The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers

by Thomas Fleming

  When Jack decided to sell some of his more distant plantations, Washington was so dismayed that he took time he could not spare from the war to write him a long, earnest letter, urging him not to do it. The buyers paid Jack in paper dollars printed by the Continental Congress, money backed by nothing but the hope that the Americans would win the war. As the conflict dragged on, these dollars had begun to depreciate. Washington urged Jack to invest the money in land closer to his home while the dollars still had value. Jack ignored his advice.

  Worse was to come. Jack did not gamble in the restrained style of his stepfather, and he was soon deeply in debt. One year, he bought some of Mount Vernon’s cattle. Washington assumed he would have them appraised and pay him a fair price. Jack had the appraiser examine only the worst beasts in the herd and applied the price to the rest of them. He then waited months while the dollar depreciated toward virtual waste paper and paid his stepfather in the now almost worthless currency. “You might as well attempt to pay me in old newspapers,” a furious Washington told him.5 He stopped signing his letters to Jack “with love.” But he could not do or say more. Jack remained Martha’s darling. She would not tolerate criticism of him from anyone, even George.

  IV

  If Washington had known some intimate details of Jack’s home life, he might have changed his mind and risked Martha’s wrath. When Nelly’s second baby was another girl, Jack expressed his disappointment so vehemently that Martha offered to raise the child. Nelly demurred, but Jack’s sulk about not having a son continued. When his oldest daughter, Eliza, was four or five years old, he decided she could entertain him and his friends at dinner parties. She had a good memory and loved to sing. Jack proceeded to teach her the lyrics of several raunchy songs. At the end of the dinner, when the table was cleared and serious drinking began, Jack would order Eliza to be brought to the dining room in one of her prettiest dresses.

  Jack would lift the child onto the table and she would prance up and down, singing the salacious lines, while her father and his friends roared with laughter. Nelly Custis protested, but Jack brushed her off, claiming “his little Bet could not be injured by what she could not understand—that he had no boy and she must make fun for him until he had.” Nelly gave up and left the little girl “to the gentlemen” and her father’s “caresses.” For a while, the experience made Eliza “think well of myself.” Later in her unhappy life, after a broken marriage and several failed affairs, Eliza would change her mind about this and many other things.6

  V

  The “long and bloody war,” as Washington sometimes called it, was in its sixth year with no end in sight when Washington received an anxious letter from an old friend, Benjamin Harrison, who was now the speaker of the Virginia assembly. Seventy-seven-year-old Mary Ball Washington had apparently asked some members of the legislature to propose a bill granting her a pension. She claimed she was “in great want, owing to the heavy taxes she was obliged to pay.” Implicit was the accusation that her famous son was allowing her to all but starve. An uneasy Harrison assured Washington that the assembly would be glad to pass the bill, but he thought it might be wise to consult him about it first.

  A thunderstruck Washington replied that he had no idea that his mother was having any financial difficulties. He had instructed his cousin Lund Washington, who was managing Mount Vernon, to answer all her requests for money without a moment’s hesitation. Moreover, Mary did not have a child “who would not divide the last sixpence to relieve her from any real distress.” He had told her this repeatedly. The general made it clear to Harrison that he and his brothers and sister would feel “much hurt” at having their mother a pensioner, especially when she had “ample income of her own.” He begged Harrison to block the bill and make the whole matter disappear as quickly and quietly as possible.7

  VI

  Not long after this contretemps with Mary, Washington visited Mount Vernon following an absence of more than six years. He was accompanied by General Comte de Rochambeau and other leaders of the French army. Martha, Nelly, and Jack and their four children greeted them joyously. The soldiers spent only three days in the house before pushing on to Williamsburg, where the French and American armies were gathering to assault a British army entrenched in the nearby port of Yorktown. The sweet smell of victory was suddenly in the air, after so many years of discouragement.

  Jack Custis asked his stepfather if he could join his staff as a volunteer aide. How could Washington say no? Yorktown was almost certainly going to be a siege rather than an all-out battle. There would be little or no danger for someone on a general’s staff. The British soon proved Washington correct; they retired inside their fortifications and tried to hold out, betting on the royal navy to rescue them. But a revived French fleet easily defeated a halfhearted attempt at seaborne relief, led by one of the most inept admirals in British history. The stunned redcoats realized they were trapped.

  The siege lasted almost three weeks. For a while Jack enjoyed himself. On October 12, he wrote his mother a cheerful letter, telling her, “The General tho in constant fatigue looks well.” Like many soldiers, Jack Custis developed dysentery from eating army commissary food that had grown stale or partially spoiled and drinking water polluted by thousands of men living in the vicinity with only minimal sanitation. A few days later, he began running a high fever. Dr. James Craik, the same physician who had cared for Washington two decades earlier, diagnosed “camp fever”—the disease we now call typhus. He urged Jack to retreat from the battlefield to a house where he could stay in bed, drink good water (or better, liquor), and eat unspoiled food.8

  Jack shook his head, determined to have his own way as usual. The siege was thundering to a climax. The British fortifications were battered wrecks from the ferocious day-and-night Allied bombardment. On October 17, a British officer waving a white flag appeared outside their works and delivered a letter from his commander, Charles, Lord Cornwallis, asking for terms. Two days later, the British marched out and surrendered their guns. By this time, Jack Custis was so weak that he could barely sit up in a carriage to watch the ceremony.

