First of Men

by Ferling, John;

  If Washington relaxed in the evenings, his days largely were consumed by work. He met frequently with McHenry and Generals Hamilton and Pinckney, and on occasion one or another of Adams’s other cabinet ministers requested a meeting. Mostly it was tedious, often mundane work, tending to procuring supplies, organizing the support services, designing uniforms and insignia, selecting sites for magazines. By December 14, the day Washington set out for home, some action at last had been taken “for the proper and successful direction of our military affairs.”47

  Although General Washington could not have known it as his carriage left Philadelphia late that December afternoon, he was departing this city for the final time. Nor could he have realized that his last stint of military service—all thirty-four days of it—was at an end. Of course, for several more months he concerned himself with the cantonment of this or that unit and with various appointments. But there was little glory in what he did, and surely there was less glamour to his role than he must have anticipated when he had “consented to Gird on the Sword.” For a time it must have seemed to him that the design of his uniform was his most pressing concern.48 In fact, his letters soon betrayed his realization that he was little but a figurehead general; “my opinions and inclinations are not consulted,” he complained, adding that important matters were decided “not only without my recommendation, but even without my knowledge.”49 Hamilton, for so long a power behind Washington’s throne, at last had supplanted even Washington.

  While Washington sat grumbling above the chilly banks of the Potomac, the most important decision in the Quasi-War crisis with France was being made elsewhere. A few weeks after the general’s return to Mount Vernon—with the air thick with Federalist demands for war—President Adams privately decided to walk one more mile for peace. Early in the year he had received information from the United States minister to the Hague that led him to believe that France sincerely wished to avoid war. Unwittingly, too, Washington influenced the president. In February the general passed along similar advice that he recently had received from one of his former diplomats. Adams seemed profoundly moved. All along he desperately had hoped to avoid conflict, though, at times, his compulsion to ask Congress for a declaration of war must have seemed irrestible, both because of the pressures from his cabinet and his party, and because of his realization that his self-interest might be advanced by a popular war. Such feelings only tormented Adams, however, besetting him with anxiety for harboring wishes that he believed he should not have entertained. Washington’s letter, thus, was crucial for Adams. The general, whose courage was beyond doubt, seemed now to counsel the commencement of “Negociation upon open, fair and honorable ground”; such a step, he added, might result in peace “upon just, honorable and dignified terms.”50 Washington’s carefully chosen words were identical to those he had used in defending the Jay Treaty, and, in fact, he was suggesting no less than that Adams seek out his own such accord, one that was certain to be unpopular but no less essential to the nation’s welfare.

  Buoyed by Washington’s stand, Adams acted quickly, nominating William Vans Murray as Minister Plenipotentiary to the French Republic. The crisis was not over, but its turning point had been reached, and a year later France and the United States signed a convention that restored—if only briefly—amicable relations. But George Washington did not live to witness his successor’s diplomatic triumph.51

  General Washington had one year and five days of life remaining to him when he alighted at the door of Mount Vernon upon his return from duty in Philadelphia. It was bitterly cold, with snow atop the estate’s dormant brown grass, when he returned. The weather provided a good excuse for relaxing indoors, and it was not long before he had an abundance of company with which to relax. Old acquaintances dropped in, often staying for a night or two, as did a plethora of federal officials, ranging in importance from magistrates to generals to Indian agents. Letters from Lafayette that had arrived during his absence probably cheered him more than any visitor, however. The Frenchman now was free and in good health, Washington was delighted to learn, and on Christmas Day the general adjourned to his study to write his cherished friend. Although this was his first letter in a year to Lafayette, Washington wrote of little but diplomacy and Franco-American tensions, a sign once again of how difficult retirement was for this robust public man.52

  Some of Washington’s time during his first days back home were spent in arranging a military commission for Wash, a step that the general must have believed would improve the youngster’s character. As soon as Martha and his mother consented, Washington completed the paperwork that made Wash a coronet in a troop of Light Dragoons. He would hold the post for eighteen months, joining several friends and relatives in the service, including Dr. Craik’s son, George Washington, and Lawrence Lewis, the stand-in host whom Washington had lured to Mount Vernon in 1797.53

