by Ron Chernow
By this point George Washington knew that a clash with the mother country was almost inevitable. For that reason, the auction of Belvoir’s effects in August and December must have carried heavy symbolic overtones for him. For reasons of pride, status, and undoubtedly nostalgia, George Washington bought more than half of the Fairfax furniture, everything from window curtains to candlesticks to a bust of Shakespeare. He indulged his old penchant for mahogany, the expensive wood that signified wealth in the colonies. It must have been a melancholy task for Washington to see Belvoir’s furnishings dismantled, ending the aristocratic world that had shaped his early dreams.
As the old world emptied out, a new one was being born that August in Williamsburg, where the rebel burgesses, trained in self-government, reconstituted themselves as the Virginia Convention. “We never before had so full a meeting . . . as on the present occasion,” Washington exulted, as more than one hundred delegates attended.23 Within a week, the delegates had thrashed out a plan aligned with the Fairfax Resolves, thrusting Washington into the forefront of the action. They agreed to set up an association that would ban imports beginning in November and, if Great Britain still refused to redress their grievances, tobacco exports after August 1775. They also issued a stinging indictment of the arbitrary behavior in Boston of Washington’s old colleague General Gage.
On Friday, August 5, 1774, George Washington’s life changed forever when he was elected one of seven Virginia delegates to the general congress that would meet in Philadelphia, to be known as the First Continental Congress. When these statesmen were selected, Jefferson said, a “shock of electricity” flew through the air.24 The vote underscored the dramatic elevation of Washington’s standing: he trailed Speaker Peyton Randolph by only a few votes and received nine votes more than the superlative orator Patrick Henry. Before leaving Williamsburg, Washington obtained a copy of Jefferson’s pamphlet A Summary View of the Rights of British America, which took dead aim at the notion that the colonies existed to benefit the mother country. Jefferson ended with a dire warning for George III: “Kings are the servants, not the proprietors of the people. Open your breast, Sire, to liberal and expanded thought. Let not the name of George the Third be a blot in the page of history.”25
ON AUGUST 30, 1774, two influential burgesses, Patrick Henry and Edmund Pendleton, spent the night at Mount Vernon before departing with Washington and his manservant, Billy Lee, for the First Continental Congress. They left on a sultry, windless morning, and Martha Washington, infused with martial spirit, saw them off like a good, self-sacrificing matron from antiquity. Edmund Pendleton left an indelible portrait of Martha’s unwavering commitment: “She seemed ready to make any sacrifice and was cheerful, though I know she felt anxious. She talked like a Spartan mother to her son on going to battle. ‘I hope you will stand firm—I know George will,’ she said. The dear little woman was busy from morning until night with domestic duties, but she gave us much time in conversation and affording us entertainment. When we set off in the morning, she stood in the door and cheered us with the good words, ‘God be with you gentlemen.’”26 It was a courageous show on the part of a woman who had already buried a husband and three children, the last of whom had died little more than a year before.
The three travelers rode into Philadelphia on September 4. The next morning they repaired to the City Tavern, where delegates decided to hold their meetings in Carpenters’ Hall. The choice of the jowly Peyton Randolph to chair the Congress furnished Washington with a potent ally. He’d had business as well as political dealings with Randolph, having loaned him 250 pounds a few years earlier, and Randolph had been one of four people assigned to monitor Washington’s handling of the Custis estate for the General Court.
The taciturn Washington, at forty-two, found himself in an assembly of splendid talkers who knew how to pontificate on every subject. John Adams left this slightly mocking commentary on the verbose gathering: “Every man in it is a great man—an orator, a critic, a statesman, and therefore every man upon every question must show his oratory, his criticism, and his political abilities.”27 Relegated to a secondary role, the modest, retiring Washington wasn’t appointed to either of the two new committees: one on colonial rights, the other on trade policy with Great Britain. Nonetheless, in this conclave of talkative egomaniacs, Washington’s understated style had an inevitable appeal. Amid gifted talkers, he was a masterful listener who characterized his role as that of “an attentive observer and witness.”28 It was slowly becoming clear that, in a fractious, boisterous gathering, a calm figure of sound judgment such as Washington could inspire confidence and serve as a unifying figure.
