During the next five years Washington sought to “overhaul and ajust” those of his papers that antedated the war years, documents that were left in disarray when they were hastily removed from an imperiled Mount Vernon in 1781 (GW to Geo. Wm. Fairfax, Feb. 27, 1785, WW, 28:84). He returned to that task following his presidency, devoting many “leisure hours ... to the arrangement and overhaul of my voluminous . . . papers.” (GW to McHenry, July 29, 1798, WW, 36:373–74). The “overhaul” to which Washington alluded was just that, for during his last years, and probably in the 1780s as well, he set out to repair his earlier missives, seeking to refine his youthful style so that posterity would see a more correct and elegant version of his correspondence.
Washington’s work was in progress when he was stricken by his final illness. Following his death, his papers, a vast collection that included his correspondence, diaries, exercise books, surveys, financial records, ledger books, and military records, passed to Bushrod Washington, and subsequently to his heir, George Corbin Washington. Before the Civil War, what survived of the collection—Bushrod Washington had permitted at least three early biographers and compilers to remove some of the documents from Mount Vernon—was sold to the federal government. Today it is housed in the Library of Congress, and it is available both in the Manuscript Division of that facility and on 124 reels of microfilm, published as the George Washington Papers: Presidential Papers on Microfilm (Washington, D.C., 1961).
This collection has been the source for several published editions of Washington materials. In the nineteenth century two editions of Washington’s letters were issued: Jared Sparks, ed., The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original, 12 vols. (Boston, 1833–37), and Worthington Chauncey Ford, ed., The Writings of George Washington, 14 vols. (New York, 1889–93). In addition, two editions of letters written to Washington were produced from that collection: Jared Sparks, ed., Correspondence of the American Revolution: Being Letters of Eminent Men to George Washington, 4 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1853), and Stanislaus M. Hamilton, ed., Letters to Washington and Accompanying Papers, 5 vols. (Boston and New York, 1898–1902).
Until recently the most complete edition of Washington’s correspondence was that of John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745–1799, 39 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1931–44). These volumes, however, consisted almost solely of the Washington correspondence housed in the Library of Congress, and virtually no letters written to Washington were included.
Publication of a modern, comprehensive edition of Washington’s papers was long overdue, and scholars rejoiced in the 1970s at the news that the University of Virginia had begun such a project. The endeavor discovered Washington items in over four hundred libraries and in the hands of hundreds of private owners. To date the venture has issued complete editions of the following: Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig, eds., The Diaries of George Washington, 6 vols. (Charlottesville, Va., 1976–79), and Dorothy Twohig, ed., The Papers of George Washington: The Journal of the Proceedings of the President, 1793–x1797 (Charlottesville, Va., 1981). Under the direction of W.W. Abbot, Dorothy Twohig, Beverly H. Runge, Frederick Hall Schmidt, and Philander D. Chase, eds., The Papers of George Washington (Charlottesville, Va., 1983–), the definitive edition of Washington’s correspondence and other materials has begun to appear. These items are being published simultaneously in three series, one spanning the years to 1775, a second covering the War of Independence era, and the last comprising the post-Revolutionary period. Lamentably, only four volumes were available before the completion of this study of Washington.
Numerous biographies of Washington have been published. The best to appear in the nineteenth century was Paul Leicester Ford’s The True George Washington (Philadelphia, 1896), although it focused heavily on Washington’s early years. Otherwise, Washington Irving’s The Life of George Washington, 5 vols. (New York, 1856–59) was the most readable effort, while the works of John Marshall, The Life of George Washington, 5 vols. (London, 1804–7), Henry Cabot Lodge, George Washington, 2 vols. (Boston, 1889), and Woodrow Wilson, George Washington (New York, 1897), added little to contemporary knowledge or understanding of the man. It was unfortunate that Washington’s first biographer, Mason Locke Weems played the largest part in forming the public’s notion of the subject, for his was a distorted portrayal. His The Life of George Washington: With Curious Anecdotes Equally Honorable to Himself and Exemplary to His Young Countrymen passed through several editions. The ninth edition, published originally in 1809, is available in a modern reprint and is accompanied by a useful introductory essay by the editor. See: Marcus Cunliffe, ed., The Life of Washington by Mason L. Weems (Cambridge, Mass., 1962).