  A distressed Washington joined Dr. Craik in virtually ordering Jack to go to Eltham, his uncle Burwell Bassett’s plantation, about thirty miles from Yorktown. The general stayed at Yorktown for the rest of October, dealing with the thousand and one details of the new situation created by the victory. Not until the first days of November did he set out for Mount Vernon with his staff. On the way, he left his aides at a nearby tavern and rode to Eltham to check on Jack Custis.

  Imagine his consternation when he was met at the door of the Bassett mansion by a weeping Martha; Jack’s wife, Nelly; and their oldest daughter, Eliza. Jack was dying. Washington raced upstairs to the sickroom, where several doctors were standing around Jack’s bed, their heads bowed in defeat. Jack’s breath was dwindling in his throat. Washington could only watch as he expired.9

  The general’s first concern was Martha. She was overwhelmed with grief. Washington spent the next five days at Eltham, presiding over Jack’s funeral and doing his utmost to console his wife. It was a dismaying interlude at a time when everyone else in Virginia and the rest of the nation was celebrating the Yorktown victory. Her son’s death must have triggered an inner struggle for Martha. As her husband ascended to glory, she was plunged into despair. But she was consoled by Nelly and the four adorable grandchildren, and sustained by Washington’s strength and love.

  Still fighting a war, the general asked Martha’s brother, Bartholomew Dandridge, to take charge of Nelly and the children and act as the executor of Jack’s estate. Dandridge refused to accept responsibility for the children, and when he got a look at Jack’s account books, he was soon moaning that everything was an unholy mess. Some historians have noted that Washington never uttered a word of grief for Jack. This may be true, but that does not mean he did not grieve for him. By now the general had no illusions about human nature. He had seen too many other men with character defects t
o judge Jack harshly; he could not deny a stepfather’s memories of tender moments. As a man who had lost his own father in his boyhood, his heart went out to Jack’s four children. He ruefully but willingly made them his responsibility.

  VII

  The war dragged on for two more years. Most of the time, the general and Martha lived in a house in Newburgh, a few miles from the Continental Army’s camp in New Windsor, about forty miles north of New York. Often during these months, Washington reported Martha was “low,” suffering from “bilious fevers and colic” and other complaints, probably symptoms of depression. Washington was bored and not a little irritated at Congress’s inability to raise money to pay his troops. He, too, had minor physical woes; missing teeth made it difficult to chew his food and his eyes were beginning to fail. He ordered two sets of spectacles from Philadelphia, one for distant vision, the other for reading.

  From Virginia came more bad news about his mother. Mary was back at her old game, telling everyone in Fredericksburg and elsewhere that she was penniless and close to starvation. An angry Washington wrote to his favorite younger brother, Jack, begging him to pay their mother a visit. He urged Jack to tell Mary “in delicate terms” that she should not accept money or favors from anyone but her “relations.” He had no doubt whatsoever that they would be able to satisfy her “real wants.” As for her “imaginary wants,” they were “boundless and always changing.”10

  On his way to Mount Vernon from Yorktown, Washington had stopped in Fredericksburg to visit Mary. She was not at home—an accident that he probably regarded as a stroke of luck, saving him from listening to a litany of complaints. He left her some money and went on his way. Several weeks later, she wrote him a letter lamenting that she had missed his visit. She had taken a trip “over the mountains” that “almost kill’d” her. There she had seen some land he owned that she thought would be perfect for “a little hous of my one [own] if it is only twelve foot squar.” George was paying rent for her to live in an elegant house in Fredericksburg, but it was apparently unsatisfactory. Whatever he did for Mary was unsatisfactory. There is little doubt that George’s encounters with his mother invariably increased his affection for Martha Custis.

  VIII

  By the time the War for Independence ended, Nelly Custis had found another husband, an Alexandria physician, Dr. David Stuart. She took her two older girls with her into the new marriage. The Washingtons adopted the two youngest children, four-year-old Nelly and two-year-old George Washington Parke Custis, whom everyone called “Wash.” When Washington arrived at Mount Vernon on Christmas eve, 1783, a private citizen once more, the ex-general’s trunk was full of toys he had bought in Philadelphia for the “little folks” as well as presents for a beaming Martha.

  In the same two years, George and Martha acquired other parental responsibilities. His younger brother Samuel had died at forty-seven. Samuel had never been much of a businessman, and the deaths of no fewer than four wives had added to his woes. He had left his fifth wife penniless, wondering how she was going to feed her newborn baby, plus three boys and a girl from one of Samuel’s previous unions. “In God’s name,” Washington asked his brother Jack, “how did my brother Saml. contrive to get himself so enormously in debt?”

