Mary Ball Washington

by Craig Shirley

  The Boston Tea Party was yet another spark to light the shortening fuse. “One universal spirit of opposition animated the colonists from New Hampshire to Georgia,” wrote John Corry.36 Colonists from Samuel Adams of Massachusetts to local unnamed Virginians defended the action. A decade of tension between the two governments had passed, and one Gazette article placed the blame for the Tea Party on former governor of Massachusetts Thomas Hutchinson, an incompetent and fierce Crown loyalist, even by colonial standards.37

  One person who questioned the actions of the unidentified Bostonians was George Washington himself. He had known the captain of one of the ships, Captain James Bruce, who had dined with him years earlier.38 He saw destruction of property as hurtful to the cause of sovereignty; being rabble-rousers and destroying property that was not theirs legally could only inflame the British.39

  Inflame them it certainly did. They were furious, passing the Boston Port Bill, as part of the larger Intolerable Acts, on March 25, 1774, which closed the port and stopped shipment of all cargo, “goods, wares and merchandizers, at the town of Boston, or within the harbour.”40 It was no less than martial law, an invasion to suffocate Boston for their insubordination. A bitter and uneasy quietude settled over Boston.

  ON MAY 27, VIRGINIA FOUGHT BACK. THE STILL DISSOLVED HOUSE OF BURGESSES met in Williamsburg, again at Raleigh Tavern, and at ten in the morning unanimously agreed that “in Support of the constitutional Liberties of AMERICA, against the late oppressive Act of the British Parliament respecting the Town of Boston, which, in the End, must affect all the other Colonies . . . [tea] ought not to be used by any Person who wishes well to the constitutional Rights and Liberty of British America.”

  In other words, the legislative body agreed not to drink tea. It was drawing a red line in the sand, one that many thought the British Empire had crossed long ago.

  The House similarly called for all to pray and fast on June 1, when the bill would take effect, to be a day “of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer, devoutly to implore the Divine Interposition for averting the heavy Calamity which threatens Destruction to our civil Rights, and the Evils of civil War. . . .”

  The call for prayer continued, asking that God “give us one Heart, and one Mind, firmly to oppose, by all just and proper Means, every Injury to American Rights.”41

  It worked. George Washington, on June 1, a day observed to be clear and hot much like the colonists’ temper, noted simply in his diary that he “went to Church & fasted all day.”42

  The city of Fredericksburg followed suit, boycotting tea and the company’s products in response to the Boston Port Bill. One resident, John Harrower, writing to his wife, said, “As for Tea there is none drunk by any of this Government since 1st June last, nor will they buy a 2ds worth of any kind of east India goods, which is owing to the difference at present betwixt a tax the Parliament of great Britton and the North Americans.”43

  So what did Mary do, in the wake of this political upheaval and boycott?

  She bought tea, paying a certain Robert Broom 18 shillings for Hyson tea.44 “Tea—hot, with cream and sugar, and served in delicate cups—was one of life’s actual necessities in the mind of elderly ladies whose mothers in England had been born drinking it,” wrote Nancy Turner.45 Many colonists saw the tax on tea as outrageous for precisely that reason—it wasn’t a delicacy or some pleasure, but akin to water. Though the transaction occurred before the boycott—May 18—it was a deliberate move to express indifference on her part.

  To George, though, this was “the cause of America,” a rallying cry to unite the colonies under one banner. This was a brutal attempt “to fix the Shackles of Slavry [sic] upon us.”46 There was no more diplomacy, no more subtlety. It was pure injustice. For a colonist to go without tea was unheard of.

  But it was time for something more, something more than, as Washington put it, “cry[ing] for relief, when we have already tried it in vain.”47 Whatever the colonies had done was not enough. It was time for action, not letters to the king.

  VIRGINIA WAS NO STRANGER TO HEAVY RAINFALL AND HIGH WINDS, BUT perhaps that summer of 1774, when a northeast hurricane hit land, this was seen less as a natural event and more as a foreboding omen. In late August, said one man from Nomini Hall in Westmoreland County, “A violent Gust of Wind, Rain, & some Thunder we had about twelve o Clock, the Country seems to be afloat. . . . This is a true August Northeaster.”48

  With the thunder came Mary’s long-held fear of storms.

