The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers

by Thomas Fleming

  VIII

  Something else has to be factored into the situation at this point: Washington’s relationship to the Fairfaxes. William Fairfax had been almost as much a substitute father as Lawrence. After Lawrence’s death, William had regarded George as a member of the family and used his considerable power to push his military career whenever possible. When William Fairfax died, Washington had left his regiment and journeyed over the mountains to his funeral, ignoring the dysentery that was already making his life difficult. In a letter to his brother Jack, he remarked, “To that family I am under many obligations, particularly to the old gentleman.” To some extent these obligations extended to George William Fairfax. He had befriended George, the teenage country bumpkin, as Lawrence’s brother, and their relationship had remained close for the previous decade. There is not a hint in any of Washington’s letters of a change in opinion or attitude, even when he emerged as Virginia’s most notable military leader.

  In fact, it can be argued with some force that this role of military hero only made the possibility of George realizing his desire for Sally Cary Fairfax more remote. In a sense George had become the man Lawrence might have been—and that only intensified his sense of obligation to the Fairfaxes. Honor was the brightest word in Lawrence Washington’s vocabulary—a beacon that both guarded and guided his conduct. The thought of doing something that Lawrence would have judged grossly dishonorable was a more than believable reason why George chained his desire deep within himself. It was another lesson in the harsh school of self-control in which destiny seemed to be matriculating him.

  This does not mean that George Washington was inhibited by puritanical views of sexual conduct. Puritanism was almost as foreign to eighteenth-century Virginia as Mohammedanism. Life on the frontier was by no means devoid of women. Every eighteenth-century army had “camp women” who were married or pretended to be married to soldiers and followed them into the war zone. One of his officers wrote to Washington while he was home on leave, wondering if he was “plunged in delight…& enchanted by charms even stranger to the Ciprian Dame.” A Ciprian Dame was an available woman, sometimes a prostitute. Another officer wrote him from South Carolina, telling him that the local women lacked “the enticing heaving throbbing alluring…plump breasts common with our northern belles.” Such letters have enabled some writers to imagine a blazing covert affair between Sally and George that lasted months or even years.21

  Far stronger is evidence that suggests Washington struggled to put Sally out of his mind and future. George pursued several other women, notably strong-willed Mary Philipse, heiress to a swath of the Hudson River Valley. But his efforts were halfhearted—proof, it might seem, either of his longing for Sally or of Mary’s temperamental resemblance to Mary Ball Washington. This was the situation in March 1758 when the ailing bachelor, still convinced that he was in his final days, mounted his horse and rode slowly to Williamsburg to see Dr. John Anson, the best physician in Virginia, hoping against hope that this medico might have a cure but fearing that he would deliver a death sentence. Before he departed, George told his British superior on the frontier, Colonel John Stanwix, that he had “ruined [my] constitution” and was thinking of “quitting my command.” He was convinced that he had tuberculosis and foresaw little but “approaching decay.”22

  To Washington’s amazement and delight, Dr. Anson assured him that he was recovering nicely and had prospects of living to a vigorous old age. The reincarnated patient strode into Williamsburg’s spring sunshine and began thinking about what to do with the rest of his life. One of his first thoughts was marriage. The sequence inclines this writer to wonder if during the long winter of his illness, he and Sally had not told each other—or at least hinted—that they realized their love had no future. Another scenario, perhaps more likely, has Washington reaching this glum but unavoidable conclusion during the long, lonely night hours in his sickbed.

  Realistically, in 1758 Virginia, there was no way that Colonel George Washington could marry Sally Cary Fairfax. It would have triggered an immense scandal that would have made them both social outcasts. A clandestine affair could easily have led to the same result. Either way, Washington would have exposed himself to a ruinous lawsuit from her outraged husband. Lurking in the background of both their minds was the memory of an earlier sex scandal: Lawrence Washington had sued a neighbor, accusing him of raping Anne Fairfax before her marriage. The lawsuit had been reported in salacious detail in newspapers throughout Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Before it was over, everyone wished Lawrence had never mentioned the incident to anyone, no matter how much the vile deed may have haunted his wife.23

  IX

  With marriage on his mind, Colonel Washington rode from Williamsburg to the nearby estate known as The White House, on the Pamunkey River, to visit Martha Dandridge Custis. They undoubtedly knew each other already. The elite society of eastern Virginia was fairly small, and Martha and her husband, Daniel Parke Custis, had participated in its lively social world with enthusiasm. George and Martha had probably met and may have danced at more than one fancy-dress ball in Williamsburg.