  Before the army got his services, however, young Lewis had another duty to attend. While Washington was in Philadelphia, Lewis and Nelly Custis had announced their plans to marry, selecting the general’s birthday as the date for the wedding. The announcement took everyone by surprise, and Washington the more so, for in his preoccupation with public matters he had remained oblivious even to the tell-tale signs of love that the young couple must have shown.54 The appointed day was typical of February. A mantle of snow lay over the estate, and a biting wind huffed across the rolling slopes above the Potomac. Toward evening the ceremony was held in the mansion’s ballroom, a large chamber illuminated on this night by only a few candles. Washington, who attended the ceremony attired in his military regalia, simply noted in his diary:

  The Revd. Mr. Davis & Mr. Geo. Calvert came to dinner & Miss Custis was married abt. Candle light to Mr. Lawe Lewis.55

  Soon the beehive that was Mount Vernon was restored to its customary pace. In no time Washington was at work mixing his sputtering public duties with his private business endeavors. He kept a close eye on the construction of his houses in the Federal City, and in the spring he rode to the growing village. He also was concerned about his compensation for his recent active duty. As in the Revolution he had agreed to serve for expenses only, and as he departed Philadelphia he had been given $1039.50. By his calculation he had been shortchanged at least $75.00 and perhaps as much as $400.00 if he was entitled to compensation for the new horse he had purchased for the trip north. Secretary McHenry was more than generous. He appears to have forwarded $520.00 to the general, the equivalent of a month’s salary.56

  Sometime late that spring or early in the summer Washington prepared a new will. This was at least his third will, for he had prepared such a document on the eve of his departure for the military front in 1775 and had drafted a second bequest during his presidential years. As the earlier wills were destroyed, no one can be certain what changes he now made. Certainly, however, he would have deleted passages that referred to the western lands that he recently had sold, and he must have incorporated sections to deal with the property in Alexandria and elsewhere that he had acquired in the past few months. In addition, the provision awarding fifty shares of his Potomac Company stock to a national university in the Federal District probably was new, as in all likelihood was the incorporation of a lengthy paragraph concerning his slaves.

  Washington now decreed that Billy Lee, his body slave, was to be freed immediately upon his master’s death. In addition, he was to receive an annual annuity of thirty dollars for the rest of his life. Most of the remainder of his 316 slaves were to be liberated upon his death, or at Martha’s demise, should she survive him. The exception to this rule pertained to infants without living parents. These slaves were to be assigned to new masters until they reached age twenty-five, whereupon they were to be manumitted; in the meantime, they were to be taught a craft, and they were to learn how to read and write. There was one further stipulation concerning the freedmen. Those who, from old age or illness, could not fend for themselves were to be comfortably clothed, sheltered, and fed
by his heirs.57

  Martha, of course, was to inherit everything. Moreover, all profits from the sale of his lands or businesses were to be invested in bank stock, the dividends belonging to his wife. Following her demise, some of his furniture and mementos would pass to his friends, to Dr. Craik and Dr. Stuart, to Bryan Fairfax and to Lafayette, among others. Tobias Lear immediately was to be given free and clear title to the Walnut Hill farm he now rented. Washington’s papers and the contents of his library, as well as the crowning jewel, Mount Vernon itself, would become the property of his nephew Bushrod Washington, the son of his brother John Augustine, and now, as a result of an appointment by President Adams, a justice on the United States Supreme Court. Lawrence and Nelly were to inherit what remained of his spacious Mount Vernon properties, including the mill and the distillery. A lot in the Federal City and 1200 acres near Alexandria were earmarked for Wash. In all he specified 9200 acres that were to pass to close relatives. Everything else was to be sold, with the resulting profits itemized for equal division among twenty-three near and distant relatives.58

