George Washington

by David O. Stewart

  The wounds would not heal. Dinwiddie denied Washington leave to come to Williamsburg, noting, “You have frequently been indulged with leave of absence.” He directed Washington to finish Fort Loudoun. Washington howled back: “It was not to enjoy a party of pleasure I wanted leave of absence: I have been indulged with few of those, winter or summer!” The two men would spit at each other through the mail until Dinwiddie left Virginia in January 1758.26

  It was a sad close to a relationship that had propelled Washington’s advancement. Without appointments by Dinwiddie, the young Virginian might still have been surveying land for rich speculators. Both men were worn raw by an untenable military situation. Both had made errors large and small. Both had grown testy and given offense. Washington’s conduct as the subordinate is more difficult to excuse. It was worse than bad manners; it was a mistake. Dinwiddie was returning to England, where Virginians’ fates were still decided and where Washington needed influential friends; Dinwiddie would not be one. A cooler head than Washington’s would not have erred so.

  Throughout the unpleasant year, Washington’s thoughts had returned to Mount Vernon and his plans to improve it. In April, he placed a large order with a London merchant for household items, including a marble chimney piece, wallpaper, two mahogany tables with chairs, and a dozen door locks and hinges. In September, he worried about the tobacco harvest and slave purchases.27

  As the weather grew colder, the bloody flux tightened its grip on Washington. In November, when the doctor said he was dangerously ill, Washington did not bother to tell Dinwiddie. He rode home to Mount Vernon.

  Chapter 13

  New Paths

  Through quiet winter days at Mount Vernon in early 1757, Washington could reflect on his three years of military service. His path had been difficult, with few episodes resembling success.

  Between 1754 and 1758, French and Indian raiders would kill nearly 1,500 settlers on the Virginia and Pennsylvania frontier and take another 1,000 as captives, nearly 1 percent of the population of those colonies. More than 3 percent of the frontier population was killed or captured. Thousands fled to settled areas, sleeping in barns and stables. When he could, Washington fed them from his regimental supplies. In the eighteen months since Braddock’s failure, roughly a third of his regiment’s men were casualties or went missing.1

  Despite this depressing record, in March 1758 Washington burst out of his emotional and physical trough to change his life in fundamental ways. Instead of chasing a military career, he would climb toward the top of Virginia society by improving his lands and winning a seat in the House of Burgesses. An essential part of that climb was finding a wife who could assist him on that path.

  Washington won Martha Custis’s wealthy hand in marriage during two visits to her home over a nine-day period in March.2 Though they would long live in the public spotlight, Martha and George kept their relationship private, destroying almost all correspondence between them, including any account of their whirlwind courtship. In those first days, amid whatever flirting or compliments were in the air, they had much to talk about. Certainly Washington spoke of his recent illness and decision to abandon military life, plus his political ambition. They had to decide where they would live, so she learned of Washington’s passion for Mount Vernon. It might have been early for Washington to reveal his feelings about his brother Lawrence, his tribe of siblings, or his flinty mother. He usually avoided talking about battles and war, and likely followed that practice when courting.

  We also cannot know the thoughts they had but did not express. Did Martha find his size—roughly fourteen inches taller, with outsized hands—reassuring, intimidating, or exciting? Was he anxious about becoming a stepfather to Martha’s small son and daughter? Perhaps he brought gifts for four-year-old Jacky and two-year-old Patsy. He should have condoled with Martha over the loss of her husband the year before. All of it must be imagined.

  Washington would not have called on her unless they had socialized before, probably during quarterly “public times” in Williamsburg, when well-heeled Virginians came to shop, do business, and mix. As Mrs. Martha Dandridge Custis, she likely admired the tall, graceful soldier when he stepped on the dance floor; perhaps she took a turn with him. The couple had friends in common, including a Williamsburg lawyer who advised them both.3

  The speed of the courtship carries the whiff of a transaction: that George traded his charisma, ambition, and warrior glory for the Custis fortune and position. Late in life, advising his step-granddaughter, Washington cautioned against a marriage based on mere emotion. “When the fire is beginning to kindle,” he wrote, “and your heart growing warm, propound these questions to it. Who is this invader? Have I a competent knowledge of him? Is he a man of good character; a man of sense?” Washington added:

  For, be assured, a sensible woman can never be happy with a fool. What has been his walk of life? Is he a gambler, a spendthrift, or drunkard? Is his fortune sufficient to maintain me in the manner I have been accustomed to live . . . and is he one to whom my friends can have no reasonable objection?4

  Colonel Washington and Mrs. Custis surely asked themselves such questions. He sought a mate to help build his fortune and his place. Why did Martha accept so quickly this athletic man with an affable manner? She did not need wealth from a second husband; she had money enough, though appearances required that he have enough to be respectable. She needed a stepfather for her two small children, a prudent manager for her wealth, a person with whom she would be proud to stand before the world. Washington met those standards.5

  Although only twenty-six, he was used to responsibility, having held in his hands the fates of hundreds of soldiers and thousands of settlers. Those burdens had worn him ragged, but the experience taught him to carry them stoically, which he did most of the time. He had not yet achieved the solid and centered calm that would become such a great political asset. The fires in his heart could still burst out. But the trials of command had tempered his character. He was a man trusted by others. Martha Custis certainly thought she, too, could trust him.

