2. GW to John Alton, Apr. 1, 1759, WW, 2:318–19.
3. Paul Wilstach, Mount Vernon: Washington’s Home and the Nation’s Shrine (New York, 1916), 23–24, 55–56; Flexner, GW, 1:195–96, 245–46; Wall, GW, 63–66.
4. Wilstach, Mount Vernon, 68–73, 125–26; Flexner, GW, 1:235–36; Wall, GW, 90–101.
5. GW to Richard Washington, Aug. 10, 1760, WW, 2:344; GW to Robert Cary & Co., Oct. 24, 1760, Apr. 3, 1761, Aug. 1, 1761, and Sept. 18, 1762, ibid., 2:353, 357, 363, 380; Freeman, GW, 2:45–46; Flexner, GW, 1:237. On tobacco farming in colonial Virginia, see: Melvin Herndon, Tobacco in Colonial Virginia: “The Sovereign Remedy” (Williamsburg, Va., 1957), 11–41; T.H. Breen, “The Culture of Agriculture: The Symbolic World of the Tidewater Planter, 1760–1790,” in David D. Hall, John M. Murrin, and Thad W. Tate, eds., Saint and Revolutionaries: Essays on Early American History (New York, 1984), 255–61.
6. GW to Anthony Bacon & Co., Sept. 10, 1757, WW, 2:125; GW to R. Washington, May 7, 1759, and Aug. 10, 1760, ibid., 2:321–22, 344; GW to James Gildart, June 12, 1759, and Apr. 3, 1761, ibid., 2:326, 358; GW to Cary, Apr. 26, 1763, ibid., 2:394; Breen, “Culture of Agriculture,” in Saints and Revolutionaries, 264–66.
7. GW to Cary, May 28, 1762, Aug., 10, 1764, and Sept. 20, 1765, WW, 2:378, 416, 430; Freeman, GW, 3:117, 152; Paul L. Haworth, George Washington, Country Gentleman (Indianapolis, 1925), 96–97. On the earnings of Virginia planters, and for figures on Washington’s production, see: Freeman, GW, 3:42–44, 43n, and Thane, Potomac Squire, 76.
8. Freeman, GW, 3:116, 141, 242–43, 153, 179; Haworth, GW, 65, 135, 149–50; Hughes, GW, 2:91, 116–17; Ford, True GW, 112–37; Marc Egnal and Joseph A. Ernst, “An Economic Interpretation of the American Revolution,” WMQ, 3d. ser., 29, 1972, 24–28.
9. Flexner, GW, 1:284; DGW, 1:256–58, 263, 266, 283; Hughes, GW, 2:91; Francis R. Bellamy, The Private Life of George Washington (New York, 1951), 140–43.
10. Ford, Washington as an Employer, 8–10; Ford, True GW, 138–45; Wall, GW, 56; Donald M. Sweig, “The Importation of African Slaves to the Potomac River, 1732–1772,” WMQ, 3d ser., 42 (1985), 507–24.
11. GW to Daniel J. Adams, July 20, 1772, WW, 3:98–99; GW to Capt. Josiah Thompson, July 2, 1766, ibid., 2:437; DGW, 1:215, 230, 236, 266, 276, 309.
12. Wall, GW, 59–60; Charles C. Wall, “Housing and Family Life of the Mount Vernon Negro” [Oct. 1954], 7–8, ms., MVL. For later conditions at Mount Vernon, see ch. 18.
13. James Hill to GW, July 24, Aug. 30, and Dec. 13, 1772, Feb. 5, May 11, July 2 and 23, 1773, Hamilton, LGW, 4:136, 147, 168, 182, 200, 223, 241; Joseph Valentine to GW, Aug. 24, 1771, ibid., 4:12.