  Soon, it wouldn’t only be the thunder in the clouds she’d hear, but the thunder of something else, weapons that would strike fear into men and women, husbands and wives, and sons and daughters. This thunder wouldn’t be the wrath of the Almighty but the wrath of man. And for Mary, this thunder, from the explosion of revolution, would be as terrifying as the lightning from above.

  After the storm, George would leave the safety of Mount Vernon and the comfort of his wife and family for the city of Philadelphia, over 130 miles away. With him was his slave, Billy Lee, and fellow members of the Virginia House, firebrand Patrick Henry and lawyer Edmund Pendleton.

  ALSO IN VIRGINIA IN THE SUMMER OF 1774, THE CITIZENRY OF ESSEX County—just down the road from Mary Ball Washington’s Fredericksburg—passed the Colonial Resolutions “to consider the present dangers which threaten ruin to American liberty.” In details, these Virginians issued a seventeen-point declaration against the taxation from Parliament, against the consumption of East India tea, against exports to England, against imports from England, and funds were to be raised for the “poor of Boston,” which, with the British blockade, was suffering a depression. However, the respect for King George III was also articulated. Respected judge and member of the House of Burgesses Muscoe Garnett of Ben Lomond was one of several local citizens entrusted with raising the funds and delivering them to Boston.49 The Resolutions, impressively written, became more evidence of the growing distrust across the colonies—it was not just a simmering revolt by Boston. Dismay was spreading across the land.

  IT WAS NOT UP TO GEORGE TO MAKE WAR WITH THE MIGHTY BRITISH EMPIRE, whether he wanted to or not. Frustrations toward the indifferent Parliament had reached a crescendo. Therefore, a meeting of the colonies had to be called, and on September 5, 1774, at Carpenters’ Hall in Philadelphia, they met. At a very short distance from the edge of the Delaware River, this newly built two-story hall was the ideal spot for such a momentous meeting. This was more than just a meeting of Virginians, or a meeting of locals: fifty-six delegates from all the colonies, save for Georgia. It was the first of a series of Continental Congresses, held secretly and behind closed doors. “Congress,” in colonial America, was simply a meeting or gathering; this was not a governmental body, like a parliament.

  A month earlier, in August, over one hundred delegates met at the Virginia Convention in Williamsburg. They voted for seven delegates to represent the state in Philadelphia. Washington, now forty-two years old, was one of those appointed on Friday, August 5. Thomas Jefferson noted that a “shock of electricity” was felt at the convention.50 The men knew what they were doing, knew the severity of it. “We never before had so full a Meeting of Delegates at any one Time, as upon the present Occasion,” Washington wrote to Jefferson that same day.51

  It was momentous.

  But it was just an inkling of what was to come.

  On the ninth of August, heading home to Mount Vernon, Washington went to Fredericksburg, where he stayed with Fielding and Betty Lewis for one night. While there, he gave his mother 20 pounds.52

  Maybe, on this rainy day, he told Mary that he had been appointed a delegate to the Continental Congress. Political events did not interest her. The trip to Philadelphia was arduous, but he was not going to battle, so she would not be concerned for his safety. She was seemingly indifferent to his interest in the fate of the colonies. When her son stopped by and told her what had transpired, how did she react? No one knows for sure, but perhaps that old motherly protection kicked in. Per
haps she did not want to see her son, once again, leave her for some political rabble.

  But with either her blessing or an indifferent sigh, he nevertheless went.

