King George

by Steve Sheinkin

  This Is Goodbye

  The American Revolution officially ended on September 3, 1783, with the signing of a peace treaty in Paris. Now everyone (even King George) had to admit the United States of America was a free and independent country.

  All over the country, American soldiers started heading home. Deborah Sampson took off her army uniform, put on women’s clothes, and walked through camp. No one recognized her.

  Joseph Plumb Martin, now twenty-three, had dreamed of this day for years. But now that it was here, he wasn’t quite sure how to feel. “I can assure the reader that there was as much sorrow as joy,” he wrote. “We had lived together as a family of brothers for several years.”

  George Washington and his officers felt the same mixed emotions when they got together one last time at Fraunces Tavern in New York City. The general lifted his drink in the air and said, “With a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable.”

  Then he asked each of his companions to come up and shake his hand. Henry Knox, who was nearest, stepped up to Washington and took him by the hand. The room was silent. Every man in the place was trying desperately to keep his emotions under control.

  But it was no use—General Knox was the first to crack.

  Knox burst into tears and grabbed Washington in a big bear hug. Then all the other officers, tears streaming down their cheeks, lined up to hug their commander.

  “Such a scene of sorrow and weeping I had never before witnessed,” said Benjamin Tallmadge.

  Later that afternoon Washington dried his eyes, left the tavern, walked down the street to the wharf, and stepped onto a waiting boat. He turned and waved his hat to his friends as his boat was rowed away from shore.

  Washington stopped by Annapolis, Maryland (where Congress was now meeting), to officially resign as commander of the Continental army. “Having now finished the work assigned me,” he told the members of Congress, “I retire from the great theater of action.”

  Then he traveled home to Virginia to enjoy a peaceful retirement with Martha at Mount Vernon.

  That’s what he thought, anyway.

  What Ever Happened To … ?

  Always her husband’s closest friend and advisor, Abigail Adams continued offering her political opinions while John Adams served as vice president, and then president of the United States. Some powerful men didn’t appreciate Abigail’s open participation in politics—but that never stopped her. When she neared death in 1818, John Adams described Abigail this way: “The whole of her life has been filled up doing good.”

  John Adams served as American minister to Great Britain after the Revolution, actually meeting his old enemy King George III—it was a short, polite meeting. Following one term as president, Adams ran for re-election in 1800 and was beaten by Thomas Jefferson in America’s first truly nasty presidential campaign. Adams retired to his farm in Massachusetts, later calling these years at home with Abigail “the happiest of my life.” He died at age ninety, on July 4, 1826.

  After dedicating his entire life to the struggle for American independence, Samuel Adams returned to Boston and ran for the House of Representatives in the country’s first congressional election. He lost to a thirty-one-year-old. Still not ready to leave politics, and too poor to retire, Adams turned to state government. He was elected governor of Massachusetts at the age of seventy-one. The $2,500 salary was by far the highest he had ever earned.

  When American forces prepared to attack the British in Canada in late 1775, Ethan Allen was sent ahead to enlist Canadian volunteers. Instead, for some reason, he tried to capture the city of Montreal by himself. Sent to Britain in chains, Allen was later freed in a prisoner-of-war exchange. He settled in his beloved Vermont, where he died in 1789.

  After risking his life as a spy during the Revolution, James Armistead returned to the plantation of his owner. He remained enslaved until his former commander, Marquis de Lafayette, petitioned the Virginia Assembly to grant his freedom, which it did in 1787. Forty years later, when Lafayette was visiting the United States, the two friends met on the street in Richmond, Virginia. They hugged.

  As a brand-new British general, Benedict Arnold led several attacks on American towns, even raiding and burning New London, Connecticut, just a few miles from his boyhood home. After the war, Arnold moved restlessly between Canada, the Caribbean, and Britain, dying quietly in London at the age of sixty. “Poor General Arnold has departed this world without notice,” reported the London Post. Peggy Arnold, with her husband till the end, died three years later, at age forty-four.

  “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne retired from the British army in 1784, turning instead to his true passions: playwriting and fine London living. He wrote several plays, including the comedy The Heiress, which was a smash hit in 1786. He died six years later, at age seventy.

  Back in Britain, Charles Cornwallis joined the massive public debate about who was to blame for Yorktown. His choice: fellow general Henry Clinton. Cornwallis later went on to serve successfully as military governor of British colonies in India and Ireland. He’d be sorry to see that he is sometimes still referred to as “the man who lost America.”

  Much to the regret of the women of Paris, Benjamin Franklin sailed back to America in 1785. Welcomed home as a hero in Philadelphia, he was soon asked to represent Pennsylvania at the Constitutional Convention. “He is eighty-two years old,” said a fellow delegate, “and possesses an activity of mind equal to a youth of twenty-five.” After convincing many reluctant leaders to sign the completed Constitution, Franklin still wasn’t done—he spent his final years serving as president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.

