Congress designated Washington’s friend, Representative Henry Lee of Virginia, to deliver the eulogy at Philadelphia. There Lee coined the three phrases that still characterize Washington: “First in war—first in peace—and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”5 Of these superlatives commonly ascribed to Washington, the first speaks to his role during the Revolutionary War and the second refers principally to his presidency. The third, the one that Washington would have most treasured, relates in large part to the trust and affection he earned between those two periods of official service, when he voluntarily relinquished power yet never stopped nurturing the new republic. Washington was as indispensable to America during these middle years as before or after them. During that pivotal phase of the country’s development, he laid the foundation for the Constitution, the government, and the sacred union of states and people that has lasted for more than 225 years and promises to continue long into the future.
Notes
List of Abbreviations for Frequently Cited Works
AFP: Adams Family Papers. Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, 1954–59. Microfilm ed.
Annals of Congress: The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States. 42 vols. Washington, DC: Gales and Seaton, 1834.
DGW: Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig, eds. The Diaries of George Washington, 6 vols. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1976–79.
DHFFC: Linda Grant DePauw et al., eds. The Documentary History of the First Federal Congress of the United States of America. 15 vols. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972–.
DHFFE: Merrill Jensen et al., eds. The Documentary History of the First Federal Election. 4 vols. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976–89.
DHRC: Merrill Jensen et al., eds. The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution. 26 vols. Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1976–.
Farrand: Max Farrand, ed. The Record of the Federal Convention of 1787. 4 vols. Rev. ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1937.
GWD: John C. Fitzpatrick, ed. The Diaries of George Washington, 1748–1799. 4 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1925.
JCC: Library of Congress. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789. 34 vols. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1904–37.
PAH: Harold C. Syrett and Jacob Cooke, eds. The Papers of Alexander Hamilton. 27 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961–87.
PGM: Robert A. Rutland, ed. The Papers of George Mason, 1725–1792. 3 vols. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1970.
PGW, CS: W. W. Abbot et al., eds. The Papers of George Washington: Confederation Series. 6 vols. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1992–97.
PGW, PS: W. W. Abbot et al., eds. The Papers of George Washington: Presidential Series. 16 vols. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987–.
PGW, RS: Dorothy Twohig et al., eds. The Papers of George Washington: Retirement Series. 4 vols. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998–99.
PGW, RWS: W. W. Abbot et al., eds. The Papers of George Washington: Revolutionary War Series. 22 vols. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1985–.
PJM: Robert A. Rutland et al., eds. The Papers of James Madison. 17 vols. Chicago and Charlottesville: University of Chicago Press and University Press of Virginia, 1962–.
PTJ: Julian P. Boyd et al., eds. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. 39 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1950–.
WBF: Jared Sparks, ed. The Works of Benjamin Franklin. 10 vols. Philadelphia: Childs & Peterson, 1840.
WGW: John Clement Fitzpatrick et al., eds. The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745–1799. 39 vols. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1931–44.
WTJ: A. A. Lipscomb and A. E. Bergh, eds. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson. 20 vols. Washington, DC: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1900–1904.
Preface
1. George Washington to James Madison, Sept. 23, 1788, PGW, CS 6: 534.
2. George Washington to Lafayette, April 5, 1783, WGW, 26: 298.
3. George Washington to James Warren, Oct. 7, 1785, PGW, CS 3: 300.
4. George Washington to William Grayson, Aug. 22, 1785, PGW, CS 3: 194.
5. George Washington to David Humphreys, Dec. 26, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 480.
Chapter 1: Retiring Becomes Him
1. “Report of a Committee of Arrangements for the Public Audience,” Dec. 22, 1783, PTJ, 6: 410 n. 1.
2. Dec. 23, 1783, JCC, 25: 837–38.
3. James McHenry to Margaret Caldwell, Dec. 23, 1783, PTJ, 6: 406.
4. Dec. 23, 1783, JCC, 25: 838.
5. Ibid., p. 839.
6. Thomas Fleming, The Perils of Peace (New York: Collins, 2007), 321.
7. Benjamin West, quoted in Garry Wills, Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), 13.
8. Jonathan Trumbull Jr., quoted in ibid.
9. E.g., “Extract of a Letter from a Gentleman in Annapolis,” New Jersey Gazette, Jan. 6, 1784, p. 3.
10. McHenry to Caldwell, Dec. 23, 1783, PTJ, 6: 406.
11. “New York,” Independent Gazette (New York), Jan. 15, 1784, p. 2.
12. Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, April 16, 1784, PTJ, 7: 106–7.
13. George Washington, WGW, 3: 305.
14. George Washington to Lafayette, Feb. 1, 1784, PGW, CS 1: 88.
15. April 29, 1783, JCC, 24: 291.
16. For example, at the time, Madison wrote that officers’ petitions would “furnish new topics in favor the Impost.” James Madison to Edmund Randolph, Dec. 30, 1782, PJM, 5: 473.
17. George Washington to Joseph Jones, March 12, 1783, WGW, 26: 214.
18. Along with Gates, Washington at first blamed Robert Morris but then shifted his accusation to Gouverneur Morris, who then served as Robert Morris’s assistant. Compare George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, April 4, 1783, WGW, 26: 293, with George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, April 16, 1783, WGW, 26: 324. Stewart carried letters from Robert and Gouverneur Morris. See generally, Charles Rappleye, Robert Morris: Financier of the Revolution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 331–51; and Richard H. Kohn, “The Inside History of the Newburgh Conspiracy,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., 27 (1970): 205–6.
19. James Madison, “Notes of Debates,” Feb. 20, 1783, JCC, 25: 906. See generally, John Ferling, The Ascent of George Washington (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009), 231–33.
20. March 10, 1783, JCC, 24: 295–97.
21. “General Orders,” March 11, 783, WGW, 26: 208.
22. March 12, 1783, JCC, 24: 299.
23. George Washington, “To the Officers of the Army,” March 15, 1783, WGW, 26: 226–27.
24. Ibid., 222 n. 38.
25. Horatio Gates, [Minutes of Meeting of Officers], March 15, 1783, JCC, 24: 311.
26. George Washington to Theodorick Bland, April 4, 1783 (first letter), WGW, 26: 288.
27. Washington to Hamilton, April 4, 1783, WGW, 26: 293.
28. Ibid.
29. Washington to Hamilton, April 16, 1783, WGW, 26: 324.
30. Washington to Bland, April 4, 1783 (first letter), WGW, 26: 289. See also, Washington to Bland, April 4, 1783 (second letter), WGW, 26: 294.
31. Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, April 8, 1783, PAH, 3: 317–19. See also Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, March 25, 1783, PAH, 3: 306.
32. Compare Washington to Hamilton, April 16, 1783, WGW, 26: 324 with Hamilton to Washington, April 8, 1783, PAH, 3: 319.
33. In his sympathetic biography of Hamilton, Ron Chernow depicted this incident as showing “Hamilton at his most devious.” Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton (New York: Penguin, 2004), 177. That Washington saw it this way, see Ferling, Ascent of George Washington, 239 (“Whatever Washington had thought of Hamilton before this, he now knew the frightening and menacing lengths to which his former aide would go”); and Chernow, Hamil
ton, 177 (“Washington must have seen that Hamilton, for all his brains and daring, sometimes lacked judgment and had to be supervised carefully”).
34. Washington to Hamilton, April 4, 1783, WGW, 26: 293.
35. Washington to Hamilton, April 16, 1783, WGW, 26: 324.
36. George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, March 31, 1783, WGW, 26: 276–77.
37. George Washington, “Sentiments on a Peace Establishment,” [May 1783], WGW, 26: 374–98.
38. George Washington, “Circular to the States,” June 8, 1783, WGW, 26: 483–96.
39. Ibid.
40. James Thomas Flexner, George Washington in the American Revolution (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967), 514.
41. George Washington, “General Orders,” April 18, 1783, WGW, 26: 336.
42. George Washington to Marquis de Lafayette, April 5, 1783, WGW, 26: 298.
43. George Washington to Nathanael Greene, March 31, 1783, WGW, 26: 275.
44. George Washington to John Augustine Washington, June 15, 1783, WGW, 27: 12.
45. E.g., George Washington to William Gordon, July 8, 1783, WGW, 27: 49.
46. George Washington, “Farewell to the Armies of the United States,” Nov. 2, 1783, WGW, 27: 222–27.
47. The officers’ response was widely reprinted in newspapers throughout the country, including in “To His Excellency George Washington,” South-Carolina Weekly Gazette, Dec. 19, 1783, p. 2.
48. “From Rivington’s New-York Gazette,” Connecticut Journal, Dec. 3, 1783, p. 2.