  FROM MASSACHUSETTS THERE CAME SUCH HEAVYWEIGHTS AS COUSINS JOHN and Samuel Adams, Thomas Cushing, and Robert Paine. “It was their people who had most provoked Parliament to be high-handed and aggressive,” wrote Woodrow Wilson, many years later. “All the continent and all England had seen how stubborn was the temper, how incorrigible the spirit of resistance, in that old seat of the Puritan power, always hard set and proud in its self-willed resolution to be independent.”53

  Certainly, the fervor that was raging through all colonies originated farther north, in New England, with Boston taking a brunt of the punishment. But the Continental Congress was not to lay blame or to exclude or damn Adams and company, or chastise them, or throw them to the Crown and beg for mercy on all others. They were to embrace them. “The Distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders, are no more,” declared Patrick Henry.54

  It was not an easy path or an easy two-month convention. There were arguments, debates, and distrust. The interests and needs among the colonies were different; some delegates chose more radical action.

  On one end, the more moderate, while clearly against the oppressive laws of Parliament, nonetheless wanted to keep the colonies distinctly British. There was no “natural right” to freedom, some even argued. Said John Rutledge: “Our Claims I think are well founded on the british [sic] Constitution, and not on the Law of Nature.”55

  On the other side of the spectrum were firebrands such as Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee, fellow Virginians. Declared Patrick Henry, “I am not a Virginian but an American. . . . Government is at an End.”56

  Ultimately, on October 14, 1774, the group decided to issue a series of declarations and resolves, saying that “the inhabitants of the English Colonies in North America, by immutable laws of nature, the principles of the English Constitution . . . are entitled to life, liberty, and property, and they have never ceded to any sovereign power whatever a right to dispose of either without their consent.” This included their ancestors and it included immigrants, not just those native born, and it included their descendants. The colonists had the right to assemble, to air grievances, to petition the king.57 It was not a declaration of independence by any means, but it was a couple of steps toward it. British goods were to be boycotted, and, if situations were not settled by next year, the congress would again meet.

  Washington, during all this, acted “like a mature candidate,” according to Ron Chernow. He attended churches of all denominations—from Catholic to Quaker—meeting and befriending all.58 He did not want independence like his friend Patrick Henry, saying flat out that “no such thing is desired by any thinking man in North America.”59 He even gambled, winning 7 pounds.60 While there, he did not forget his filial duties, buying specifically for his mother a cloak for over 10 pounds and a riding chair for 40.61 He would not forget that.

  The First Continental Congress adjourned on October 26, 1774; by the end of the month, Washington returned home to Mount Vernon.

  IN FREDERICKSBURG THROUGHOUT THE MONTHS OF AUGUST, SEPTEMBER, and October, Mary would have gone through her usual motions for that period of time in the year. And as the fire of liberty was brewing in Philadelphia, in Fredericksburg “the great Race” took place.62 For four days, starting precisely at eleven in the morning from October 4, a Tuesday, to October 7, a Friday, horses and mares of various ages and sizes raced on four-mile tracks.63 On the fourth, William Fitzhugh’s horse Regulus won; Honorable John Tayloe’s mare Single Peeper won on the fifth. On the sixth, a Thursday, Fitzhugh won again, with his horse Kitty Fisher; and finally, on the seventh, Fitzhugh won yet a third time, with his horse named Chestnut. The news took half a column in the paper.64 It was an immensely popular event to commemorate the seasons, with large prizes of pounds or guineas distributed.

  Life went on in Fredericksburg. People came and went. Breweries went on sale.65 Resident Jacob Whilly listed for rent a tavern, stable, kitchen, and bake-house for up to a year.66 In late November, William Porter made quick work of selling garden seeds for the next spring.67

  And so on. Mary likely saw many of these events firsthand, or read or heard about them.

  Winter came and went. George noted December as a particularly heavy one; snow hit the thirteenth, twenty-third, twenty-seventh, and twenty-eighth of the month, with temperatures ranging from “not very cold” to “very cold.” January, on the other hand, was relatively calm, with only a mix of rain and snow on the nineteenth, but only a handful of cold or cool days themselves, and February likewise had a couple of snow days, but was, overall, pleasant.68 George himself, at least on the surface, seemed to be relatively calm before the proverbial storm.

  This year 1775 would bring more changes, more drastic, more radical.