Amid much overheated rhetoric, Washington spoke hard, plain truths. Silas Deane of Connecticut reported home that the stony-faced George Washington had a “hard countenance” and was “a tolerable speaker . . . who speaks very modestly in a cool but determined style and accent.”29 A Virginian praised Washington as “a man noted as well for his good sense as his bravery.”30 From Washington’s recent letters to Bryan Fairfax, we know that he could serve up impassioned language, so that his reticence in Philadelphia reflected not simply a circumspect personality but a fine-tuned political instinct. On the surface, Washington may have been cool and phlegmatic, but he was fiery underneath, blasting the British as “diabolic contrivers.”31
The specter of military action preoccupied delegates who sized up Washington as a prospective commander in chief. There was an esprit de corps about Washington and his self-assured Virginians. According to John Adams, the Virginians “were the most spirited” people in the hall, and one Pennsylvanian said that, in comparison, “the Bostonians are mere milksops.”32 The delegates swapped tales of Washington’s youthful exploits in the French and Indian War, with Silas Deane writing excitedly home that Washington “was in the first actions in 1753 and 1754 on the Ohio and in 1755 was with Braddock and was the means of saving the remains of that unfortunate army.”33 In an inspired mood, Dr. Solomon Drowne of Rhode Island composed a martial tribute in verse to Washington: “With manly gait / His faithful steel suspended by his side, / Pass’d W-shi-gt-n along, Virginia’s hero.” People buttonholed him and pressed him to accept the army command, if offered. While hoping to avert bloodshed, Washington warned one correspondent that “more blood will be spilt on this occasion (if the ministry are determined to push matters to extremity) than history has ever yet furnished instances of in the annals of North America.”34
Increasingly a seasoned politician, gifted with a light touch, Colonel Washington seemed to know that self-promotion would only backfire among delegates who, by the nature of their revolt, possessed heightened fears of power-hungry leaders. The last thing they wanted was a general who pushed himself forward too overtly. As stories about Washington swirled around the Congress, he let them do the talking. Thomas Lynch of South Carolina told John Adams that Washington “had made the most eloquent speech at the Virginia Convention that ever was made. Says he, ‘I will raise 1000 men, subsist them at my own expense, and march myself at their head for the relief of Boston.’”35 That the rumor mill churned out such a thrilling (and likely apocryphal) tale about Washington foreshadowed the verdict of the following spring.
Washington worked the First Continental Congress like a mature candidate. He turned ecumenical in his churchgoing habits, attending services at Presbyterian, Quaker, Roman Catholic, and a pair of Anglican churches. With the weather consistently fine and clear, he socialized assiduously in the evenings, dining out in thirty-one private homes in two months and scarcely ever sticking to his lodgings. He became a habitué of something called the Governor’s Club, summarized by one visitor as “a select number of gentlemen that meet every night at a certain tavern, where they pass away a few hours in the pleasures of conversation and a cheerful glass.”36 With his compulsion to record his everyday life, Washington asked Lund Washington to send on his diary, disguised for safekeeping as a letter. “It will be found, I presume, on my writing table,” h
e wrote. “Put it under a good strong paper cover, sealed up as a letter.”37
Washington showed a knack for expanding his network of acquaintances, meeting with “Farmer” John Dickinson and befriending two young Philadelphians—merchant Thomas Mifflin and lawyer Joseph Reed—who later served as his aides. Along with John Adams, Washington received a memorable guided tour of the Pennsylvania Hospital from Dr. William Shippen, Jr. The finest hospital in the colonies, it still had a vaguely medieval air, as Adams noted: “We saw in the lower rooms underground the cells of the lunatics . . . some furious, some merry, some melancholy.”38 An inveterate shopper, Washington also took time to buy a cloak for his mother and a pocketbook for his wife. This conservative revolutionary decided that Billy Lee should dress a little more fashionably for the historic occasion and plunked down fifteen shillings for new shoes for his slave.