This century has witnessed several exceptional biographies of Washington. The encyclopedic work of Douglas Southall Freeman, J.A. Carroll, and M.W. Ashworth, George Washington: A Biography, 7 vols. (New York, 1948–57), is the most complete. More readable and, happily, quite reliable, is James Thomas Flexner’s George Washington, 4 vols. (Boston, 1965–72). A single-volume condensation of Flexner’s study is available as Washington: The Indispensable Man (Boston, 1969), but it omits rather too much.
The Freeman and Flexner studies overwhelmed some earlier works of value. Rupert Hughes’s George Washington, 3 vols. (New York, 1926–30), a study that carried the subject only to 1781, was the best of these works. Other fine biographies published early in this century included: William Roscoe Thayer, George Washington (Boston, 1931); Louis Martin Sears, George Washington (New York, 1932); John C. Fitzpatrick, George Washington: A Common Sense Biography Written from His Manuscripts (Indianapolis, 1933); and Nathaniel W. Stephenson and Waldo H. Dunn, George Washington, 2 vols. (New York, 1940). The Freeman and Flexner works also crowded out William E. Woodward’s George Washington: The Image and the Man (New York, 1926), a distorted attempt at debunking the Washington legend, but probably the most widely read of the Washington biographies published in the initial decades of this century. That period also saw the publication of Bernard Fay’s George Washington: Republican Aristocrat (Boston, 1931) and Shelby Little’s George Washington (New York, 1929), neither of which contributed significantly to an understanding of the man.
Several brief biographies of Washington have appeared since mid-century. The most analytical and provocative is that of Marcus Cunliffe, George Washington: Man and Monument (London, 1959). The works by John Alden, George Washington: A Biography (Baton Rouge, La., 1984) and Esmond Wright, Washington and the American Revolution (New York, 1962) are thoughtful and useful. For slender but worthy pieces contemplating Washington, see the essays by Edmund S. Morgan, The Genius of George Washington (New York, 1980) and The Meaning of Independence: John Adams, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson (Charlottesville, Va., 1975), and that of Bernard Mayo, Myths and Men: Patrick Henry, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson (Athens, Ga., 1959). Sound and standard biographies were produced by North Callahan, George Washington: Soldier and Man (New York, 1972), and Robert F. Jones, George Washington (Boston, 1979).
Washington has been the subject of numerous specialized studies. On his early years, Bernhard Knollenberg’s George Washington: The Virginia Period, 1732–1775 (Durham, N.C., 1964) is the best effort. Of value, however, is Charles H. Ambler, George Washington and the West (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1936) and Samuel E. Morison, “The Young Man Washington,” in his By Land and By Sea: Essays and Addresses by Samuel Eliot Morison (New York, 1953). Contemporary evaluations of young Washington can be found in William S. Baker, Early Sketches of George Washington (Philadelphia, 1893).
A good introduction to Washington the private citizen and farmer can be found in Charles Cecil Wall’s George Washington: Citizen Soldier (Charlottesville, Va., 1980) and the popular and quite readable Potomac Squire (New York, 1963) by Elswyth Thane. Something of value can be found in Paul L. Haworth, George Washington, Farmer (India
napolis, 1915) and Francis R. Bellamy, The Private Life of George Washington (New York, 1951). George W. Nordham’s George Washington: Vignettes and Memorabilia (Philadelphia and Ardmore, Pa., 1977) is interesting. Of more usefulness, however, are Paul L. Ford, George Washington, Country Gentleman (Indianapolis, 1925) and Moncure D. Conway, George Washington of Mount Vernon (Brooklyn, 1889). For a fine chronicle of Washington’s beloved estate, see Paul Wilstach, Mount Vernon: Washington’s Home and the Nation’s Shrine (New York, 1916). Important, too, is Charles C. Wall’s “Notes on the Early History of Mount Vernon,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 2 (1945), 173–90.
Eugene E. Prussing’s The Estate of George Washington, Deceased (Boston, 1927) focuses on Washington’s property, investments, and philanthropic inclinations. The extent of Washington’s property holdings at the time of his death can be seen in John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Last Will and Testament of George Washington and Schedule of his Property (Mount Vernon, Va., 1939). Also reliable in this area is George Washington Nordham, George Washington and Money (Washington, D.C., 1982).