  Jack Washington could only plead with his older brother not to ask him for help with the indigent children. He had his hands full trying to provide for his own family. Their youngest brother, Charles Washington, was a hopeless alcoholic. George wearily saw he again had no choice. He ordered Samuel’s three youngest children sent to Mount Vernon. The oldest, a fourteen-year-old boy, and the baby would stay with his brother’s widow. The two younger boys turned out to be hell-raisers who drove Washington and several schoolmasters to distraction. But he persisted in paying their tuitions and lecturing them on good behavior, and they eventually graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. Their sister, Harriot, lived at Mount Vernon for almost two decades. Also in residence was Fanny Bassett, daughter of Martha’s sister, Nancy, who had died in 1777.

  The older children could more or less fend for themselves. George and Martha’s chief concern—and pleasure—were Nelly and Wash. When their step-grandfather became president, they traveled with George and Martha to New York, and later to Philadelphia when the capital was shifted there. This ready-made family was enormously important to Martha, whose maternal needs remained intense. Washington was equally involved in the “little folks’” future. He began thinking about a tutor for “Wash,” who was so fat he was often called “Tubby.” George told one friend he planned to “fit the boy for a university.” He was hoping to succeed where he had failed with Wash’s father. Alas, he was doomed to another disappointment. As rich as his father, Wash was to prove equally resistant to scholarly effort. He quit or was expelled from no fewer than three colleges.11

  IX

  When Washington became president, Martha once more journeyed north and became a crucial part of his household in the new capital, New York. Many people are under the mistaken impression that because he was elected unanimously, Washington’s presidency was a love feast. The opposite is closer to the truth. There were still a substantial number of Americans, loosely called anti-federalists, who feared and disliked the Constitution and the new government it had created. Much of this hostility focused on the presidency, which they regarded as an office fraught with menace to American rights and liberties. Thousands of eyes were on Washington, suspecting him of being ready to turn into an American version of George III.

  When Martha arrived in New York on May 27, 1789, these critics were growling because the president, after being overwhelmed with impromptu visitors ten hours a day, announced he was restricting such time-wasting encounters to two hours a week so that he could get some work done. Others carped at his weekly receptions, which were too formal, they thought, and smacked of an audience with a monarch. Still others complained about the poor quality of the dinners he served. Martha took charge of the kitchen, and soon guests were telling friends how deliciously they had dined and wined. Next, she launched her own weekly receptions, at which ladies were welcomed, and everyone was charmed by her relaxed, cheerful style. She also acquired a title that she neither sought nor liked: “Lady Washington.” It was the invention of well-meaning people who felt a need for something better than “Mrs. President.”12

  Equally important was the way Martha made friends with the wives of cabinet members and other VIPs, above all, the vice president’s wife, Abigail Adams. “A most becoming pleasantness sits upon her countenance,” Abigail declared. She was particularly pleased by Martha’s insistence that Abigail sit beside her and join in greeting the guests at her receptions.13

  In little more than a month, Martha discovered another important role: nurse. Washington began complaining about a severe pain in his left thigh. Doctors discovered a growth that swelled and festered, making them fear it was malignant. Another physician suspected anthrax, a disease common among farm animals and sometimes contracted from people who sorted newly sheared wool. The president ran a high fever, and a rumor swept the city that he was dying. Two doctors operated without anesthesia, a discovery still far in the future. The pain was agonizing, and afterward Washington’s head ached so intensely he could not tolerate the slightest noise. His secretary roped off the street around his house to eliminate passing carriages and bawling peddlers with creaky carts. It took him the entire summer to recover his strength.

  Most of the time the Washingtons enjoyed New York. The city was full of exhibits of exotic animals, sometimes stuffed, often alive. A waxworks on Water Street featured “The President of the United States, sitting under a canopy, in his military dress.” Martha seems to have found this an especially enjoyable sight. She took the children and several other “young misses” and persuaded Washington to go for a private viewing.

  The Washingtons’ favorite recreation was the John Street theater, which they attended so often that the proprietor created a presidential box, with th
e coat of arms of the United States in gold across its front. They particularly liked plays such as Sheridan’s School for Scandal, which was considered racy in its day. Their attendance was usually advertised in advance to drum up business. As they entered their box, often with a party of friends, the band struck up “The President’s March” and the audience gave them a standing ovation.14

  X

  Politics absorbed most of the president’s attention. Congress was torn by wild wrangles over how to create a workable government. Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton had proposed a financial plan to cure the nation’s chronic bankruptcy. The government would assume the wartime debts of both the states and Congress and utilize a new entity, the Bank of the United States, to gradually repay them. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and his friend Congressman James Madison violently opposed Hamilton’s vision of the United States as an industrial and commercial powerhouse. Their opposition morphed into a detestation of New York as the nation’s capital, because the city’s numerous wealthy merchants supposedly corrupted Congress. The Virginians wanted a rural capital beyond the reach of big-city temptations. These clashes, which soon spilled into the newspapers, made President Washington a very worried man.

  While the politicians called one another vicious names, Washington caught a cold that transmuted into pneumonia. This time, the fear that he was sinking toward death was more than a rumor. In an eerie replay of Jack Custis’s demise, four doctors watched helplessly while the president struggled for breath. Another physician was summoned all the way from Philadelphia but had nothing to offer but more hand-wringing. The story spread throughout the nation, causing acute anxiety everywhere. “Every eye full of tears,” one senator wrote.15