  A recent widow, Martha was receiving a veritable stream of suitors. In Virginia during these years, money was frankly accepted as a significant item in a marriage. Newspapers regularly stated the amount of a bride’s net worth. Elizabeth Stith, for instance, was described as “a very amiable lady with a fortune of a thousand pounds sterling.” Cash was often the baldly stated reason for mingling youth and age. Such women aspired to—and often expected—a certain amount of respect and independence. In Martha Dandridge Custis’s case, she could expect a great deal of respect and virtually unlimited freedom of choice. She was the richest widow in Virginia.

  George was more than pleased with Martha’s warm, affable manner and was even more charmed when she invited him to stay overnight. He played cheerfully with her two children, John, four, and Patsy, two. As he departed, he tipped her servants extravagantly, a sure sign that he wanted their comments about him to be favorable.24

  A week later, he returned for another visit and something seems to have been arranged. On May 4, the colonel ordered a ring from Philadelphia and a suit of “superfine” broadcloth from London to fit a “tall man.” By this time he was back on the frontier, once more in command of his regiment. They were soon part of another British army committed to ousting the French from Fort Duquesne.25

  X

  Here the aftershock of the turmoil stirred by the New York Herald’s publication of the letter to Sally Fairfax intrudes on our story. On July 20, 1758, George Washington supposedly wrote in a letter to Martha Custis:

  We have begun our march for the Ohio. A courier is starting for Williamsburg and I embrace the opportunity to send a few words to one whose life is now inseparable from mine. Since that happy hour when we made our pledge to each other, my thoughts have been continually going to you as to another Self. That an all-powerful Providence may keep us both in safety is the prayer of your ever faithful and affectionate friend.26

  A number of reputable historians have concluded this letter is a forgery. It was included in the first two editions of Washington’s papers, but John C. Fitzpatrick noted tersely, “The location of the original is not known.” Perhaps most important, the statement about beginning a march to the Ohio is wrong. On July 20, much to Washington’s exasperation, the British army was still sitting on the edge of the wilderness, debating which route to take. He was not even sure he and his troops would be included in the expedition. Furthermore, the word “courier” was never used by Washington during these years; he preferred “express.” Other words in the letter strike similar false notes. Perhaps most convincing, the style is extravagantly emotional from a man who has spent comparatively little time with Mrs. Custis.

  Where did the letter come from? Was it concocted in an attempt to counter the 1877 revelation of the letter to Sally Fairfax? We know this much: it first appeared in 1886 in a sentimental biography of Martha Wash
ington titled Mary and Martha, Mother and Wife of George Washington. The author, Benjamin Lossing, claimed he had seen the original, but it was never found by anyone else. It seems likely that the letter was forged by someone who was trying to make the letter to Sally seem like a fake. It might have been written by a Washington family descendant, who imposed it on Lossing, or by someone else with patriotic motives such as the mystery purchaser of the letter to Sally Fairfax in 1877.27

  XI

  These explanations enable us to see Colonel Washington grumbling and cursing in Fort Cumberland, Maryland, while the British ignored his advice on the best way to march on Fort Duquesne. Meanwhile, the evidence of George’s plans for the future were unfolding at Mount Vernon, which Washington had decided to expand and rebuild with all possible speed. George William Fairfax, back from Europe, was asked to help with advice and supervision. This inevitably led to Washington telling him about his engagement to Martha Custis. Fairfax naturally told his wife about this interesting change in the fortunes of their mutual friend. Into an envelope with a letter from George William about the Mount Vernon renovation, Sally slipped a letter of her own.

  With that mocking style she preferred, Sally apparently teased Washington about his complaints that the campaign was moving too slowly. Was he impatient because he had become a “votary of love”? She was of course referring to his engagement to Martha Custis. But the lonely warrior, facing an Indian-rife wilderness in which there was a strong possibility of a bullet with his name on it, read a very different meaning into the inquiry. What came back to Sally was nothing less than an explosion—a jumbled cry of anguish from a man who could bury his feelings no longer. As usual, Sally was discreet. Her answer was apparently indirect; some historians think she pretended Washington was joking. The letter is lost. We have only Washington’s answer:

  Do we still misunderstand the true meaning of each other’s letters? I think it must appear so tho I would fain hope the contrary as I cannot speak plainer without—But I’ll say no more and leave you to guess the rest.