  Shortly after the Revolution, King George III, age fifty, began to suffer from a mysterious illness that doctors now believe to have been porphyria. He experienced intense stomach pain, rashes, confusion, and episodes of what witnesses described as “madness”—for instance, one night at dinner he attempted to smash the Prince of Wales’s head against the wall. In spite of the work of ignorant doctors, the king’s health improved. He continued to suffer similar attacks until his death in 1820, at age eighty-one.

  George Washington’s young aide Alexander Hamilton went on to become one the main architects of the new American government and economy. Some historians say he was the most brilliant of all the Founders, which is really saying something. But the way he died was not so smart. Caught up in a bitter feud with Vice President Aaron Burr, he agreed to duel Burr with pistols. Hamilton was shot and killed in 1804, at the age offorty-seven.

  John Hancock remained the most popular politician in Massachusetts throughout his entire life, serving nine terms as governor. As he grew older, painful attacks of gout swelled his joints and left him unable to walk. When Massachusetts was debating ratification of the Constitution, however, and it looked like state leaders might vote no, Hancock got involved. He wrapped his aching legs in blankets, had himself carried into the meetinghouse, and announced, “I give my assent to the Constitution.” Massachusetts approved the Constitution in a very close vote.

  By the way, you’ll recall that on the night of Paul Revere’s famous ride, young Dorothy Quincy said of her fiancé, John Hancock: “At that time I should have been very glad to have got rid of him.” Dorothy and John were married in August 1775. They lived happily together until John’s death in 1793.

  After serving in the Virginia legislature and as state governor, Patrick Henry retired from government in 1791. Heavily in debt, Henry revived his old legal practice—and his reputation as the most exciting courtroom lawyer in the country. One reason he had to keep making money was that he continued fathering children into his sixties. In 1798 his second wife, Dorothea, gave birth to Henry’s seventeenth child. Henry died the next year, at age sixty-three.

  After serving as the country’s first secretary of state, second vice
president, and third president, Thomas Jefferson began a busy retirement at Monticello, his Virginia home. In addition to designing buildings and founding the University of Virginia, Jefferson made peace with his old political rival John Adams. Jefferson and Adams exchanged more than 150 letters, discussing current events, political philosophy, and the hardships of growing old. Jefferson, like Adams, died on July 4, 1826—exactly fifty years from the day their Declaration of Independence was approved.

  Before the Revolution he ran a bookstore, but by. the end of the war Henry Knox was one of the country’s top military experts. Knox served ten years as the first secretary of war before retiring with his wife, Lucy, to a mansion in Maine. Always known as great entertainers, Henry and Lucy immediately won over their new neighbors by inviting more than five hundred of them to a massive Fourth of July festival.

  Marie Jean Paul Joseph RocheYves Gilbert du Motier, also known as the Marquis de Lafayette, returned to a hero’s welcome in France. He was an early leader of the French Revolution; then, due to events much too complicated to explain here, he fled France and wound up spending six years in an Austrian prison. Thirty years later he made one last tour of the United States. He was greeted like a rock star.

  After leaving the Continental army, Joseph Plumb Martin spent a year teaching in New York, then settled in Maine. He married, had a large family, and, at the age of seventy, published a book called A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier: Some of the Adventures, Dangers, and Sufferings of Joseph Plumb Martin. Martin’s book gives us one of the best inside looks at life in the Continental army.

  Thomas Paine continued writing and traveling and offending others with his opinions. After nearly being jailed in Britain, and nearly getting beheaded in France during the French Revolution, Paine died penniless in New York City in 1809. His death went unnoticed, except by a British admirer who secretly dug up Paine’s bones and put them on a boat to Britain. No one knows what happened to them.

  Returning to private life after the war, Paul Revere ran a hardware store, made bells and cannons, and continued his work as a master silversmith. As always, he was ready to drop everything to protect his town. When it looked like the British were about to attack Boston during the War of 1812, Revere grabbed a shovel and wheelbarrow and helped fortify the city. He was eighty years old.

  Deborah Sampson married a man named Benjamin Gannett and had three children. In addition to teaching school, she developed a traveling show in which she appeared on stage dressed as a Continental army soldier and talked about her war experiences. When she died at the age of sixty-seven, Congress awarded her family a special pension “for the relief of the heirs of Deborah Gannett, a soldier of the Revolution.”

  George Washington’s hopes for a quiet retirement at Mount Vernon were short-lived. First he was sent to represent Virginia at the Constitutional Convention, then he was chosen to be the first president of the United States. “I greatly fear that my countrymen will expect too much from me,” he confided in a friend. He served two terms as president—then he was asked to serve a third. He absolutely refused.

  George and Martha Washington finally moved back home in 1797, where, two and a half years later, Washington developed a dangerous throat infection. With no idea how to cure this kind of illness, doctors bled him four times and smeared a “medicine” of dried beetles on his neck. Washington could tell it wasn’t working. “I feel myself going,” he told the doctors. “I thank you for your attentions, but I pray you to take no more trouble about me.” Sitting with him as he died, Martha called out, “I shall soon follow him!” Martha died three years later and was buried beside George at Mount Vernon.