Washington the slavemaster is scrutinized in Worthington C. Ford, Washington as an Employer and Importer of Labor (Brooklyn, 1889), and in Walter H. Mazyck, George Washington and the Negro (Washington, D.C., 1932). The Mount Vernon Library contains two fine, though unfortunately unpublished, typescript essays on this subject. These are by Charles C. Wall, “Housing and Family Life of the Mount Vernon Negro” (1962), and Frank E. Morse, “About General Washington’s Freed Negroes” (1968).
Other aspects of Washington’s private life are treated in Paul F. Boller, George Washington and Religion (Dallas, 1963), Paul L. Ford, Washington and the Theater (New York, 1899), and Leonard Helderman, George Washington: Patron of Learning (New York, 1932). On Washington’s library, see: Alan and Donna Jean Fusonic, eds., A Selected Bibliography of George Washington’s Interest in Agriculture (Davis, Calif., 1976).
One can gain an acquaintance with the many members of Washington’s family in Miriam Anne Bourne’s First Family: George Washington and his Intimate Relations (New York, 1982) and in Elswyth Thane, Mount Vernon Family (New York, 1968). The Annual Reports issued since 1945 by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association of the Union occasionally contain newly discovered letters written by Washington and members of his family, as well as useful articles pertaining to the family and Mount Vernon. The dearth of primary sources has stymied those seeking to write a good biography of Martha Washington, but see Elswyth Thane, Washington’s Lady (New York, 1954) and Anne Hollingsworth Wharton, Martha Washington (New York, 1897).
The literature on Washington’s generalship in the War of Independence is almost limitless. It begins with Thomas C. Frothingham’s Washington: Commander in Chief (New York, 1930). Better and more useful treatments can be found in Bernhard Knollenberg, Washington and the American Revolution: A Reappraisal (New York, 1941), and Curtis P. Nettles, George Washington and American Independence (Boston, 1951). For two excellent assessments of his leadership, see: Marcus Cunliffe, “George Washington’s Generalship,” in George Athan Billias, ed., George Washington’s Generals (New York, 1964), and Don Higginbotham, George Washington and the American Military Tradition (Athens, Ga., 1985). Students of Washington additionally should read Dave Richard Palmer’s The Way of the Fox: American Strategy in the War of Independence (Westport, Conn., 1975). For a brilliant essay on General Washington, though it was published too late for use in this study, readers would be well advised to see John Shy, “George Washington Reconsidered,” in Henry S. Bausum, ed., The John Biggs Cincinnati Lectures in Military Leadership and Command, 1986 (Lexington, Va., 1986). Another aspect of Washington’s conduct is investigated in John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., George Washington, Account of Expences while Commander in Chief (Boston and New York, 1917); a humorous treatment of the subject is provided by Marvin Kitman, George Washington’s Expense Account (New York, 1970). Washington’s travels and his domiciles in these years can be glimpsed in William S. Spahn’s Itinerary of George Washington from June 15, 1775, to December 23, 1783 (Philadelphia, 1892), and in Mabel L. Ives, Washington’s Headquarters (Upper Montclair, N.J., 1932). For his relationship with his young aides, see: Emily Stone Whiteley, Washington and His Aides-de-Camp (New York, 1936).
Washington’s presidential years have received considerably less scrutiny than the period of his military service. The recent slender volume by Forrest McDonald, The Presidency of George Washington (Lawrence, Kans., 1974), is the only one-volume assessment of his presidency, although John C. Miller’s The Federalist Era, 1789–1801 (New York, 1960) offers an excellent survey of that turbulent decade. Washington’s conception of the office is assayed in Ralph Ketchum’s President’s Above Party: The First American Presidency, 1789–1829 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1984).
For Washington’s private life in this period of public service, see Stephen Decatur, Jr., ed., Private Affairs of George Washington from the Records and Accounts of Tobias Lear (Boston, 1933).
On President Washington’s frontier policy readers would profit from Wiley Sword’s President Washington’s Indian War: The Struggle for the Old Northwest, 1790–1795 (Norman, Okla., 1985). A good treatment of his administration’s foreign policy is Louis Martin Sears’s George Washington and the French Revolution (Detroit, 1960). The best study of Washington’s diplomacy is Alexander De Conde, Entangling Alliance: Politics and Diplomacy under George Washington (Durham, N.C., 1958).