  IT WAS MARCH 23, 1775. IN RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, AT HENRICO PARISH Church, an Anglican church built thirty-five years earlier. The weather was “Cloudy & Chilly—with appearances of Snow—wind being Easterly but none fell. Afternn. clear,” according to Washington. In his diary, he wrote simply that he “Dined at Mr. Patrick Cootes & lodgd where I had done the Night before.”69

  For three days, the Second Virginia Convention had met here, hearing and ratifying the Continental Congress’s resolutions. It was Patrick Henry, that same tough-minded fellow Virginian, who took the floor. Voice echoing and bellowing, all eyes on him, there was no question what he wanted for the colonies. “We must fight!” he yelled. “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”70

  THREE MONTHS EARLIER, GEORGE WASHINGTON, GEORGE MASON, MARTIN Cockburn, and several others proposed a plan to raise ammunition and funds for a militia to protect the rights of colonists.

  Now, Henry’s fiery speech put that to use. The assembly of Virginian delegates voted and agreed that a militia must be formed: Virginia must be placed “into a posture of defence,” and a petition for a group of volunteer militiamen was called. A tax was to be placed for the gathering of war supplies, and the delegates were to “prepare a plan for the encouragement of arts and manufactures in this Colony”—meaning, prepare for a war.71

  THERE WERE OTHER PRIORITIES, HOWEVER, OTHER DUTIES TO BE DONE. Maternal priorities. In late April, George totaled all the money he had lent to or spent for Mary since 1771. The last entry, from March 30, was her yearly allowance of 30 pounds. In total, he had spent 434 pounds, 11 shillings, and 8 pence for her, not an unsubstantial amount. This did not include the various small loans, uncounted. This was simply allowances and rent of her land. Gifts and such could add up.72

  YEARS LATER, WASHINGTON SAID THAT GREAT BRITAIN “UNDERSTOOD HERSELF perfectly well in this dispute, but did not comprehend America.”73 In another letter five years later, this time to Joseph Jones, he said that the Mother Country “thought it was only to hold up the rod, and all would be hush!”74

  England underestimated the colonies’ call for equality, and underestimated the collective frustration that had built up over decades. It wasn’t just a town here or a rogue colony there, it was the collective thirteen. The colonies were not going to tolerate the parliamentarian or royal abuse anymore. They were not going to accept the breaking of laws and traditions. They were going to fight for a voice, for representation, for sovereignty.

  Independence was another matter. That fight would not begin . . . yet.

  Chapter 10

  Off to War

  THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

  1775‒1783

  “I shall be ready to receive the misled with tenderness and mercy.”

  George Washington returned to Mount Vernon from Fredericksburg on the last day of March 1775, after dropping off his yearly allowance to Mary and dining with Fielding and Betty Lewis. On April
19, 1775, the weather was clear, but a hard wind from the west battered George’s Mount Vernon home. That night, two of his indentured servants, twenty-year-old Thomas Spears of Bristol and thirty-year-old William Webster of Scotland, sailed away from the plantation, taking a small yawl with them. George offered a hefty reward for their return.1 Indentured servants and slaves were prone to escape, to ironically seek that same freedom that the colonists and landowners wanted (in fact, Webster himself had previously run away); but overall, April 19, 1775, was normal.

  In Massachusetts that day, something entirely different happened. There was no preparation for war. There was war. In the early dawn hours, at 5:00 a.m., British troops led by Commander Francis Smith, at least four hundred in number, entered a town northwest from Boston named Lexington with the intent of arresting and confiscating the revolutionary leaders and armaments. A battle broke out, with the band of misfit militiamen surprisingly driving out the professional redcoats. About eighteen Americans were killed or wounded. Two hours later, in Concord, farther west, the same British companies entered the town and were similarly repelled by what were becoming known as the Minute Men. That day, there were one hundred colonist causalities, but over two hundred British were dead and wounded. It was a decisive victory.2

  Washington himself was “sobered and dismayed” by the news; writing to George Fairfax in late May, he noted that “unhappy it is though to reflect, that a Brother’s Sword has been sheathed in a Brother’s breast, and that, the once happy and peaceful plains of America are either to be drenched with Blood, or Inhabited by Slaves. Sad alternative!”3 Whatever peace they had built up or tried to build, whatever pleas to the king, it was for naught.