Martha was certainly consulted about these plans, no doubt spending hours listening as he debated the pros and cons of one option or another; but building was George’s passion, not hers. For him, the house was both a consuming interest and an expression of his position and self-esteem. Martha’s devotion was to people, not property. For her, the important question about the house was the number of relatives and friends she could fit into it.
In May 1774, Martha and George went down to Williamsburg. During the first week of their stay, he lodged in the capital city and attended sessions of the House of Burgesses while she stayed at Eltham with Nancy. The Bassetts had passed two enjoyable weeks with them at Mount Vernon the month before. Nancy was Martha’s dearest friend, and the distance between them pained her.
That week, further news from Boston reached Williamsburg. The affronted British Parliament had passed the Coercive Acts (called by Americans the Intolerable Acts), a series of provisions meant to bring Bostonians to heel. Notification of these new laws was brought to Boston by a military force in May: the port was to be closed to all trade on June 1 until reparations for the lost tea and taxes were paid—in effect abruptly stopping all business in the city and throwing hundreds of men out of work. Other provisions tightened imperial administrative and judicial control, and perhaps most provocatively, British soldiers would be quartered in Boston homes. Loyalty and confidence in the mother country started to falter even in Virginia, the most British of the colonies in culture and tradition. But nothing yet seemed completely irrevocable; after all, previous crises had been resolved.
Although the times were filled with controversy, there was still room for civility. The royal governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, had succeeded Lord Botetourt three years before; his wife, six of their children, and several servants had recently come out from England to join him. Lady Dunmore, the daughter as well as the wife of an earl, was beautiful, elegant, and very chic. Virginians may have been edging slowly toward revolution, but they still admired the English aristocracy and were eager to meet them socially.
After a weekend at Eltham, George brought his wife to town on Monday for social events in honor of Lady Dunmore. Martha enjoyed dinners with colonial officials, including the governor and his wife, a ride and breakfast out at their farm, and a grand ball given by the House of Burgesses to welcome Lady Dunmore. The countess’s gown was the most gorgeous ever seen in Williamsburg. It did come straight from London. As she led off the ball with a minuet, followed by the popular country dances, she was so graceful that one observer said with a sigh, “We had never seen dancing before.” Martha no doubt enjoyed every glamorous minute while well aware that only the good manners of Virginians allowed the social events to go on during the same week that they were moving closer to rebellion against the government Dunmore represented.
On Tuesday, the burgesses unanimously passed a proposal to declare June 1, the day the port of Boston would be closed, a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer. On Thursday, after the Washingtons returned from the governor’s farm, Lord Dunmore dissolved the assembly in response to the resolution and the fear of even more aggressive measures. On Friday, the day of the ball for Lady Dunmore, the burgesses met in the Apollo Room of the Raleigh Tavern and passed resolutions in support of American liberties and against the Coercive Acts. They also agreed to boycott tea and other British goods and to write to the other colonies proposing a general congress. George Washington was one of the signers.
With no legislative business possible, the Washingtons spent nearly another month in a combination of business and pleasure, including the fireworks in the capital in honor of Lady Dunmore, before they returned home in late June. The Custises came to spend July with them before George rode back to Williamsburg for the rebellious Virginia Convention, which began August 1. He took Jack along with him to look over his plantations, while Nelly apparently stayed at Mount Vernon with Martha. The members, who included most of the burgesses, agreed not to import any British goods whatsoever (except medicines) beginning November 1. They elected seven delegates to represent the colony in September at “the General Congress at Philadelphia,” George Washington among them.
He was beginning to emerge as one of the natural leaders of the American colonies in their swiftly deepening split with Great Britain, and Martha fully supported his involvement. Politics at Mount Vernon was not a hush-hush matter kept from the ladies’ delicate ears. Martha and George Washington discussed anything and everything.
On August 30, 1774, two of George’s fellow commissioners—Edmund Pendleton and Patrick Henry—came to spend the night before going to Philadelphia, along with the formidable George Mason. The evening must have passed in intense political discussion. The next day dawned very hot and windless. After dinner, Washington, Pendleton, and Henry rode away to attend what was to be called the Continental Congress. Their charge was to discuss joint action vis-à-vis their mutual rulers.
Edmund Pendleton wrote, “I was much pleased with Mrs. Washington and her spirit. She seemed ready to make any sacrifice and was cheerful though I knew 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.’ ”
During George’s absence, Martha would have read the newspapers faithfully and corresponded with him regularly. A new spirit of colonywide cooperation and resistance toward Britain was in the air. Twelve of the thirteen colonies sent representatives to Philadelphia, and they laid out the unconstitutional acts and encroachments of British authorities. The congressmen agreed to enter into a nonimportation, nonconsumption, and nonexportation association and to prepare addresses on their grievances to the people of Great Britain, the inhabitants of British America, and King George. Another Congress was scheduled for the following year. George arrived home on October 30, and he and Martha spent the fall about their usual pursuits, while following political events closely.