14. Ford, Washington as an Employer, 10, 25; DGW, 1:252, 276, 296; 2:37, 77, 164–65; Freeman, GW, 3:88, 179, 186, 243.
15. Hughes, GW, 2:116–17; Freeman, GW, 3:345, 348.
16. For lengthy treatments of Britain’s muddled western policy, see: Francis S. Phil-brick, The Rise of the West, 1754–1830 (New York, 1965), 1–52; Jack M. Sosin, The Revolutionary Frontier, 1763–1783 (Albuquerque, N.M., 1967), 20–38; Ambler, GW and the West, 132–51; Abernathy, Western Lands, 14–97. For the statements by GW quoted in this section, see: GW to John Posey, June 24, 1767, WW, 2:458–59; GW to Crawford, Sept. 21, 1767, ibid., 2:468–70; GW to Gov. Botetourt, Apr. 15, 1770, ibid., 3:9–12; GW to James Wood, Mar. 13 and 30, 1773, ibid., 3:125, 127–29; DGW, 2:133, 3:37.
17. DGW, 1:319–26; 2:102n; Freeman, GW, 3:94, 101–103, 162–63, 175, 208.
18. Ambler, GW and the West, 137–40; GW to Botetourt, Dec. 8. 1769, WW, 2:528–32; Freeman, GW, 3:238–40.
19. DGW, 2:289–90, 292–324, 328.
20. GW to Robt. Stobo, Nov. 22, 1771, WW, 3:73–74; GW to Robt. Adam, Nov. 22, 1771, ibid., 3:75–77; GW to Ch. Washington, Jan. 31, 1770, ibid., 3:2; GW to Ch. Thruston, Mar. 12, 1773, ibid., 3:124; DGW, 3:12, 138, 144; Crawford to GW, Nov. 12, 1773, Hamilton, LGW, 4:275; Knollenberg, GW, 91–93.
21. GW to George Muse, Jan. 29, 1774, WW, 3:179–80.
22. Knollenberg, GW, 96–100. Washington had purchased about one-half of his property. The remainder he acquired through inheritance, marriage, or grant; the grant in this case was a 5000-acre tract he received under the Proclamation of 1763 as a former officer.
23. For a sampling of his orders to just one company, see: GW to Cary & Co., June 12 and Sept. 20, 1759, Oct. 12, 1761, Feb. 13, 1764, July 20, 1767, June 6, 1768, July 25, 1769, July 15 and Aug. 12, 1771, July 10, Oct. 6, and Nov. 10, 1773, WW, 2:323, 330–36, 369–70, 413–14, 462–64, 488–89, 514; 3:62–63, 94, 141, 155, 165.
24. Thane, Potomac Squire, 47; GW to Cary & Co., Aug. 10, 1760, Aug. 1, 1761, Sept. 18, 1762, July 20, 1771, WW, 2:333–34, 348–49, 363, 382; 3:56; GW to Maudit & Co., July 20, 1771, ibid., 3:55.
25. For the above three paragraphs see: DGW, 1:238; 2:32, 38–39, 67, 73, 91, 120, 139, 148, 154, 157, 203, 209, 219; Paul L. Ford, Washington and the Theater (New York, 1899), 20–21; Fitzpatrick, GW Himself, 459; GW to Ch. Green, Aug. 26, 1761, WW, 2:365; Flexner, GW, 1:239.
26. Flexner, GW, 1:240.
27. On Washington’s religious views and practices, see: Paul F. Boller, George Washington and Religion (Dallas, 1963), 26–30, 75–76, 90–112; GW to Bassett, Aug. 28, 1762, in Flexner, GW, 1:237.
28. Freeman, GW, 3:280–81, 297, 336, 346n, 407n, 595–98; GW to Hugh Mercer, Mar. 28, 1774, WW, 3:198–99; GW to Benj. Harrison, Mar. 21, 1781, ibid., 21:341; DGW, 3:52–53.
29. DGW, 1:256.
30. GW to Bassett, Feb. 15, 1773, WW, 3:115; DGW, 1:245–46n.
31. DGW, 1:245.
32. Ibid., 3:192–93; Freeman, GW, 3:306; GW to Fairfax, Feb. 27, 1785, WW, 28:83; GW to Sally Fairfax, May 16, 1798, ibid., 36:262–64.
