by David Barton
When the conflict with Britain commenced, Washington left behind both his home at Mount Vernon and his friendship with the Fairfaxes. Over the next twenty-five years, he returned home only infrequently due to his extended public service, including that in the Revolution, at the Constitutional Convention, as President, etc.
One of his rare visits home occurred in the interval between the conclusion of the Revolution and the convening of the Constitutional Convention. On that trip, Washington returned to Belvoir and, sadly, found it burned to the ground. On viewing the ruins of the house where he had passed so many happy hours, Washington was deeply moved. He wrote William, Jr., telling him:
But alas! Belvoir is no more! I took a ride there the other day to visit the ruins and ruins indeed they are. The dwelling house and the two brick buildings in front underwent the ravages of the fire; the walls of which are very much injured: the other houses are sinking under the depredation of time and inattention and I believe are now scarcely worth repairing. In a word, the whole are, or very soon will be a heap of ruin. When I viewed them, when I considered that the happiest moments of my life had been spent there, when I could not trace a room in the house (now all rubbish) that did not bring to my mind the recollection of pleasing scenes, I was obliged to fly from them and came home with painful sensations.91
Shortly after that letter, William, Jr., died, and Washington returned to the service of his country. Almost a decade passed before he finally returned home to spend the remaining three years of his life at Mount Vernon. In that period, shortly before his death, Washington wrote Sarah a letter expressing to her the sentiments similar to those he had earlier expressed to her husband. He told her:
My dear Madam: Five and twenty years nearly have passed away since I have considered myself as permanently residing at this place [Mount Vernon] or have been in a situation to indulge myself in a familiar intercourse [social exchange] with my friends by letter or otherwise. During this period, so many important events have occurred and such changes in men and things have taken place, as the compass of a letter would give you but an inadequate idea of. None of which events, however, nor all of them together, have been able to eradicate from my mind the recollection of those happy moments, the happiest in my life, which I have enjoyed in your company [at Belvoir].92
When divorced from its historical context, this last phrase enables revisionists to “prove” an affair between George Washington and Sarah Fairfax.
In a continuing attempt to impugn Washington’s morality, Flexner further claimed:
Washington was in his later years to contrast unfavorably “the giddy rounds of promiscuous pleasure” with “the sequestered walks of connubial life.” Was he judging from experience?93
By using these two phrases from a letter, Flexner insinuates that Washington had personally engaged in “the giddy rounds of promiscuous pleasure.” Again, both the historical background and the full letter discredit Flexner’s charge.
The subject of Washington’s letter was the French General Charles Armand-Tuffin, the Marquis de la Rouerie. The French and their propensity for immorality had long been complained of by American leaders,94 while in contrast, America had been known worldwide as the nation in which both marriage and marital fidelity were esteemed the highest.95 When Washington was informed that the French General had announced his plans to be married, Washington wrote:
I must confess, I was a little pleased, if not surprised, to find him think like an American on the subject of matrimony and domestic felicity. For in my estimation more permanent and genuine happiness is to be found in the sequestered walks of connubial life [married] than in the giddy rounds of promiscuous pleasure.96
Clearly, the full letter discredits Flexner’s charge. Yet, Flexner nevertheless concocts an imputation of immorality against Washington. Such charges of immorality, once raised, often increase in tone and intensity until they reach ridiculous proportions – as has been the case with Washington.
For example, numerous students on college campuses across the nation have informed me that they were taught in their American history classes that Washington died from one of two causes: (1) either of syphilis (or a similar venereal disease) or (2) from contracting pneumonia as a result of making a hasty escape from a lover’s bedroom window into a bitter winter storm as her husband approached the front door. Both of these charges are demonstrably false.