The First Continental Congress balked at the still-radical idea of independence, and George Washington expressed the predominant mood when he declared flatly, “I am well satisfied, as I can be of my existence, that no such thing is desired by any thinking man in all North America; on the contrary, that it is the ardent wish of the warmest advocates for liberty that peace and tranquillity, upon constitutional grounds, may be restored and the horrors of civil discord prevented.”39 The delegates clung to the pleasing fiction that a benevolent George III was being undermined by treacherous ministers, and they implored the king as their “loving father” to rouse himself and rescue his colonial subjects. Going beyond mere words, they set up a Continental Association (hence the name Continental Congress) that would block imports sooner, and exports later, from and to Great Britain. To police this agreement, delegates called for creation of local enforcement committees, which could spawn militias if necessary. They also vowed to “wholly discontinue the slave trade” and “discourage every species of extravagance and dissipation, especially all horse-racing, and all kinds of gaming, cock-fightings, exhibitions of shows, plays, and other expensive diversions and entertainments.”40 This emphasis on moral reformation could only have assisted the likelihood that the clean-living Washington would become commander in chief. An exceptionally conscientious delegate, he was one of only two Virginia delegates still in Philadelphia when the First Continental Congress adjourned on October 26, 1774.
On October 30 George Washington was back at Mount Vernon, where the most urgent matter claiming his attention was the sale of property owned by his business partner George Mercer, then in woeful financial straits. Several weeks later Washington conducted a sale of property, including ninety slaves, from Mercer’s plantation at Bull Run Mountains. “The Negroes, horses, and stock have all sold exceeding high,” Washington reported after the auction .41 It shows the schizophrenic nature of Washington’s world that he was auctioning off slaves in the immediate aftermath of the First Continental Congress, which had endorsed an end to importing slaves. Ditto for Washington’s action in February 1775, when he paid fifty-two pounds “for value of a Negro boy Tom,” whom he sent off to his western lands .42
While Washington was in Philadelphia, one hundred neighbors in Fairfax County, under the tutelage of George Mason, had organized themselves into a voluntary militia—probably the first in the colony—electing Washington their commander. Borrowing the colors of the English Whig party, the Fairfax Independent Company wore blue uniforms with buff facings and white stockings. Their military gear was a curious hybrid of European and American traditions: they carried bayonets and cartridge boxes for muskets right along with tomahawks. Washington knew of the unit’s formation while he was still in Philadelphia, for they had asked him to order drums, fifes, and halberds. To that he added his own personal order for a silk sash, gorgets, epaulettes, and a copy of Thomas Webb’s A Military Treatise on the Appointments of the Army. Across Virginia, Washington rejoiced, men were “forming themselves into independent companies, choosing their officers, arming, equipping, and training for the worst event.”43 As groups of militia sprang up, they clamored for Washington as their commander. Now ubiquitous in the cause, he accepted the field command of four independent companies: in Prince William, Fauquier, Richmond, and Spotsylvania counties. It is striking how forthright Washington had become. In January the Virginia Gazette thanked the aspiring hero in a quatrain: “In spite of Gage’s flaming sword / And Carleton’s Canadian troop / Brave Washington shall give the word, / And we’ll make them howl and whoop.”44
During the winter of 1774-75 Washington and Mason did everything they could to strengthen the Fairfax militia, even advancing it money for ammunition. In order to be reimbursed, they and other local leaders decided to levy a three-shilling poll tax on Fairfax County citizens “for the common benefit, protection and defense of the inhabitants.”45 The residents had little choice but to pay this “voluntary” tax: the local sheriff, among others, would collect the money, and laggards would be stigmatized on a special list. The poll tax was a highly coercive measure. Even amid the hubbub of revolutionary activity, Washington remained rather testy about money, accusing Mason of collecting money from those prepared to pay and leaving him “to scuffle as he could with the rest.” Mason grew incensed at the notion that he wasn’t going to share all proceeds equally: “It cannot but give me concern that I should be thought capable of such disingenuous conduct.”46 As chairman of the Fairfax County Committee, Washington expanded defensive preparations by urging residents to form sixty-eight-man companies and study military science. The joint efforts of Washington and Mason helped to convert Fairfax County into a rabid center of resistance to British rule.
