Washington

by Douglas Southall Freeman

  Perhaps some of Washington’s lieutenants knew there were at least two interpretations of some of these characteristics. Friends might have analyzed them correctly and explained his peculiarities along with his patriotism, courage, judgment, patience, systematic diligence, sense of justice and respect for civil authority. Henry Knox or Jonathan Trumbull, Jr., or David Humphreys, or almost any other of those who remained with him to the end might have taken him apart, quality by quality, but they could not easily have put him back together again. They could have said that to a certain point he was an understandable personality, of normal, integrated abilities—and, so saying, none of these men would have explained Washington or his success.

  Failure to understand the inmost man was not the result of any obtuseness on the part of Washington’s companions in arms. Not many of them had known him prior to 1775. He was himself responsible, in part, for the fact that he was a stranger, in his inmost self, to those around him. As man and soldier, he built up through the years of war two walls of reserve. One had a footing of personal caution. “It is easy to make acquaintances,” he explained, “but very difficult to shake them off, however irksome and unprofitable they are found after we have once committed ourselves to them. . . .” The safe rule of personal relationship, as he saw it, was this: “Be courteous to all but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence; true friendship is a plant of slow growth. . . .” He loved the young Marquis as he might have loved a son, but even in this closest of friendships, Washington did not admit Lafayette all the way beyond the second wall of his reserve, the wall of military secrecy. The Commander-in-Chief knew how ears were raised in camp to catch the faintest whisper of impending movement, and he realized that gossips were almost as dangerous as spies. Even where he knew his remarks would not be passed on, reserve on military matters was a habit.

  Another reason some of Washington’s colleagues did not understand how he achieved what seemed impossible in the Revolution was the human disposition to assume that large results have complicated causes. These men, and many of those who came after, felt there must be some elaborate explanation of Washington’s accomplishments and character. Although his words usually were the mirror of his mind and his nature was disclosed daily in the transaction of business, none of his comrades in arms could believe he actually was as simple as he had proved himself to be in the stripping ordeal of war. Washington gave an old friend, years later, the basic explanation of the success of his Revolutionary leadership when he said he “always had walked on a straight line.” Early in life he acquired a positive love of the right and developed the will to do the right. There must have been derelictions, but when his fame had created curiosity concerning his youth, there did not emerge even one tale of tryst behind a haystack or of a plundering escapade with boys of the neighborhood. Item-by-item scrutiny of his cash book and ledger, which are the fullest financial record of any young American of his generation, does not disclose one entry that even hints of a liaison with a woman. He had gambled a little on horses and cards, and he had fallen harmlessly in love with his neighbor’s wife, but out of this and out of all his adventures at frontier posts, there developed no scandal.

  The next essential fact was his complete dedication to the duties assigned him in 1775. He had told Congress the day he accepted command: “I will enter upon the momentous duty and exert every power I possess in their service for the support of the glorious cause.” In that resolution he fought “with a halter round his neck.” Because Washington knew he had integrity and absolute dedication to the cause of independence, he had throughout the Revolution a positive peace of mind. This did not mean that he observed without concern the miseries of his men or the desperate fluctuation of American fortunes. Over these things he agonized endlessly; but always he could war the better against Britain because he was not at war with himself. His will and his self-discipline were his rod and his staff.

  As much a part of the man as integrity, dedication and peace with himself were the two rewards Washington desired for himself. He wanted first the assurance that he had kept his promise to devote himself completely to his task. The other reward represented in developed form his youthful craving for what he had termed “honor,” and if he had to be characterized in a single sentence, it would be substantially this: He was a patriot of conscious integrity and unassailable conduct who had given himself completely to the Revolutionary cause and desired for himself the satisfaction of having done his utmost and having won the approval of those whose esteem he put above every other reward.

  In accepting the integrity, dedication and ambitions of Washington as realities, one does not face an insoluble problem when one asks how this life, at the end of the Revolution, had reached the goal of service, satisfaction and reward. George Washington was neither an American Parsifal nor a biological “sport.” What he was, he made himself by will, effort, discipline, ambition and perseverance. For the long and dangerous journeys of his incredible life, he had the needful strength and direction because he walked that “straight line.”

  CHAPTER / 18

  For some weeks after Washington returned to Mount Vernon as a private citizen it seemed unreal that his time was his own, to devote to private business in a world not only narrowed by retirement but dramatically imprisoned, as it chanced, by snow and ice that kept him housebound almost continuously from Christmas to the second week in February 1784. After a month and a little more Washington had convinced himself that he was a planter again. “The tranquil walks of domestic life are now beginning to unfold themselves,” he cheerfully confided to Rochambeau; and to Lafayette he wrote, “I am retiring within myself, . . . envious of none . . . determined to be pleased with all.”