For example, Washington’s adopted son testifies how that Washington contracted the illness while working on the grounds of Mount Vernon:
On the morning of the 13th [of December, 1799], the General was engaged in making some improvements in the front of Mount Vernon. As was usual with him, he carried his own compass, noted his observations, and marked out the ground. The day became rainy, with sleet, and the improver remained so long exposed to the inclemency of the weather as to be considerably wetted before his return to the house. About one o’clock he was seized with chilliness and nausea, but having changed his clothes, he sat down to his indoor work – there being no moment of his time for which he had not provided an appropriate employment.97
John Marshall, George Washington’s close friend and famous biographer, records what next occurred after Washington was thoroughly chilled:
Unapprehensive of danger from this circumstance, he passed the afternoon in his usual manner; but in the night, he was seized with an inflammatory affection of the windpipe. The disease commenced with a violent ague, accompanied with some pain in the upper and fore part of the throat, a sense of stricture in the same part, a cough, and a difficult rather than a painful deglutition, which were soon succeeded by fever and a quick and laborious respiration. Believing bloodletting to be necessary, he procured a bleeder who took from his arm twelve or fourteen ounces of blood, but he would not permit a messenger to be dispatched for his family physician until the appearance of day. About eleven in the morning, Dr. Craik arrived: and perceiving the extreme danger of the case, requested that two consulting physicians should be immediately sent for.98
Notice the medical report filed by those physicians after the unsuccessful termination of their treatments. The three doctors who attended Washington during his final illness reported:
Some time in the night of Friday the 13th instant, having been exposed to rain on the preceding day, General Washington was attacked with an inflammatory affection of the upper part of the windpipe, called in technical language, cynanche trachealis [currently called “quinsy” – a severe form of strep throat]. The disease commenced with a violent ague [shivering], accompanied with some pain in the upper and fore part of the throat, a sense of stricture in the same part, a cough, and a difficult rather than a painful deglutition [act of swallowing], which were soon succeeded by fever and a quick and laborious respiration. The necessity of bloodletting suggesting itself to the General [it was believed that fever was an “excitement” of the blood and that removing part of the blood would reduce the fever], he procured a bleeder in the neighborhood who took from his arm in the night twelve or fourteen ounces of blood…. Discovering the case to be highly alarming, and foreseeing the fatal tendency of the disease, two consulting physicians were immediately sent for who arrived, one at half after three, the other at four o’clock in the afternoon. In the interim were employed two copious bleedings; a blister [medical plaster] was applied to the part affected, two moderate doses of calomel [a mercury mixture used to induce vomiting] were given, and an injection was administered which operated on the lower intestines – but all without any perceptible advantage; the respiration becoming still more difficult and distressing. – Upon the arrival of the first of the consulting physicians, it was agreed … to try the result of another bleeding, when about thirty-two ounces of blood were drawn without the smallest apparent alleviation of the disease…. The powers of life seemed now manifestly yielding to the force of the disorder. Blisters were applied to the extremities together with a cataplasm [a poultice] of bran and vinegar to the throat…. [R]espiration grew more and more
contracted and imperfect till half after eleven o’clock on Saturday night when, retaining the full possession of his intellect, he expired without a struggle.99
The evidence, both medical and anecdotal, clearly disproves any charges that Washington died from a disease contracted or caused by any moral laxness. Furthermore, numerous eyewitnesses establish Washington’s strong and pure moral character. For example:
His private character, as well as his public one, will bear the strictest scrutiny…. He was the friend of morality.100 DAVID RAMSAY, SURGEON IN THE CONTINENTAL ARMY; MEMBER OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS
We have seen that his private life was marked in an eminent degree with the practice of the moral virtues…. He taught (and his own practice corresponded with his doctrine) that the foundation of national policy can be laid only in the pure and immutable principles of private morality.101 JEREMIAH SMITH, REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIER; JUDGE; U. S. CONGRESSMAN; GOVERNOR OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
The private virtues of this great man exactly corresponded with those exhibited in public life…. To crown all these moral virtues, he had the deepest sense of religion impressed on his heart; the true foundation-stone of all the moral virtues. This he constantly manifested on all proper occasions.102 JONATHAN SEWELL, ATTORNEY
The purity of his private character gave effulgence to [was revealed by] his public virtues.103 HENRY LEE, MAJOR-GENERAL UNDER GEORGE WASHINGTON
[H]is character will remain to all ages a model of human virtue, untarnished with a single vice.104 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
[T]he moral deportment in the character of this great man may be held up to view as the boast of the present and as a model for the imitation of future ages.105 CHARLES CALDWELL, PHYSICIAN; EDUCATOR
The attacks on Washington’s morality are solely the product of revisionists. As explained by early twentieth-century historian Alfred McCann:
Between 1759 and 1774 two letters, “G. W.,” were sufficient to open all doors in Virginia. From 1774 to 1799 they opened all doors in America. In 1889 a feeble effort was made to put them in lower case – “g. w.” In 1926 a new brand of courage appeared in the world. Two little men [definitely W. E. Woodward and apparently Charles Beard] with fountain pens restored the upper case, but made it read “Godless!” “Wanton!”…. Perhaps it is well for the 1926 biographers that Washington is dead. Roosevelt could carry his libelers into court. The son of Gladstone, who describes Washington as “the purest figure of history,” could meet his father’s assailant in the presence of wig and gown [in the courts]. But the 1926 detractors need not fear civil or criminal action. The dead are without redress. So too the truth…. The spicy stories are all of recent origin.106
Jefferson also suffers from a contemporary attack on his morality. For example:
One of the greatest love stories in American history is also one of the least known, and most controversial. Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence, had a mistress for thirty-eight years, whom he loved and lived with until he died, the beautiful and elusive Sally Hemings. But it was not simply that Jefferson had a mistress that provoked the scandal of the times; it was that Sally Hemings was a quadroon slave, and that Jefferson fathered a slave family.107
These charges appear in several contemporary works; for example, Fawn Brodie’s Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History and Barbara Chase-Riboud’s Sally Hemings. (Even the highly publicized DNA testing results released in 1998 that reputedly “proved” that Jefferson fathered Hemings’ children was retracted in 1999 due to both scientific and historical inaccuracies in the original report; yet, who heard of the retraction of the story?) Like the charges against Washington, those against Jefferson also have an apparent “historical” basis – a basis identified by the eminent Jeffersonian historian Virginius Dabney:
The debunking of Jefferson began when a vicious, unscrupulous disappointed office-seeker named James T. Callender disseminated to the nation in 1802 the allegation that Jefferson had slave Sally Hemings as his concubine.108
Were those charges credible? Consider Callender’s personal history.