Two excellent articles should be consulted on Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion. The most provocative in that by Mary K. Bonsteel Tachau, “George Washington and the Reputation of Edmund Randolph,” Journal of American History, 73 (1986), 15–34. On Washington’s decision to raise the army in this instance, see: Richard Kohn, “The Washington Administration’s Decision to Crush the Whiskey Rebellion,” Journal of American History, 59 (1972), 567–84.
Two recent studies have contributed greatly to our understanding of Washington’s meaning to contemporaries, as well as to succeeding generations in antebellum America. One should see Garry Wills, Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment (Garden City, N.Y., 1984), and Barry Schwartz, “The Character of Washington: A Study in Republican Culture,” American Quarterly, 38 (1986), 202–22. On this subject one should also see Barry Schwartz, George Washington: The Making of an American Symbol (New York and London, 1987), a study that appeared too late for use in this biography.
The best contemporary account of Washington’s death is in Tobias Lear, Letters and Recollections of Washington . . . With a Diary of Washington’s Last Days (New York, 1906). For other accounts of Washington’s final illness, see: Creighton Barker, “A Case Report,” Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, 9 (1936–37), 185–87; Fielding O. Lewis, “Washington’s Last Illness,” Annals of Medical History, 4 (1932), 245–48; and Walter A. Wells, “The Last Illness and Death of George Washington,” Virginia Medical Monthly, 53 (1926–27), 629–42.
For additional secondary and primary works that pertain to the great events of Washington’s lifetime, see the notes that accompany this study. Full citation of a particular work may be found in its first appearance in the notes.
Index
Adam, Adams, 124, 258, 443, 509–10
Adams, John, xi, 93, 105, 111, 112, 113, 116, 138, 150, 152, 176, 198–99, 200, 207, 225, 228, 257, 259, 265–66, 348, 369, 371, 375–77, 382, 384, 420–21, 424, 434–35, 437–38, 442, 453, 461, 472–73, 483–86, 492, 495, 497–501, 504
Adams, Samuel, 103, 112, 113, 225, 383, 482
Addison, Joseph, 6, 56, 516
Adet, Pierre Auguste, 471–72
Albany, N.Y., 198, 204, 314, 435
Alden, John, 253
Alexander, Frances, 34
Alexandria, Va., 25, 44, 50, 68, 72, 74, 81, 95–96, 117, 342, 365, 369, 394, 396–98, 440, 486, 497, 499, 502–4, 506, 511
Alien and Sedition Acts, 496
Allegheny River, 20, 22, 23
Allen, Ethan, 131
Alton, John, 69
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Amherst, Jeffrey, 243
Anderson, James, 487–88
André, John, 284–86
Annapolis, Md., 42, 80–82, 85, 98, 321, 337, 391, 393
Annapolis Convention, 351, 354, 379
Antietam, Md., 394
Anti-Federalists, 382
Appleby School, 2, 5, 8
Armstrong, John, 310
Arnold, Benedict, 200, 203, 204, 238, 254, 256, 264, 289, 290–91, 512
background, 130
Canadian invasion, 130–32, 140
GW’s assessment of, 131
character of, 261
treason of, 283–87
Arnold, Peggy Shippen, 283, 512
Articles of Confederation, 290, 350–51, 361–62, 402, 417, 481
Articles of War, 113, 126
Assumption Bill, 391
Assunpink Creek, 184, 188–90, 249, 263, 303, 369
Augusta, Ga., 269, 400
Ball, Joseph, 11, 115
Baltimore, Md., 181, 188, 226, 321, 365, 369, 374, 391, 429
Bank Act, 396, 412
Barras, Comte, 293
Barren Hill, Pa., 245
Bartram, William, 360
Basking Ridge, N.J., 179, 276
Bassett, Burwell, 71, 75, 91, 99, 101, 117, 306
Bastille, The, 392
Baylor, George, 128
Beckwith, George, 414
Bedford, Pa., 452
Belvoir, Va., 8, 10, 12, 19, 23, 32, 34, 39–40, 47, 48, 57, 59, 77, 100, 107, 341
Bennington, Vt., 208
Berkeley Springs, Va., 14, 75, 81, 109, 334, 411, 421
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