  He undertook to bring himself down to date on many subjects he had neglected. He hoped, even, for spare moments in which to enlarge his knowledge of history and, perhaps, of French, but he found quickly that legs accustomed to the saddle were not altogether at ease when stretched overlong by the fireside. His muscles made him restless; demanding duties began to devour his days, new duties as well as old, duties imposed by fame along with those exacted by ownership. Visitors arrived in large numbers, stayed at their leisure and, in some instances, returned with exacting frequency. He found that whenever he stirred from the vicinity of Mount Vernon it became a formal occasion with ceremonies, salutes and addresses. Pleasing as was the cordiality of the people to a man who found public approval the greatest of rewards, lengthy receptions and dinners were more to be avoided than enjoyed.

  He did one thing that must have puzzled his friends; he wrote Capt. Daniel McCarty, vestryman of Truro Parish: “It is not convenient for me to be at Colchester tomorrow, and as I shall no longer act as vestryman, the sooner my place is filled with another, the better. This letter, or something more formal if required, may evidence my resignation, and authorize a new choice.” He said no word in explanation of his withdrawal from the vestry. Subsequently, although Washington’s recorded appearances at church were rare, he remained on friendly terms with his rector and probably attended Christ Church in Alexandria when weather and roads permitted.

  Another experience of Washington’s after he adjusted himself to renewed home-life was one for which he was in some measure prepared. Eight years of service with the troops had been eight years of neglect at home. Ante-bellum debtors who had made any payment had done so, usually, in depreciated currency. During the British raid of 1781, eighteen slaves had run away; nine had been sold in the most difficult years to provide money for taxes; plantation industries and the ferry had done well on paper for service paid in paper; Lund Washington’s preoccupation on the estate and his aversion to travel and to bookkeeping had led to neglect of rent collection from western lands; current and capital accounts had been confused. The pinch of hard times had been felt everywhere except at the dining table. Yet, even when the war had been at its worst, the General had directed the continued improvement of the mansion
house; and now he was ambitious to have a new room decorated in stucco. He undertook, besides, to pave the piazza with flagstones from England, built a greenhouse, made plans for a better way of keeping ice in summer, paid for and put into use French plate ordered for him by Lafayette, and replenished his stock of claret. Other drink and day-by-day food represented a continuing expense.

  Within a short time the immediate household was to consist of Martha, two of her grandchildren, the General, Lund Washington for a good many of his meals, and subsequently George Augustine Washington and Fanny Bassett, a niece who served as mistress of the house. Seven or eight white persons had to be fed daily from the main kitchen, but they usually represented only a few more than half of those who sat down for dinner in mid-afternoon. On occasion as many as ten or even fifteen guests, invited or unexpected, joined the family at the meal. Several of these early guests were distinguished; most were welcome, and a few only were impostors, or persumptuous, uncouth persons who came to fill their stomachs or have an experience of which to boast; but in the aggregate they accounted for numerous young beeves, sheep and roasting pigs, to say nothing of flour and vegetables, milk and butter, fish from the river and game from the marshes. Claret, Madeira and spirits disappeared in large volume. The financial burden of this entertainment was apparent to friends and to Congress, whose members endlessly were asked by foreign travelers how arrangements might be made for interviews with the General, but a suggestion of the Pennsylvania Executive Council that Washington accept a gift from Congress was promptly and gratefully disapproved by him.

  Washington had predicted that he would come home “with empty pockets” and he almost literally had done so—to find numerous, unexpected calls for money. Because of the shortage of revenue at Mount Vernon, Lund Washington had drawn no pay as steward after April 1778, but he had said nothing of this to the General. When the owner came home and found this obligation, he had no ready way of meeting it. Many unanticipated requirements for money had to be met. A hundred guineas were found somehow by the General for his nephew, George Augustine Washington, Lafayette’s former aide, who needed to go to the West Indies for his health. In explaining to his nephew, Fielding Lewis, Jr., why he could not make him a loan, Washington confessed one of the main reasons for his financial distress: “My living,” he said, “under the best economy I can use must unavoidably be expensive.” In spite of all this, he remained optimistic that after he got his neglected affairs in order and received from London the money due on Patsy Custis’s stock in the Bank of England his situation would be better.

  Four months were spent in varied efforts to adjust himself to the position of a landed proprietor who had seen “the whirlwind pass.” Then, in May 1784, he had to answer the first call to renewed public service in a matter that alarmed him for weeks. The Society of the Cincinnati had become unpopular with a considerable element in America, for reasons none of the founders had anticipated. Benjamin Franklin had ridiculed it; Judge Ædanus Burke of South Carolina had written a furious “address” of warning that a “race of hereditary patricians” was being created; El-bridge Gerry had become suspicious; Delegate Samuel Osgood had pictured a conspiracy against the treasury; Henry Knox had reported that antagonism was widespread and vehement in New England, where the Society was alleged to be the creation of foreign influence, the first step towards a martial oligarchy that would overthrow American democratic institutions. Washington responded as he usually had to complaints in the Army: let the justice of the protests be determined; call on the most influential of the senior officers to attend the general meeting of the Society due to be held in Philadelphia; change promptly the rules in a manner to remove all reasonable objection to it. If antagonism could not be overcome, the men who established the Cincinnati should dissolve it for the country’s sake. As President-General, Washington reviewed the Society’s rules (or “Institution”) line by line and probably had his detailed recommendations in order on his departure for Philadelphia April 26, the first long journey he made after his home-coming.