  But there was more to Washington. Through his life, he would draw sharp insights into the people around him. He was able to read tone and attitude and body language, the nonverbal cues that tell more than words do. His affability and courtesy masked the close attention he paid to others. Never a great wit, he was a warm and considerate companion, one who would wear well. Martha may not have thought through all of those considerations in the dizzying days of courtship, not in a way she would have articulated. But she certainly felt those qualities in the man before her, qualities that led her to say yes.

  There were other dimensions to the bond they formed. Though Martha was a pretty and vivacious woman with bright hazel eyes, there was no mistaking which of them would be the peacock. The colonel—tall, magnetic, graceful—led off the dancing at every ball and cotillion. Indeed, one scholar found no record that Martha ever danced with him in public. She was barely five feet tall, with comfortable dimensions. She once ordered gloves “to fit a small hand and pretty large arm” and disarmingly described herself another time as a “fine, healthy girl.”6

  She understood business and plantation management. During her months of widowhood, she managed extensive estates and a large household, while also directing complex litigation over the Custis legacy, which dwarfed Washington’s holdings. She and her children owned land and slaves in six counties, which were valued at £13,000, plus almost as much cash held on account in England.7

  In choosing Martha, Washington did not follow the adage that a man marries a woman resembling his mother. With her small, round stature and warm nature, Martha was very different from tall, hard-edged Mary Washington. The match, of course, had its pragmatic side. Washington would not marry into a poor family, and Martha knew that he was a prominent figure with fine prospects. Whatever passions and infatuation they felt, whatever reasons and consequences they s
orted through, they were adults who made their own decisions, and they apparently remained faithful to and loving with each other for forty years.

  Washington moved swiftly toward his other goal, a career as a planter and political figure. When he first returned to Mount Vernon to recuperate from the bloody flux, he knew that any governor who succeeded Dinwiddie would call new elections. Friends expected the man from Mount Vernon to seek a seat from Frederick County.8

  When Washington arrived in Williamsburg in March 1758, he had already passed through two career stages. He had burst on the scene as the boy wonder of the woods, the strapping teenage protégé of Colonel Fairfax and Lawrence, a hardy surveyor and Governor Dinwiddie’s intrepid emissary to the French. Then Washington became, by Dinwiddie’s appointment and with Colonel Fairfax’s sponsorship, Virginia’s leading military figure from the Battle of Fort Necessity through the end of 1757. Now Washington was resolved to stand on his own and chart his own course.

  He would stay in uniform for one more campaign. The energetic William Pitt, Britain’s new prime minister, was committed to the North American struggle with France. He adopted two measures that Washington welcomed.9

  First, Pitt replaced the indolent Loudoun with General Jeffery Amherst, and appointed General John Forbes, a career military officer, to capture Fort Duquesne. Forbes, who had served in America for several years, brought strengths to his assignment. Having directed quartermaster functions, he knew supply and logistics, central challenges on the frontier. In addition, Forbes, unlike Braddock, formed alliances easily. One historian portrayed Forbes as “patient and open-minded,” where Braddock was “arrogant and ignorant.” Forbes knew that the effort would involve much more than crashing through the forest and storming the fort. His talents would serve the British well.10

  Pitt also encouraged Americans to join the military effort. In letters to colonial governors, he pledged to provide ammunition and supplies for provincial troops. Each colony would be responsible only for recruiting the soldiers, clothing them, and paying them. Also, Pitt directed that a provincial officer’s rank would be recognized as the equivalent of his British Army counterparts. Finally, British officers would have to respect Colonel Washington’s status.11

  Most colonists, like Washington, responded warmly to Pitt’s initiatives. In March, Virginia’s General Assembly resolved to raise a second regiment of 1,000 men, adopting new recruiting methods: Virginia would pay an extra £10 to each man who served until December 1. The bounty worked. By May, Washington’s regiment numbered 950 men and the new, second regiment had 900. When Washington sought better pay for his soldiers, the Executive Council agreed.12

  Forbes’s expedition would advance against a weakened enemy. Although British arms had met few successes in North America, the Royal Navy had cut off most ocean-borne supplies to French Canada, which was facing a food shortage. French support for the western tribes had plunged; predictably, Indian enthusiasm for the French cause also diminished.13

  Washington, his ambition rekindled, angled for preference. He asked Colonel Stanwix to recommend him to Forbes “not as a person who would depend upon him for further recommendation,” but solely to “serve this campaign.” He made the same request of Major Thomas Gage, a fellow survivor of Braddock’s expedition, again stressing that he had “laid aside all hopes of preferment in the military line.” Though Stanwix and Gage likely discounted those disclaimers as disingenuous, Washington meant them.14

  Chapter 14

  Back into the Woods

  To march against Fort Duquesne across what Indians called the “endless mountains” of western Pennsylvania, General Forbes spurned many of the decisions Braddock had made three years before. Forbes resolved to build depots along the route so his force could be resupplied steadily from nearby locations. “We shall be obliged to march like tortoises, very slowly,” his top aide wrote, “and carrying everything on our back.” Those depots also would provide rallying points if the army needed to withdraw and regroup.1