Patsy’s death, Jack’s marriage, and the deepening chasm between Great Britain and her colonies signaled the end of the long Mount Vernon idyll for Martha Washington. Their last full year of peace was 1774. For the rest of her life, through the American Revolution and her husband’s two terms as president, she longed to recapture those peaceful days before George Washington stepped irrevocably onto the stage of American history.
CHAPTER SIX
Lady Washington and the American Revolution
With the rift deepening between Britain and the colonies, George rode to Richmond in March 1775 for the second Virginia Convention, returning at the end of the month. Once again, he had been chosen as part of the Virginia delegation to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. During April, Jack and Nelly were back at Mount Vernon when many of Virginia’s leading politicians, including George Mason, came and went, in discussion and preparation for the Congress.
Then the men of Massachusetts upped the ante. On April 19, militiamen attacked the British regulars sent out to confiscate their weapons, first at Lexington and then at Concord, pursuing the fleeing redcoats all the way back to Boston. Their dander up, they besieged the city, calling for reinforcements from other New England militias. Even before the Congress gathered to consider the options, these colonists were in arms against Great Britain.
On May 4, 1775, George Washington rolled away in the family coach with Richard Henry Lee, the latest in a stream of visitors, who was also returning to Philadelphia as a delegate. Martha waited and fretted as the Congress discussed courses of conduct; although she got some information from George’s letters, she probably wasn’t prepared for the news she received at the end of June.
British intransigence and the New Englanders’ siege of Boston pushed the Second Continental Congress into much m
ore decisive action than the first had taken. John Adams, the radical lawyer from Massachusetts, suggested on June 14 the need to elect a national commander; when Washington realized whom he had in mind, he left the chamber. The following day, Adams proposed that George Washington be appointed general and commander in chief of the forces outside Boston, which would be reconstituted into a continental army rather than a loose collection of New England militia units. There were other possible commanders, each with his own supporters, but Washington had military experience and stature, and he was from Virginia. Unless the conflict became truly colonieswide, including Virginia (the oldest and largest of them) and the other southern colonies, New England would surely be overcome. When the appointment was passed unanimously the next day, Washington accepted, with some genuine misgivings about his own qualifications.
In his acceptance address, as recorded by Edmund Pendleton, he requested that the Congress pay his expenses but refused to accept a salary since “no pecuniary consideration could have tempted me to have accepted the Arduous employment.” To that sentence, he added one key phrase: “at the expence of my domestk ease & happi[ness].” No man enjoyed home life more than Washington, and he truly regretted giving up its pleasures.
George waited three days before writing to Martha on June 18, to give her what he knew she would consider very bad news. As always, his lengthy epistle began “My Dearest” and he called her “my dear Patcy” twice as he made his case. George wrote of his deep concern about the uneasiness he knew his news would cause her. Swearing that he had not sought the appointment, both because of “unwillingness to part with you and the family” and his sense of unworthiness, he assured her that “I should enjoy more real happiness and felicity in one month with you, at home, than I have the most distant prospect of reaping abroad, if my stay was to be Seven times Seven years.” But his sense of honor and responsibility wouldn’t allow him to refuse.
Hoping that the British government would knuckle under to colonial determination fairly soon, he wrote that he had no doubt he would “return safe to you in the fall”—perhaps more as a consolation than a true belief. He begged her not to be unhappy “at being left alone”—this to a woman who lived in a house packed with relatives, friends, visitors, and servants. But to Martha, he well knew, his presence was the one essential to her happiness. Alone to her meant being without him. Hoping that she would summon her resolution and pass her time “as agreeably as possible,” he almost pleaded to hear that she had accepted his decision and “to hear it from your own Pen.”
George was never an overbearing patriarch: he left any decision about where Martha would stay in his absence to her own good judgment. During the few months that he expected to be gone, he begged her to go wherever she liked. Perhaps to their Alexandria town house? Or visiting her family down in New Kent County? “In short, my earnest, & most ardent desire is, that you would pursue any Plan that is most likely to produce content, and a tolerable degree of Tranquility as it must add greatly to my uneasy feelings to hear that you are dissatisfied, and complaining at what I really could not avoid.”
Enclosing a new will drawn up by Pendleton, he expressed his hope that she would find agreeable the terms it laid out. Despite the fortune she brought to their marriage, legally he didn’t need to consult her about his testamentary dispositions, and many husbands exercised absolute control over their wives’ wealth, to the women’s misery. But the confidence between Martha and George was unconditional, and he considered her a full partner in their relationship. He ended the letter with a postscript about his purchase of two suits “of what I was told was the prettiest Muslin,” which she had requested in her most recent letter. As with so much of life, here the dramatic and the commonplace were inextricably entwined.
Over the next days, he and members of the Congress worked out the appointments of the army’s major generals and made arrangements for his command. But George’s most immediate concern was his wife. In the first week of his appointment, he wrote seven known letters; only two dealt with military matters. He wrote two letters to Martha and three to relatives to make arrangements for her safety and happiness.