  Aside from a thirty-six-hour absence in August when he attended a Potomac Company Board meeting in Georgetown, Washington spent the long, warm summer at Mount Vernon. On average he still drafted a letter each day, his correspondence divided between his business pursuits and the responsibilities entailed by his military post. And, as had been his habit for years, he was off each morning about 7:30 to inspect conditions about his sprawling estate. That he gave no thought to further public pursuits is clear. Disgruntled by Adams’s peace mission and by his frequent and protracted absences from the capital, some Federalists had begun to yearn for still another return of the Cincinnatus from Virginia. This time, however, Washington would have none of it, and in an emphatic manner that was missing from his disclaimers of previous years he quickly brought such thinking to a halt.59

  Late that summer the uneventful humdrum of daily life at Mount Vernon was shattered suddenly when Martha fell seriously ill. Toward the end of August she had begun to feel poorly, but she had persisted with her daily regimen. Eight days later her stubborn resistance collapsed, and on September 6 she was too ill to rise. Through the day she sank, and an anguished Washington sent for Dr. Craik. It was an “Ague & fever,” according to the physician. He prescribed bark. Within twenty-four hours she was better, though still weak and drained of every ounce of energy. That night she suffered a relapse. Couriers were dispatched to alert her grandchildren of the gravity of the situation. But, once again, she soon was better. When her fever broke she steadily improved, although two weeks after the crisis she remained “much indisposed.” Six weeks of rest were required before she at last was pronounced “tolerably well again.”60

  Washington, meanwhile, remained in good health. Late in July he felt “unwell,” as he tersely noted in his diary, and Dr. Craik was called in. Evidently, the physician did not find anything alarming, for he soon departed. Washington wrote no letters that day or the next, probably because of his minor affliction, but within forty-eight hours he seems to have again felt well and to have resumed his normal activities.61

  Once Martha was out of danger, Washington must have relaxed and enjoyed himself, undoubtedly reflecting on his good fortune still to have her at his side. He might have been happy too that Mount Vernon was quieter than normal, for the steady onslaught of visitors slowed that autumn, probably in deference to Mrs. Washington’s long period of recuperation. Yet, as the fiery red and yellow splendor of a Potomac fall enveloped Mount Vernon, all was not well. Upper Virginia remained in the grip of a drought that had decimated that year’s oat and corn crops and which now jeopardized the autumn produce as well. To make matters worse, Washington learned that fall that the Hessian Fly, the great plunderer of late eighteenth-century wheat fields, had invaded his estate, augering, he knew, “great ravages thereon next spring.” Ill tidings of a political nature also descended on Mount Vernon that autumn. October brought word of Federalist setbacks in the off-year elections, defeats that seemed to inspire in Washington renewed misgivings about President Adams’s decision to send a new envoy to Paris. The most disturbing news, however, reached the Potomac late in September. Charles Washington, save for George the last surviving child of the seven sired by Augustine Washington, was dead, the victim of a lingering, painful illness. Word of his death, said the general in complete candor, produced “awful and affecting emotions.”62

  November was a busy month, and a happier one too, for Washington. Early in the month he was away from Mount Vernon for five days, personally surveying land at Difficult Run, a 275-acre tract west of Alexandria in Loudoun County, land that he had purchased years before from Bryan Fairfax. From there he visited the Federal City. Back home on the 10th he enjoyed a spell of mild weather and even a bit of much-needed rainfall. It was a good month for farmers, a month fittingly capped for Washington when Nelly gave birth at Mount Vernon to a baby girl. Nelly’s mother, Eleanor Calvert Stuart, had come to be with her, and at about the same time a midwife was hired and took up quarters at the estate. On November 27, a clear, mild day for so late in the season, her services at last were called for. During the afternoon Frances Parke Lewis was brought into the world.63