33. GW to Rich. Washington, Sept. 20, 1759, WW, 2:357; GW to Elizabeth Parke Custis, Sept. 14, 1794, ibid., 33:501.
34. GW to Cary, Oct. 12, 1761, WW, 2:368; GW to C. and O. Hanbury, July 25, 1769, ibid., 2:515–17; GW to Boucher, May 30, 1768, May 13 and Dec. 16, 1770, June 5 and July 9, 1771, ibid., 2:487; 3:14, 35, 45, 51; Boucher to GW, May 9 and 21, and Dec. 18, 1770, May 9 and July 4, 1771, Hamilton, LGW, 4:18, 24, 42, 62, 69, 84.
35. Boucher to GW, Jan. 19, 1773, Hamilton, LGW, 4:175–76; GW to Boucher, Jan. 7, 1773, WW, 37:497; GW to Bassett, Apr. 25, 1773, ibid., 3:134; GW to Benedict Calvert, Apr. 3, 1773, ibid., 3:129–31; GW to Myles Cooper, Dec. 15, 1773, ibid., 3:167–68; DGW, 3:181–82.
36. DGW, 2:31, 45, 47, 54, 68, 76, 108, 120, 122–23, 128, 141, 168, 177, 195, 197, 201, 209, 257, 272; 3:1, 2, 7, 9, 71, 114.
37. Ibid., 3:188.
38. GW to Bassett, June 20, 1773, WW, 3:138; DGW, 3:188–205.
39. DGW, 3:205; GW to Cary, Nov. 10, 1773, WW, 3:164–65.
40. DGW, 1:211; 3:62; GW to R. Washington, Oct. 20, 1761, WW, 2:371.
41. Tobias Lear, Letters and Recollections of George Washington, Being Letters to Tobias Lear . . . With a diary of Washington’s last days kept by Mr. Lear (New York, 1906), 136–37; Flexner, GW, 1:8on; Alden, GW, 11n. On the height of the Virginia soldiers, see: PGW, ser. 4, reels 29–30, or Ferling, “Soldiers for Virginia,” VMHB, 94:312–13.
42. Ford, True GW, 45, 57; Fitzpatrick, GW Himself, 73; Baker, Early Sketches, 77; Custis, Recollections, 171, 480–85; Garry Wills, Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment (New York, 1984), 235.
43. Ford, True GW, 45; Baker, Early Sketches, 25–27; Bellamy, Private Life of GW, 53.
44. DGW, 3:205; Pennsylvania Journal, Sept. 27, 1773.
45. DGW, 3:208–20.
4
Patrician Revolutionary
1. Benjamin W. Labaree, The Boston Tea Party (New York, 1964), 170–93; William Cobbett, ed., The Parliamentary History of England, From the Norman Conquest, in 1066, to the Year, 1803 . . . , 39 vols. (London, 1806–20), 17:1167–70, 1184–85, 1195–1340; Jack M. Sosin, “The Massachusetts Acts of 1774: Coercive or Preventive,” Huntington Library Quarterly, 26 (1963), 235–52.
2. DGW, 3:250, 253.
3. Knollen
berg, GW, 100–06.
4. Carl Van Doren, Benjamin Franklin (New York, 1938), 529.
5. Knollenberg, GW, 103–106. The flavor of a normal session of the House of Burgesses can be gathered by perusing the body’s official journals. See, H. R. McIlwaine and John Pendleton, eds., Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, 13 vols. (Richmond, 1905–15); volumes 9–13 span GW’s service.