On June 19, he wrote to Burwell Bassett, asking him and Nancy to visit Mount Vernon and to convince Martha to go south with them, “as I have no expectations of returning till Winter & feel great uneasiness at her lonesome Situation.” Apparently, his optimism to his wife about a fall return could be dropped a bit when he wrote to his brother-in-law.
The same day, he wrote to Jack Custis, “My great concern upon this occasion, is the thought of leaving your Mother under the uneasiness which I know this affair will throw her into; I therefore hope, expect, & indeed have no doubt, of your using every means in your power to keep up her Spirits. . . . I have I must confess very uneasy feelings on her acct.” The solicitous husband continued with the assurance of his pleasure at having Jack and Nelly live at Mount Vernon at any time, especially now “when I think it absolutely necessary for the peace & satisfaction of your Mother.”
The next day, he wrote to his brother Jack Washington, who lived not too far away in Westmoreland County, hoping that he and his wife, Hannah, would find time during the summer to visit Mount Vernon. He was fully conscious of how much he meant to Martha and of how much she would miss him. Without false modesty, he described his absence and danger as “a cutting stroke upon her.” He sent the traveling coach and its four horses back home for her use. To replace them, he bought a light phaeton and a team of two white horses, as well as three additional mounts.
Having done all he could for Martha’s happiness short of coming home, he turned to the army. The Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, though an American defeat, gave both the British and the Americans themselves a new appreciation of the colonists’ strength under fire. Six days later, as Washington was leaving for Boston, he dropped Martha a short note to express his confidence in “a happy Meeting with you sometime in the Fall.” He sat writing in a room full of congressmen and Philadelphians come to bid farewell to the man they counted on to resolve the present crisis. As they called for his attention, he assured his much loved wife that “I retain an unalterable affection for you, which neither time or distance can change.”
Martha decided to stay at Mount Vernon while waiting: that was where George would go at once if the military action was brief and decisive or if he allowed himself any leave. As always during his infrequent absences, they corresponded regularly, generally weekly. The postal service was in flux from the royal mail to a constitutional post office, then to a continental system. Many letters went astray because of “the infernal curiosity of some of the Scoundrel Postmasters” and loyalist interception of correspondence—to Washington’s indignation.
As much as he worried over “the heavy, and lonesome hours of my Wife,” he missed home himself and looked eagerly for letters. Richard Henry Lee and other friends made it a point to stop by to see Martha and send on any news to Washington.
One possibility terrified some Virginians, especially Alexandrians: a British man-of-war might sail up the Potomac to Mount Vernon, kidnap Martha, and hold her prisoner. The threat seemed especially real since Virginia’s royal governor had retreated to a British ship lurking near Williamsburg, within easy striking distance of any target on Virginia’s rivers. But Martha refused to let any danger drive her from home. An accomplished horsewoman could easily outdistance the marines that a ship would send ashore to capture her. Although George had scoffed at the notion, he fretted about it often in his letters. No one yet had any idea what sort of war this would be, if any, and whether or not civilians would be attacked.
Throughout the fall, Martha often declared that she would go to camp if George would allow it, but to her disappointment no invitation came. She finally decided to go to the Bassetts but waited until Nelly Custis recovered from giving birth to a baby girl, who died soon afterward. Late in October, Jack escorted his mother and wife south, stopping for a few days in Fredericksburg to see
Mary Washington and the Lewises; in New Kent County, they stayed at Eltham and visited the Dandridge clan. Given the exigencies of wartime, his stepfather had turned over the management of the Custis property to Jack, even though he wasn’t yet of age, and Jack probably met with his overseers on this trip.
Charity was one of the bedrocks of the Washingtons’ joint belief about the responsibilities inherent in their good fortune. As a matter of course, they provided food and clothing to their poor neighbors and always gave wayfarers a meal and a night’s lodging. In their absence, Lund Washington was instructed to continue “the Hospitality of the House, with respect to the Poor. . . . Let no one go hungry away.” Lund put it succinctly: “I believe Mrs. Washingtons Charitable disposition increases in the proportion with her meat House.” Soon after arriving at Eltham, Martha heard about a poor neighbor woman with a sick husband, and she directed her overseer to “let her have a barrel of corn and half a barrel of wheat . . . and give her a fat hog.”
During that summer and fall at headquarters in Cambridge, outside besieged Boston, Washington began the enormous task of creating a national army. The Congress had named four major generals to serve under the commander in chief, all of them with command experience in the French and Indian War. These appointments were as much politico-geographic as military, and the upper echelon of the army changed during the years of the war as officers’ fortunes in battle rose and fell.
One of the brigadier generals, the English-born Horatio Gates, was appointed adjutant general. An officer in the regular British army, Gates had moved to a Virginia plantation near Petersburg when his career stalled. His military experience and talent for administration made him invaluable at Cambridge, where he wrote army regulations and maintained military records.
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