49. “New-York, December 6,” Connecticut Journal, Dec. 17, 1783, p. 2. For a description of the display, see “New-York, Dec. 3,” Political Intelligencer, Dec. 9, 1783, p. 2.
50. “December 10,” Massachusetts Spy, Dec. 18, 1783, p. 3 (text of Washington’s toast).
51. “New-York, December 6,” Independent New-York Gazette, Dec. 6, 1783, p. 3; Douglas Southall Freeman, George Washington: A Biography, vol. 6 (New York: Scribner’s, 1952), 468.
52. Chernow, Hamilton, 185.
53. George Washington, “To the Citizens of New Brunswick,” Dec. 6, 1783, WGW, 26: 260.
54. George Washington, “To the Burgesses and Common Council of the Borough of Wilmington,” Dec. 16, 1783, WGW, 26: 277.
55. “Address from a Committee of Merchants,” Freeman’s Journal, Dec. 10, 1783, p. 3.
56. John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 1790, quoted in Joseph Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (New York: Knopf, 2000), 167.
57. “Annapolis,” Pennsylvania Packet, Jan. 1, 1784, p. 3.
58. Ibid.
59. “Extract of a Letter from Annapolis,” Providence Gazette, Jan. 17, 1784, p. 3.
60. Dec. 23, 1783, JCC, 25: 838.
Chapter 2: Reeling in the West
1. George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, March 3, 1784, PGW, CS 1: 169.
2. George Washington to Lauzun, Feb. 1, 1784, PGW, CS 1: 91. See also George Washington to Robert Morris, Jan. 4, 1784, PGW, CS 1: 11 (“this retreat from my public cares”).
3. George Washington to Tankerville, Jan. 20, 1784, PGW, CS 1: 65.
4. For an extended discussion with references, see Edmund S. Morgan, “George Washington: The Aloof American,” in Don Higginbotham, ed., George Washington Reconsidered (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2001), 290–91.
5. For an extended discussion with references, see Henry Wiencek, An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003), 92–96.
6. George Washington to Fielding Lewis Jr., Feb. 27, 1784, PGW, CS 1: 161.
7. George Washington to Henry Knox, Feb. 20, 1784, PGW, CS 1: 137–38.
8. George Washington to Chastellux, Feb. 1, 1784, PGW, CS 1: 85–86.
9. George Washington to Lafayette, Feb. 1, 1784, PGW, CS 1: 87–89.
10. George Washington to Jonathan Trumbull Jr., Jan. 5, 1784, PGW, CS 1: 12.
11. George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, Jan. 18, 1784, PGW, CS 1: 57.
12. For an extended discussion with references, see Dorothy Twohig, “‘That Species of Property’: Washington’s Role in the Controversy over Slavery,” in Higginbotham, ed., Washington Reconsidered, 121–25.
13. Wiencek, Imperfect God, 354–58. According to this account, Martha did not even free her own half sister, Ann, who served as a house slave on the plantation, but her granddaughter did so as soon as Ann passed to her and her husband after Martha died. Ibid., 84–86, 282–83. Martha’s father, John Dandridge, allegedly sired Ann near the end of his life. She was about the same age as Martha’s children by her first husband, Daniel Parke Custis, one of whom, the rakish John Parke “Jacky” Custis, possibly fathered a son, William Costin, with Ann (his aunt). Although born of a slave and thus part of Martha’s dower property, William was never enslaved. He would have been Martha’s grandson by Jacky and half nephew by Ann. Wiencek posits that Martha kept him out of bondage. Ibid., 289.
14. John Ferling, The Ascent of George Washington (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009), 245.
15. George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, March 29, 1784, PGW, CS 1: 239.
16. George Washington to Lafayette, Dec. 8, 1784, PGW, CS 2: 175.
17. Thomas Jefferson to Madame de Tesse, Dec. 8, 1813, WTJ, 10: 450.
18. For an extended discussion with references, see James Thomas Flexner, George Washington and the New Nation (1783–1793) (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969), 7.
19. Washington to Trumbull, PGW, CS 1: 413.
20. George Washington to Chastellux, June 2, 1784, PGW, CS 1: 413.
21. Washington to Lafayette, PGW, CS 2: 175.
22. George Washington to John Augustine Washington, June 30, 1784, PGW, CS 1: 278.
23. GWD, April 4, 1748, 1: 9–10.
24. George Washington, Certificate to James Rumsey, Sept. 7, 1784, WGW, 27: 468; George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, Oct. 10, 1784, WGW, 27: 480.