6. Knollenberg, GW, 101–102.
7. Jack P. Greene, “An Uneasy Connection: An Analysis of the Preconditions of the American Revolution,” in Stephen G. Kurtz and James H. Hutson, eds., Essays on the American Revolution (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1973), 32–80; Jack P. Greene, “‘A Posture of Hostility’: A Reconsideration of Some Aspects of the Origins of the American Revolution,” American Antiquarian Society Proceedings, 87 (1977), 27–68; Merrill Jensen, The Founding of a Nation: A History of the American Revolution, 1763–1776 (New York, 1968), 36–69.
8. Edmund S. and Helen M. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1953), 53–70.
9. DGW, 1:388; Morgan and Morgan, Stamp Act Crisis, 36–39, 88–98.
10. GW to Francis Dandridge, Sept. 20, 1765, WW, 2:425–26; GW to Cary, Sept. 20, 1765, ibid., 2:431.
11. GW to Dandridge, Sept. 20, 1765, ibid., 2:425–26; DGW, 1:338–40; Morgan and Morgan, Stamp Act Crisis, 261–81.
12. Jensen, Founding of a Nation, 239–52; McIlwaine and Pendleton, Jrnls., Burgesses of Va., 1766–1769, 170–71; DGW, 2:46–47, 51–53.
13. DGW, 2:58–59, 70, 100–103, 133.
14. GW to Mason, Apr. 5, 1769, WW, 2:500–504.
15. DGW, 2:153n; Helen Hill Miller, George Mason: Gentleman Revolutionary (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1973), 25–43, 94; Kate Mason Rowland, The Life of George Mason, 1725–1792, 2 vols. (New York, 1964), 1:123–38.
16. Baker, Early Sketches, 32. A very different perception of Washington’s position may be found in Rhys Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1982), 251. Isaac sees GW’s call for a boycott as ritualistic, a move to “affirm the ’virtue’ “of Virginia, a palliative “to nagging doubts about the moral soundness of Virginia society.”
17. Works that touch on the economic motives of the planters include: Marc Egnal and Joseph Ernst, “An Economic Interpretation of the American Revolution,” WMQ, 3d. ser., 21 (1972), 3–23; Joseph Ernst, Money and Politics in America, 1755–1775 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1973), 174–96; Merrill Jensen, The American Revolution Within America (New York, 1974), 24–38; Emory Evans, “Planter Indebtedness and the Coming of the Revolution in Virginia,” WMQ, 3d ser., 19 (1962), 511–33; Isaac S. Harrell, Loyalism in Virginia: Chapters in the Economic History of the Revolution (Durham, N.C., 1926), 5–35; Louis M. Hacker, “The American Revolution: Economic Aspects,” Marxist Quarterly, 1 (1937), 46–67. See also n. 24 below.
18. McIlwaine and Pendleton, Jrnls., Burgesses of Va., 1766–1769, 216–18; DGW, 2:143, 146–53; Jensen, Founding of a Nation, 301–305.
19. Jensen, Founding of a Nation, 314–33; Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution: Radicals and the Development of Opposition to Britain, 1765–1776 (New York, 1972), 161–91; Ian Christie and Benjamin W. Labaree, Empire or Independence, 1760–1776; A British-American Dialogue on the Coming of the American Revolution (New York, 1976), 119–30, 144–50.
20. Jensen, Founding of a Nation, 354–72; GW to Cary, July 25, 1769, WW, 2:512–14; GW to Hanbury, July 25, 1769, ibid., 2:515–17.
21. GW to Th. Johnson, July 20, 1770, WW, 3:19; GW to Cary, Aug. 20, 1770, and July 20, 1771, ibid., 3:22–23, 56; GW to Crawford, Nov. 24, 1770[?] and Sept. 25, 1773, ibid., 3: 31, 149; GW to Craven Peyton, Feb. 23, 1773, ibid., 3:116, 116n; GW to Earl Duncan, Apr. 13, 1773, ibid., 3:132; Grace L. Nute, “Washington and the Potomac,” AHR, 28 (1923), 497–519, 705–22; Ambler, GW and the West, 154, 147.
22. Labaree, Boston Tea Party, 3–57; Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution, 1763–1776 (New York, 1918), 240–98.