  The birth of this first child of a new generation, arriving, as did Frances, on the cusp of the new century, seemed to turn Washington’s thoughts to the future. During the next few days he ordered trees for his new houses in the Federal City, wrote for several bushels of seed for Mount Vernon’s tired soil, and drafted a four-year “fixed plan” for “Cropping the Farms” of his estate that rolled back from the green Potomac. In addition, he announced his intention for a spring journey far into the West, there, by his own reckoning, to obtain “a just, and faithful acct. respecting” his Ohio and Kentucky lands. After dinner on December 12, as was his habit, he retreated to his study to deal with his correspondence. Only one missive was penned that night, still another letter that looked toward the future. He wrote to Hamilton, hinting that he should throw his limitless energies into a campaign to erect a national military academy.64

  His letter to Hamilton sealed and ready to be posted, Washington had completed an unpleasant day. Upon awakening that morning, he had discovered that the generally balmy autumn weather had been banished abruptly. The temperature had plummeted eleven degrees during the night and hovered just above freezing. During the day the thermometer hardly moved, and slate gray clouds enveloped the brown, barren hillsides. From habit, though, Washington rode his rounds throughout that morning. He still was out shortly after noon when it began to snow. A clean white blanket was just beginning to lap over his idle fields when the temperature suddenly climbed a few degrees, turning the snow to sleet, then to “a settled cold Rain.” Washington turned back to the warmth of his mansion, but he was an hour reaching his hearth. By then he had spent nearly five hours in the elements, and he was cold and wet.65

  Washington awakened on the 13th plagued by a sore throat. Cause for concern, not alarm, he thought. During the night the temperature had fallen again. Three inches of snow already lay on Mount Vernon, and it still was snowing. The general decided against his customary daily ride about his farms, though he did slosh outside briefly to mark some nearby trees that he wished to have felled. As night came on he still felt reasonably good, despite the sore throat and a dogged hoarseness that had emerged in the course of the day. He appeared to be in good spirits. That night he read newspaper items to Lear and Martha, then he listened as his aide read to him the transcript of recent debates in the Virginia assembly. Sometime before nine o’clock he recorded his daily diary entry. Then he retired.66

  Between 2:00 and 3:00 A.M. Washington awakened. He was desperately ill, so much so that he barely could speak and his breathing had grown labored. But he did not send for Dr. Craik. Nor did Martha, whom he awakened and who must have realized that his conditioned had worsened markedly in just a few hours. Not until seven o’clock was Lear aroused and informed of the general’s de
teriorating state. Rushing to the general’s bedchamber he found a gravely ill man. Washington now was unable to swallow, barely able to breathe, seemingly almost suffocating from the edema that rapidly had gripped his lungs and from the distension in his throat. Lear took charge. He dispatched a servant to bring Craik. And at Washington’s behest an overseer skilled in the art of bleeding was fetched to the general’s bedside.

  Despite his ceaseless pain, Washington was lucid. He directed the operation that followed. Between 7:30 and 8:00 he was bled for several minutes, for a longer time than Martha or Lear wished, in fact, but the general silenced their protests and directed the overseer to continue. When the procedure was completed he arose and, with assistance, dressed. For two hours he sat in a chair before a warm fire. During that period, at about 9:00, Martha remembered that Dr. Craik once had counseled that in the event of an emergency she should summon Dr. Gustavus Brown of nearby Port Tobacco. Now, seven hours after the crisis began, a servant was sent to invoke his assistance.

  About the same time that the servant was setting out on his cold journey, Dr. Craik reached Mount Vernon. He applied a blister—made of cantharides, Spanish fly—to Washington’s throat, erected a vaporizer of vinegar and water, and administered a gargle. Washington failed to respond. Indeed, he almost choked to death on the gargle. Craik then ordered a second bleeding, and at 11:00 he sent for a physician who practiced in Alexandria. In early afternoon Dr. Craik administered a third bleeding, then a fourth. A bit later he gave the general a purgative, and still later he ordered another laxative, one that resulted in “a copious discharge from the bowels.”