25. GWD, 2: 288.
26. George Washington to Lund Washington, Aug. 20, 1775, PGW, RWS 1: 335.
27. George Washington to Gilbert Simpson, Feb. 13, 1784, PGW, CS 1: 117.
28. GWD, Sept. 13, 1784, 2: 291.
29. Joel Achenbach, The Grand Idea: George Washington’s Potomac and the Race West (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 84.
30. George Washington to Thomas Freeman, Oct. 16, 1785, PGW, CS 3: 308.
31. GWD, Sept. 14, 1784, 2: 291–92.
32. George Washington to Thomas Smith, Dec. 7, 1785, PGW, CS 3: 438–39.
33. GWD, Sept. 22, 1784, 2: 297.
34. George Washington to Charles Simms, Sept. 22, 1786, WGW, 29: 8.
35. GWD, Sept. 22, 1784, 2: 298.
36. Boyd Crumrine, ed., History of Washington County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: L. H. Everts, 1882), 859.
37. George Washington to John Witherspoon, March 10, 1784, PGW, CS 1: 197.
38. George Washington to Jacob Read, Nov. 3, 1784, PGW, CS 2: 118–19.
39. GWD, Sept. 12, 1784, 2: 290.
40. George Washington to William Irvine, Aug. 6, 1782, WGW, 24: 474.
41. George Washington to Henry Knox, Dec. 5, 1784, PGW, CS 2: 171.
42. Thomas Freeman to George Washington, June 19, 1785, PGW, CS 3: 45.
43. George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, Oct. 10, 1784, PGW, CS 2: 92.
44. George Washington to Richard Henry Lee, June 18, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 118.
45. Washington to Read, PGW, CS 2: 121.
46. George Washington to Richard Henry Lee, March 15, 1785, PGW, CS 2: 437.
47. Washington to Read, PGW, CS 2: 119–21.
48. Ibid., 120.
49. George Washington to Hugh Williamson, March 15, 1785, PGW, CS 2: 400.
50. Washington to Lee, PGW, CS 4: 118. Washington observed that closing the river was against Spain’s best interests in Washington to Lee, PGW, CS 2: 438.
51. Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, PTJ, 7: 26–27.
52. George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, PGW, CS 1: 237–39.
54. Ibid., 306.
55. Ibid., 306–7.
56. GWD, Oct. 2, 1784, 2: 316.
57. GWD, Oct. 4, 1784, 2: 317–18, 325.
58. “Editorial Note,” PGW, CS 2: 86.
59. Washington to Harrison, PGW, CS 2: 92.
60. Washington to Jefferson, PGW, CS 1: 239.
61. Washington to Harrison, PGW, CS 2: 95.
62. George Washington to George Plater, Oct. 24, 1784, PGW, CS 2: 109; Washington to Read, PGW, CS 2: 122.
63. “Alexandria, Nov. 2, 1784,” Virginia Journal, Nov. 4, 1784, p. 2.
64. “Alexandria, Nov. 25,” Virginia Journal, Nov. 25, 1784, p. 2.
65. George Washington to James Madison, Dec. 3, 1784, PGW, CS 2: 166. For an insightful analysis of Washington’s view of self-interest as a key motivating force, see Morgan, “George Washington,” 289–91, 294–302. Along with other evidence, Morgan quotes Washington’s observation about his troops during the American Revolution: “To expect, among such People, as compose the bulk of an Army, that they are influenced by any other principles than those of Interest, is to look for what never did, and I fear never will happen.” Ibid., 296.
66. Ibid.
67. George Washington to Lafayette, Feb. 15, 1785, PGW, CS 2: 366.
68. George Washington to Robert Morris, Feb. 1, 1785, PGW, CS 2: 315.
69. George Washington to Lafayette, July 25, 1785, PGW, CS 3: 152.
70. George Washington to Benjamin Franklin, Sept. 26, 1785, PGW, CS 3: 275.
71. George Pointer, “Petition of Captain George Pointer to President and Director of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal,” Sept. 5, 1829, quoted in Robert J. Kapsch, The Potomac Canal: George Washington and the Waterway West (Morgantown: University of West Virginia Press, 2007), 224.
72. GWD, Sept. 22, 1785, 2: 415.
73. Robert Hunter Jr., Quebec to Carolina in 1785–1786: Being a Travel Diary and Observations of a Young Merchant of London (San Marino, CA: Huntington Library, 1943), 193.
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