23. Freeman, GW, 3:345; GW to Henry Riddell, March 1 and 5,1774, WW, 3:193–96; DGW, 3:220–46, 248–49.
24. On the complexities of Revolutionary Virginia, see: Jack P. Greene, “Society, Ideology and Politics: An Analysis of the Political Culture of Mid-Eighteenth-Century Virginia,” in Richard M. Jellison, ed., Society, Freedom, and Conscience: The American Revolution in Virginia, Massachusetts, and New York (New York, 1976), 65–68; Isaac, Transformation of Virginia, 39, 131–38; Thad W. Tate, “The Coming of the Revolution in Virginia: Britain’s Challenge to Virginia’s Ruling Class, 1763–1776,” WMQ, 3d. ser., 19 (1962), 324–43; Joseph Albert Ernst, “Genesis of the Currency Act of 1764: Virginia Paper Money and the Partition of British Investments,” WMQ, 3d. ser., 22 (1965), 33–74; Marc Egnal, “The Origins of the Revolution in Virginia: A Reinterpretation,” WMQ, 3d. ser., 37 (1980), 401–28; Evans, “Planter Indebtedness,” WMQ, 19:511–33.
25. McIlwaine and Pendleton, Jrnls., Burgesses of Va., 1773–1776, 124; Freeman, GW, 3:350–53; DGW 3:153, 250–51.
26. DGW, 2:252; McIlwaine and Pendleton, Jrnls., Burgesses of Va., 1773–1776, 139–40.
27. GW to Geo. Wm. Fairfax, June 10, 1774, WW, 2:224; GW to Bryan Fairfax, July 4 and 20, 1774, ibid., 2:228, 232–34.
28. DGW, 3:255–66; Freeman, GW, 3:360–66. For a discussion of the authorship of the Fairfax Resolves, see: Donald M. Sweig, “A New-Found Washington Letter of 1774 and the Fairfax Resolves,” WMQ, 3d. ser., 40 (1983), 283–91.
29. DGW, 3:266–69; Freeman, GW, 3:367–72.
30. GW to Geo. Wm. Fairfax, June 10, 1774, WW, 3:221; DGW, 3:269–70; Freeman, GW, 3:370–71.
31. GW to Th. Johnson, Aug. 5, 1774, WW, 3:235.
32. Quoted in James T. Flexner, Washington: The Indispensable Man (Boston, 1969), 47.
33. GW to Bushrod Washington, Jan. 15, 1783, WW, 26:39.
34. GW to Mason, Apr. 5, 1769, ibid., 2:500–501; GW to Reed, Jan. 31, 1776, ibid., 4:297; GW to John Augustine Washington, May 31, 1776, ibid., 5:92.
35. DGW, 3:271–72; William Wirt Henry, Patrick Henry: Life, Correspondence and Speeches, 3 vols. (New York, 1891), 1:213; Garry Wills, Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence (New York, 1978), 3, 6.
36. DGW, 3:272–74.
37. Silas Deane to Eliz. Deane, Sept. 10–11, 1774, in Paul H. Smith, ed., Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1785 (Washington, 1976–), 1:61–62; L. H. Butter-field, ed., The Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 4 vols. (Cambridge, 1961), 2:117.
38. Carl and Jessica Bridenbaugh, Rebels and Gentlemen: Philadelphia in the Age of Franklin (New York, 1942), 1–28, 179–224.
39. Ibid., 1–28; Charles Oltan, Artisans for Independence: Philadelphia Mechanics and the American Revolution (Syracuse, N.Y., 1971), 1–32; Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), 319–25.
40. Sam Bass Warner, The Private City: Philadelphia in the Three Periods of Its Growth (Philadelphia, 1968), 3–21; Billy Smith, “The Material Lives of Laboring Philadelphians, 1750–1800,” WMQ, 3d. ser., 38 (1981), 163–202.