James T. Callender (1758-1803) began his career as a political pamphleteer in Scotland. His writings there were so libelous and seditious that being “oftimes called in court, did not appear, [Callender was] pronounced a fugitive and an outlaw.”109 Callender fled to America for refuge where he also resumed his former writing style – this time against prominent Americans – thus confirming “his genius as a scandalmonger.”110 In fact, his writings were so baseless and unscrupulous that, even in America, he was taken to court, fined, sentenced, and imprisoned. Ironically, it was Jefferson who secured his pardon. After his release, Callender resumed his previous practices – this time launching his attack on Jefferson, accusing him of “dishonesty, cowardice, and gross personal immorality.”111
It is no wonder that with such a proven record of scurrility, eminent historians both then and now dismissed Callender’s charges as frivolous:
James Truslow Adams, the eminent [1922 Pulitzer Prize winning] historian, wrote that “almost every scandalous story about Jefferson which is still whispered or believed” may be traced to the scurrilous writings of Callender [rather than to any historical fact]. Others, including Merrill Peterson, [Professor of History at the University of Virginia], hold the same opinion…. John C. Miller, the Stanford University historian, describes Callender as “the most unscrupulous scandalmonger of the day … a journalist who stopped at nothing and stooped to anything…. Callender was not an investigative journalist; he never bothered to investigate anything; … truth, if it stood in his way, was summarily mowed down.”112
On the charges of a single historical figure who was a proven liar, modern revisionists have attempted to sacrifice Jefferson’s morality. In fact, as Virginius Dabney explained:
Had it not been for Callender, recently revived charges to the same effect probably would never have come to national attention.113
Yet today’s revisionists accept Callender’s charges carte blanche and revive them as though they were undisputed fact in order to proclaim to today’s generation that Jefferson was immoral.
Another example impugning the morality of the Founders comes from revisionist Randy Shilts, author of Conduct Unbecoming. Shilts claims:
History tells us that the man who first instilled discipline in the ragtag Continental Army at Valley Forge was the Prussian Baron Frederick William von Steuben…. Von Steuben at first had declined Benjamin Franklin’s offer of the job, because the Continental Congress could not pay him. But when von Steuben learned that ecclesiastical authorities were planning to try him for homosexuality, he renegotiated with Franklin and was appointed a major general to the Continental Army…. Some military historians have judged von Steuben as one of only two men whose contributions were “indispensable” toward winning the Revolutionary War; the other was George Washington. It is a crowning irony that anti-gay policies are defended in the name of preserving the good order and discipline of the U. S. military, when that very order and discipline was the creation of a gay man.114
Shilts seems to make a compelling argument and cites for his historical evidence the book General Von Steuben by John Palmer (perhaps the leading scholar on von Steuben). Shilts accurately depicted the charge against von Steuben but deliberately omitted Palmer’s conclusion about that charge. Notice Palmer’s conclusion:
That it [the charge that von Steuben was a homosexual] grew out of jealousy and religious bigotry is not improbable; for it will be recalled that the Baron was a Protestant minister at the head of a Catholic court, the heretic favorite of an orthodox prince. If the story was credited at one time by the Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen, he was evidently convinced later of its falsity and cruel injustice. For, as we shall see, the Baron was eventually restored to his affectionate regard. It is impossible to prove the falsity of such a story. But it is perhaps pertinent for me to say that the charge is inconsistent with the conception of
Steuben’s personality that has grown up in my mind after eight years’ study of every memorial [written representation of facts] of him that I could find.115
Further disproving Shilts’ claim is the fact that an openly homosexual individual – as Shilts claims von Steuben was – would never have been accepted in the Continental Army. This is confirmed by the fact that the first time ever that a homosexual was drummed out of the American military was during the American Revolution – by Commander-in-Chief George Washington:
At a General Court Martial whereof Colo. Tupper was President (10th March 1778), Lieut. Enslin of Colo. Malcom’s Regiment [was] tried for attempting to commit sodomy, with John Monhort a soldier … [he was] found guilty of the charges exhibited against him, being breaches of 5th. Article 18th. Section of the Articles of War and [we] do sentence him to be dismiss’d [from] the service with infamy [public disgrace]. His Excellency the Commander in Chief approves the sentence and with abhorrence and detestation of such infamous crimes orders Lieut. Enslin to be drummed out of camp tomorrow morning by all the drummers and fifers in the Army never to return.116 (emphasis added)
The overall attitude of the Founders toward homosexuality was similar to that of Blackstone, who found the subject so reprehensible that it was difficult for him even to discuss.117 For example, James Wilson was so disgusted with homosexuality that in his legal works he declared:
The crime not to be named [sodomy], I pass in a total silence.118