In late December 1774 the arrogant, irascible Charles Lee arrived for a six-day visit to Mount Vernon. He was a painfully thin man with a small head set on a spindly body. Born in England, Lee had served as a major in the French and Indian War, then fought as a mercenary in various European wars before sailing back to America in 1773. Haughty, imperious, and overflowing with opinions, Lee seldom had a kind word for anyone’s military talents except his own. Versed in Greek and Latin, worldly and well traveled, he had a razor-sharp wit and must have made Washington feel a bit insular in comparison. This eccentric and notably slovenly man was always trailed by his beloved dogs. “When I can be convinced that men are as worthy objects as dogs,” he once explained, “I shall transfer my benevolence to them.”47 It was widely thought that the ambitious Lee had set his sights on the job of commander in chief, but he disclaimed any such intention. “To think myself qualified for the most important charge that ever was committed to mortal man is the last stage of presumption” was how he put it in a letter to Edmund Burke.48
In March 1775 Washington was summoned to Richmond to attend the Second Virginia Convention, held at Henrico Parish Church, an Anglican house of worship. This meeting ratified the resolutions of the First Continental Congress and applauded the work of the seven Virginia delegates. Patrick Henry argued that British troops intended to enslave the colonies, and he set pulses racing with his flaming response: “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!”49 Buoyed by these words, the convention agreed that Virginia should be placed in “a posture of defense.”50 Along with Henry, Washington was named to a committee that recommended raising volunteer companies in every county; he served on another that was instructed to “prepare a plan for the encouragement of arts and manufactures in this colony.”51 Such was Washington’s new preeminence that when the gathering chose seven members to attend the Second Continental Congress, Washington was the second one named, ahead of Patrick Henry and superseded only by Peyton Randolph. The vote was overwhelming, as he received 106 of 108 votes cast. On the same day, as if struck by a sudden premonition of what was about to happen in Philadelphia, Washington wrote to his brother Jack that “it is my full intention to devote my life and fortune in the cause we are engaged in.”52
It is asto
nishing that Washington, having long brooded over money as he built up his fortune, should now be willing to hazard all on this highly speculative rebellion. The death of Patsy Custis had briefly afforded some financial relief, but the anxiety over money had quickly returned. A few weeks earlier, when his brother Jack asked to borrow two hundred pounds, George had turned him down cold, saying “I would gladly borrow that sum myself for a few months, so exceedingly difficult do I find it, under the present scarcity of cash, to collect enough to answer this emergency and at the same time comply with my other engagements.”53
Although George Washington scarcely needed further reasons to detest British rule, Lord Dunmore inflicted one last blow. Back at Mount Vernon, Washington heard a distressing report that Dunmore planned to annul the land patents that Washington had received under the 1754 proclamation. Seizing upon a technicality, the royal governor claimed that Washington’s surveyor, William Crawford, was improperly qualified. When Washington asked for clarification, Dunmore confirmed the worst, stating that “the surveyor who surveyed those lands did not qualify agreeable to the act of assembly directing the duty and qualification of surveyors.”54 This appalling decision, if upheld, would strip Washington of 23,000 acres of land. He told Dunmore that he found the decision “incredible,” citing the enormous time and expense consumed by the nullified surveys.55 Washington didn’t buckle under pressure from Dunmore. As Douglas Southall Freeman notes, “If Washington suspected blackmail or reprisal, it did not deter him from a single act of military preparation or from the utterance of a word he would have spoken in aid of the colonial cause.”56