  Confessions of a Textbook Writer

  If you promise not to get too mad, I’ll tell you a secret. I used to write textbooks.

  Yes, it’s true. I helped write those big books that break your back when you carry them and put you to sleep when you read them. But let me say one thing in my own defense: I never meant for them to be boring!

  I used to spend long days in the library, searching for stories to make my history textbooks fun to read. And I filled up notebooks with good ones—funny, amazing, inspiring, surprising, and disgusting stories. But as you’ve probably noticed, textbooks are filled with charts, tables, lists, names, dates, review questions … there isn’t any room left for the good stuff. In fact, every time I tried to sneak in a cool story, my bosses used to drag me to this dark room in the basement of our building and take turns dropping filing cabinets on my head.

  Okay, that’s a lie. But they could have fired me, right? And I’ve got a wife and baby to think about.

  So here’s what I did: Over the years, I secretly stashed away all the stuff I wasn’t allowed to use in textbooks. I kept telling myself, “One of these days I’m going to write my own history books! And I’ll pack them with all the true stories and real quotes that textbooks never tell you!”

  Well, now those books finally exist. If you can find it in your heart to forgive my previous crimes, I hope you’ll give this book a chance. Thanks for hearing me out.

  Source Notes

  When I tell people about what I do for a living, some say it sounds like dream, and some say it sounds like a nightmare. I spend long days in libraries, reading tall stacks of books and taking tons of notes. When I find a story or character I like, I follow leads from one book to another, in search of more details. I sometimes think of myself as a kind of detective—a story detective.

  The point is, I ended up reading hundreds of books while writing King George: What Was His Problem? Below is a list of the books I found most helpful. If you want to learn more about the people and events of the American Revolution, this list would be a good place to start. I hope it’s helpful.

  Books About the American Revolution

  I started my research by reading a bunch of books about the American Revolution—books that cover the entire war. When you read books like this you don’t get too much detail about any one person or event, but you get a great overall picture of what happened and why.

  Alden, John R. A History of the American Revolution. New York: Da Capo Press, 1969.

  Bobrick, Benson. Angel in the Whirlwind: The Triumph of the American Revolution. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.

  Cook, Don. The Long Fuse: How England Lost the American Colonies. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995.

  Evans, Elizabeth. Weathering the Storm: Women of the American Revolution. New York: Scribner, 1975.

  Harvey, Robert. A Few Bloody Noses: The American War of Independence. London: John Murray, 2001.

  Hibbert, Christopher. Redcoats and Rebels: The American Revolution Through British Eyes. London: Grafton, 1990.

  Ketchum, Richard, M., ed. The American Heritage Book of the Revolution. New York: American Heritage Publishing, 1958.

  Leckie, Robert. George Washington’s War: The Saga of the American Revolution. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.

  Lossing, Benson John. Pictorial Field Book of the American Revolution. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1859.

  Russell, David Lee. The American Revolution in the Southern Colonies. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 2000.

  Symonds, Craig L. Battlefield Atlas of the Revolution. Cartography by William J. Clipson. Annapolis, Md.: Nautical & Aviation Pub. Co., 1986.

  Ward, Christopher. The War of the Revolution. New York: Macmillan Company, 1952.

  Books about the events leading to the American Revolution

  After working through the books above, I started looking for sources that describe the causes of the Revolution. I also read a couple of great books about those exciting first few moments of the fight for independence—my favorite was Lexington and Concord: The Beginning of the War of the American Revolution.

  Galvin, John R. The Minute Men: The First Fight: Myths and Realities of the American Revolution. Washington, D.C.: Pergamon-Brassey’s International Defense Publisher, 1989.

  Langguth, A.J. Patriots: The Men Who Started the Am
erican Revolution. New York: Touchstone, 1988.

  Maier, Pauline. From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776. New York: Knopf, 1972.

  Shy, John. Toward Lexington: The Role of the British Army in the Coming of the American Revolution. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965.

  Tourtellot, Arthur B. Lexington and Concord: The Beginning of the War of the American Revolution. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1963.

  Books about specific Revolution battles or subjects

  As I worked on each chapter, I was always on the lookout for cool stories and quotes from specific events—like Washington’s surprise attack at Trenton, or the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Here are some books I read to learn about these events. Since these books focus on just one subject, they give you lots more detail than the more general books listed above.

  Bakeless, John Edwin. Turncoats, Traitors, and Heroes. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1959.

  Chidsey, Donald Barr. Victory at Yorktown. New York: Crown Publishers, 1962. Dwyer, William M. The Day Is Ours!: November 1776—January 1777: An Inside View of the Battles of Trenton and Princeton. New York: Viking Press, 1983.