776, ibid., 319–24; Washington to Joseph Reed, 26 February–9 March 1776, ibid., 369–79.

  17. For the correspondence on the Quebec mission, see PWR 1:331–33, 431–32, 455–56, 461–62; PWR 2:155–56, 160–62, 300–01; PWR 3:78–80. The comment to Arnold
is in Washington to Benedict Arnold, 27 January 1776, ibid., 197–98.

  18. Kenneth Roberts, March to Quebec (New York, 1942), 201–6.

  19. Elizabeth A. Fenn, Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775–82 (New York, 2001).

  20. John Hancock to Washington, 2 April 1776, PWR 4:16–17.

  21. For Washington’s trip to and arrival at New York, see PWR 4:40–43, 58–60. For the size of the British expeditionary force, see Mary B. Wickwire, “Naval Warfare and the American Victory,” in Ferling, ed., The World Turned Upside Down, 193–96.

  22. This entire section represents my own digestion and interpretation of the rather massive scholarly literature on the military history of the War of Independence. The following books and articles have exercised the greatest influence on my thinking: on the Continental army and its essential if threatening role, Charles Royster, A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character (Chapel Hill, 1979), and Robert K. Wright, The Continental Army (Washington, D.C., 1983); on the decline of popular support for the war and the Continental army, Ray Raphael, A People’s History of the American Revolution: How Common People Shaped the Fight for Independence (New York, 2001), and Joseph Plumb Martin, Private Yankee Doodle: Some of the Adventures, Dangers, and Sufferings of Joseph Plumb Martin (New York, 2001); on the role of the Continental Congress, Jack N. Rakove, The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress (New York, 1979); on the role of the militia, John Shy, A People Numerous and Armed, and John Shy, “The American Revolution Considered as a Revolutionary War,” in Stephen Kurtz and James Huston, eds., Essays on the American Revolution (Chapel Hill, 1973), 121–56; on the British perspective, Ira D. Gruber, The Howe Brothers and the American Revolution (New York, 1972), and Paul H. Smith, Loyalists and Redcoats: A Study in the British Revolutionary Policy (Chapel Hill, 1964); on the American perspective, Don Higginbotham, The War of American Independence (New York, 1971), Robert Middlekauf, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution (New York, 1982), and Dave R. Palmer, The Way of the Fox: American Strategy in the War for America (Westport, 1975). Excellent collections of essays that shed light on multiple dimensions of the conflict are: Ferling, ed., The World Turned Upside Down; Jack P. Greene, ed., The American Revolution: Its Character and Limits (New York, 1987); Don Higginbotham, ed., Reconsiderations on the Revolutionary War: Selected Essays (Westport, 1978); and Ronald Hoffmann and Peter J. Albert, eds., Arms and Independence: The Military Character of the American Revolution (Charlottesville, 1984).