  With becoming modesty, Forbes vowed to “learn the art of war from enemy Indians or anyone else who have seen the country and war carried on in it.” His senior commander, Colonel Henry Bouquet, agreed that American conditions left them “groping into an unknown country.” Bouquet was a different kind of British soldier: not British but Swiss, and willing to listen. Press reports declared him “the delight of the army.”2

  Forbes and Bouquet agreed with Washington that soldiers should be trained in bushfighting. Bouquet proposed to dress American soldiers in moccasins and blankets, cut off their hair, and paint their skin. He and Forbes applauded when Washington’s men wore hunting shirts and breeches, not traditional uniforms.3

  Forbes assembled a powerful force: 2,000 British regulars, plus 5,000 colonists, mostly from Pennsylvania and Virginia. The colonists lacked training and complained about missed paydays and inadequate food. Focused on his supply services, Forbes called the task of finding wagons “the plague of my life.”4

  To neutralize the greatest French advantage, Forbes courted the tribes. He did not need them to join his advance, only that they not oppose it. Patiently, the general worked through traders and Quakers to convene a conference with the tribes living south of the Great Lakes and east of the Wabash River. His representatives pledged that the British would not settle in the Ohio River valley, a promise most tribes doubted, but they could see that the British forces were numerous and determined. Moreover, the Royal Navy was blocking from Canada the supplies and ammunition the French should be giving to the Indians. Following their principle of never backing the losing side, most tribes assented to Forbes’s persuasive plea that they “sit by your fires, with your wives and children, quiet and undisturbed, and smoke your pipes in safety. Let the French fight their own battles.” When the British neared Fort Duquesne in late November, the French would lack their best fighters.5

  Most of the army gathered in Philadelphia; only the Virginians joined during the march (see map on page 57). The column had to reach Fort Duquesne by December 1, when many Virginia enlistments would expire. Washington worried that the march would proceed due west from Philadelphia rather than swerve southwest to pick up Braddock’s road through western Virginia. Washington pushed hard for the Braddock Road option. Pennsylvanians argued for driving straight over the Alleghenies. Forbes and Bouquet came to suspect that the competing advocates craved the economic advantage of having the road pass through their territories; the army’s supply depots could become anchors for future settlement. If Bouquet and Forbes had known that the Braddock Road passed close by Washington’s Bullskin lands, they would have dismissed his arguments as a crude lunge for personal gain.6

  The army traveled west to Bedford on existing roads. After that, only deer and footpaths crossed the mountains. Forbes resolved to cut a new road due west, never entering Virginia. Braddock’s road was only three years old and still relatively passable, but the all-Pennsylvania route was forty miles shorter.7

  Bouquet, traveling with the army’s leading edge, repeatedly found conditions to be different from what he had been told. One hill “which has been made a monster,” he sputtered, turned out to be “very easy to cross.” Forbes soured on the Americans, complaining to Prime Minister Pitt that the colonial officers were

  an extreme bad collection of broken inn-keepers, horse jockeys, and Indian traders and that the men under them are a direct copy of their officers . . . as they are a gathering from the scum of the worst of people, in every country, who have wrought themselves up into a panic at the very name of Indians.8

  When Washington realized that Bouquet and Forbes were bypassing the Braddock Road, he pressed his case even harder. In a late-July conference with Bouquet, he strenuously urged the Virginia route, echoing a recent letter he had sent denouncing the Pennsylvania option. Bouquet was unconvinced.9 In a long letter to Bouquet, Washington called the Pennsylvania mountains “monstrous” while th
e Braddock Road’s crossings of the Youghiogheny and Monongahela Rivers were “so trivial, they are hardly worth mentioning.” After warning that the Pennsylvania route would take too long, he sent a near-hysterical note to an aide to General Forbes, leaping over the chain of command. If Bouquet persisted in rejecting the Braddock Road, Washington pleaded, “all is lost!—All is lost by heavens—our enterprise ruined.”10

  General John Forbes

  Courtesy of the Library of Congress

  That note was another impetuous mistake. Forbes disliked everything about it. “By a very unguarded letter of Colonel Washington that accidentally fell into my hands,” he wrote, “I am now at the bottom of their scheme against this new road, a scheme that I think was a shame for any officer to be concerned in.” He called Washington’s efforts ridiculous. Undaunted, Washington continued to lobby for the Virginia route, earning ever greater resentment from Forbes and Bouquet.11

  Though Washington had never seen the Pennsylvania country to be crossed, his criticism of that route had some force. The mountains were a formidable barrier.12 Yet the Pennsylvania route required fewer supply depots and offered better locations for them. It also approached Fort Duquesne from a direction that would be more difficult for the French to defend. Since Forbes was using Pennsylvanians to conduct Indian negotiations, he was in their political debt. Finally, there was the power of inertia. Once resolved on the Pennsylvania route, Forbes would appear fickle if he changed his mind.13