  Proceedings of the Cincinnati showed that his leadership was accepted as readily as if he still were at Field Headquarters. It was May 4 when a quorum of delegates appeared at City Tavern and the fifteenth when the debate-loving members completed their deliberations and approved a circular to be sent the State Societies. Washington’s prime insistence was that the delegates “strike out every word, sentence and clause which has a political tendency.” Hereditary membership was to be discontinued; no more honorary members were to be admitted; donations to the Society were not to be received except from citizens of the United States; funds were to be placed in such status that their misuse could not even be suspected. Washington urged, further, that all foreign officers meet in France as a self-governing body that would have authority to pass on applications, within the terms of the Institution. This, needless to say, was proposed to meet the charge that these officers—Frenchmen who had risked their lives in war against a common foe—were seeking to impose alien rule on America. Finally Washington advocated the abandonment of general meetings; members would assemble formally in their own States only.

  The delegates adopted substantially all of Washington’s proposals except the one for the abandonment of general meetings. It was their decision to recommend the whole of the revised Institution to the State Societies for acceptance, rather than to declare it the governing law of the Society. Although elections were conducted and procedure authorized by the General Society as if the revised Institution was in operation, the intent of the Delegates undoubtedly was to make the changes contingent on the approval of the State Societies. The original Institution was silent concerning amendment and revision, but congressional usage and the inclination of most men was to defer to the States. Had Washington regarded this procedure as evasive, he would not have accepted, even with the reluctance he displayed, unanimous reelection as President-General for a term of three years.

  As rapidly as he could, he hurried homeward to take up the burdens of entertainment and farm management and pay another of the prices of being a national hero, the price of correspondence that became more nearly intolerable with each post. He protested that in eight years of public service, he never had been compelled to write so much in person. He daily was hampered because he had not yet been able to find a secretary or do more than make a beginning in the rearrangement of his legal papers, frightfully disordered from having been thrown into chests and hurriedly hauled away each time the British had appeared on the Potomac.

  Inquiries were being made about his western lands, inquiries he usually was able to answer after much searching; but it was manifest that part of his properties in the Ohio Valley were occupied by trespassers. Some of these men boldly were offering for sale tracts Washington had patented years previously. The mill and plantation which Gilbert Simpson had mismanaged must be leased, if possible, to someone else. Washington had planned to make an early visit to these possessions beyond the mountains, and he now had an added reason for doing so. Interest was being revived in the old project of linking the upper waters of the Ohio with the Virginia rivers. Thomas Jefferson appealed to him to take the lead in this before New York State captured the western trade by opening an easy route to the Hudson. Now that he was going west on his own business he resolved to ascertain, if he could, which was the best line for a road between the navigable waters of the Potomac and some deep flowing tributary of the Ohio. If he found the route, he believed Virginia and Maryland would find the money for it.

  He set out September 1 with Dr. James Craik and made his way west with few experiences he had not met before the war. By the sixth, Washington reached Berkeley Springs, now named Bath. There he met a storekeeper and builder, James Rumsey, who demonstrated an invention he claimed would enable boats to ascend easily a swiftly flowing stream. Washington grew enthusiastic and, at Rumsey’s instance, wrote a testimonial in which he described what he had seen. Washington did not stop with this. He was in such good hum
or with Bath and so pleased with Rumsey that he authorized the inventor to build him near the springs a two-story dwelling, with a stable and a kitchen as separate buildings, the whole to be ready in July 1785.

  From Bath the General and his party proceeded to the familiar settlement of Col. Thomas Cresap on the site known as Old Town. The Colonel was eighty years of age or more and of feeble eyesight, but with intellect scarcely impaired. The General then started for Simpson’s in order to arrive in time for the advertised sale of the mill. Washington tried to cover the twelve miles of difficult road between Gist’s and Simpson’s at what he termed his “usual traveling gait of five miles an hour,” but when he met travelers proceeding east with loads of ginseng, he could not resist the temptation to stop and make inquiry concerning the navigable streams. The men gave him some information on the streams up which the produce of the Ohio might be carried on batteaux, but they knew nothing about the country through which it would be necessary to open a portage. Something more personally unpleasant was told Washington by these wayfarers. Indians to the west were in ugly mood if not actually in arms. It might be dangerous for him to go down the Ohio, as he had planned, to his large holdings on the mouth of the Kanawha.

  Washington reached Simpson’s in the late afternoon of September 12, and not with pleasant anticipations, because nearly all his relations with Simpson had been unpleasant and expensive. Simpson had beguiled Washington time after time. Now, fresh disappointments crowded his stay at Simpson’s. The mill was in disrepair; there was no reservoir; the dam had given way; it was futile to hope for any rent worth collecting from the property. Nor could a purchaser be found. The General had, in the end, to make a new and bad bargain with the wily Simpson. Ill luck continued to dog the General as he went from Simpson’s to his property on Miller’s Run, where numbers of families were occupying land to which he held title. After a long conference, they chose to stand suit for ejectment, alleging title of their own, rather than pay rent.