41. DGW. 3:280; Butterfield, Adams Diary and Autobiog., 2:115–17; William H. Williams, “The ’Industrious Poor’ and the Founding of the Pennsylvania Hospital,” PMHB, 97 (1973), 431–43; Gary B. Nash, “Poverty and Poor Relief in Pre-Revolutionary Philadelphia,” WMQ, 3d. ser., 33 (1976), 3–30.
42. DGW, 3:276–80.
43. Ibid., 3:284; John P. Roche, Joseph Reed: A Moderate in the American Revolution (New York, 1957), 3–48; Richard A. Ryerson, The Revolution is Now Begun: The Radical Committees of Philadelphia, 1765–1775 (Philadelphia, 1978), 83–84; Reed to Earl of Dartmouth, Sept. 25 and Nov. 6, 1774, in William B. Reed, The Life and Correspondence of Joseph Reed, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1847), 1:76–80, 82–83.
44. For a good summary and analysis of the First Continental Congress, see: David Ammerman, In the Common Cause: American Response to the Coercive Acts of 1774 (
New York, 1974), 35–87.
45. DGW, 3:288–302.
46. Ibid., 3:290.
47. Ibid., 3:298, 302; John Alden, General Charles Lee: Traitor or Patriot? (Baton Rouge, La., 1951), 1–65.
48. DGW, 3:303–21; Freeman, GW, 3:403–406.
49. GW to John Connally, Feb. 25, 1775, WW, 3:268; DGW, 3:304.
50. Ambler, GW and the West, 152–58.
51. GW to Dunmore, Apr. 3, 1775, WW, 3:280–83; Dunmore to GW, Apr. 18, 1775, Hamilton, LGW, 5:158.
52. GW to Mercer, Apr. 5, 1775, WW, 3:288; DGW, 3:321–25.
53. Mercer to GW, Apr. 26, 1775, Hamilton, LGW, 5:162–63; Freeman, GW, 3:410–15.
54. DGW, 3:319–23, 325–27; Wall, GW, 49–53.
55. DGW, 3:325, 332.
56. Curtis P. Nettles, George Washington and American Independence (Boston, 1951), 158–59.
5
Commander of America’s Army
1. Adams to Wm. Tudor, Sept. 29, 1774, Smith, Letters of Delegates, 1:130; Adams to Abigail Adams, Apr. 30 and May 1, 1775, L.H. Butterfield et al., ed., Adams Family Correspondence, 4 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1963–73), 1:189, 191–92.
2. Butterfield, Adams Diary and Autobiog., 3:315–16; Jensen, Founding of a Nation, 602–13, 616–20.
3. JCC, 2:53, 67.
4. Ibid., 2:59–60, 86–86.
5. Adams to Abigail Adams, May 29, 1775, Butterfield, Adams Fam. Corres., 1:207; Deane to Eliz. Deane, May 12, 1775, Smith, Letters of Delegates, 1:347; Butterfield, Adams Diary and Autobiog., 3:322.
6. Diary of Silas Deane, Smith, Letters of Delegates, 1:482; Butterfield, Adams Diary and Autobiog., 3:322–23.
7. Butterfield, Adams Diary and Autobiog., 3:323; Jrnls. Cont. Cong., 2:89–90.
8. Deane to Eliz. Deane, June 16, 1775, Smith, Letters of Delegates, 1:494; Deane to Jos. Trumbull, June 18, 1775, ibid., 1:506–503; Dyer to Jon. Trumbull, Sr., June 16 and 17, 1775, ibid., 1:496, 499; Adams to Elbridge Gerry, June 18, 1775, ibid., 1:503; John Hancock to Gerry, June 18, 1775, ibid., 1:506–507; Adams to Abigail Adams, June 17, 1775, Butterfield, Adams Fam. Corres., 1:215.
9. DGW, 3:336, 339; George W. Corner, ed., The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush. His “Travels Through Life” together with his Commonplace Book for 1789–1813 (Princeton, N.J., 1948), 113.
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