  He gloomily added that he was almost certain the expedition to the Ohio would end in disaster. Then he added words that had deep meaning for both of them: “I should think my time more agreeable [sic] spent, believe me, in playing a part in Cato with the company you mention and myself doubly happy in being the Juba to such a Marcia as you must make.”

  He closed with some offhand speculation on the marital plans of several friends but made no mention of his own. Then came a last burst of emotion:

  One thing more and I have done. You ask if I am not tired at the length of your letter? No, Madam, I am not, nor never can be while the lines are an inch asunder to bring you in haste to the end of the paper. You may be tired of mine by this. Adieu, dear Madam, you possibly will hear something of me or from me before we shall meet. Believe me that I am most unalterably, your most obedient and obliged….28

  In his surviving letters to Sally, Washington never before wrote “most unalterably.” Once more he was telling her the secret that they would share for the rest of their lives. They were lovers that destiny had tragically separated, as history had forever parted Marcia and Juba.29

  XII

  Four months after he revealed this passionate longing, George Washington married Martha Custis. If romance was not uppermost in his mind, there is evidence that Martha felt a few tremors. Her first husband, Daniel Parke Custis, had been fifteen years older than she—and he was by most accounts a rather pathetic (though extremely handsome) man, browbeaten all his life by a miserly father. Towering Colonel Washington was not only Virginia’s foremost soldier, but he must have been a breathtaking sight in the suit of superfine blue cotton broadcloth that he had ordered from England for his wedding. To the end of her life, Martha saved a piece of her wedding dress—deep yellow brocaded satin threaded with silver—and the white gloves her new husband had worn to the ceremony.30

  PARTNER IN LOVE AND LIFE

  We know—or at least suspect—that Martha Dandridge Custis was more than a little pleased by George Washington’s proposal. But this does not tell us much about her. There were undoubtedly a great many women in Virginia who would have felt a few shivers at the thought of being embraced by the famous Colonel Washington. For some people, Martha’s wealth has complicated and even distorted her and the marriage. Even when Washington was in his second term as president, a man inflamed by the politics of the day shouted at him, “What would you have been if you had not married the widow Custis?”

  This crass view of the match as a marriage of ultimate convenience has led others to annotate with various degrees of wryness what Washington obtained when he said “I do.” Daniel Parke Custis had died without a will, which left Martha in charge of his 17,438-acre estate, all prime land within a forty-mile radius of Williamsburg. An early estimate of its value was 23,622 pounds—well over three million dollars in today’s money. A third of that sum was Martha’s and the rest would go to her two children, so the entire enterprise was her responsibility for decades to come. The moment George became her husband, Martha’s one-third was his property and he became the administrator of the children’s portions. From a cash-short landowner with a few thousand acres, Washington, like his brother Lawrence before him, ascended into Virginia’s upper class.

  The cynics who note this miraculous transformation often forget that it was a marriage of convenience for Martha, too. She knew little or nothing about managing a huge estate. It involved dealing with overseers, worries over runaway or recalcitrant slaves, and problems with livestock and tenant farmers and with shipping tobacco to London when insurance rates were skyrocketing because of the ongoing war with France. Moreover, the Custis estate had a worrisome lawsuit looming on the legal horizon, stemming from the will of Daniel Parke Custis’s rakehell grandfather. He had named as one of his heirs an illegitimate daughter he had fathered in Antigua, and her descendants were threatening to sue in Virginia for a share of his estate in that colony. If the final verdict went the wrong way, Martha could lose almost all the property she had inherited.

  This was another reason why she wanted and needed a man of cool judgment in her life. Her choice of Colonel Washington, who had managed large affairs during the war and was intimate with the ruling politicians of Virginia, indicated that she had not a little common sense in her makeup, which the tremors of possible romance did not by any means obscure.1

  II

  Historians and historical novelists have long disagreed about Martha’s looks. Some report her as ugly, or at best plain. One 1784 visitor to Mount Vernon even found fault with her “squeaky” voice. Unfortunately for Martha, she did not become a subject for first-rate portrait painters—or a personage to be studied by random visitors—until she was long past her youth. Most of her likenesses were painted when she was in her sixties and the wife of the first president. One writer sourly wondered why she persisted in wearing those silly mobcaps that made her look so old. Martha was, of course, merely dressing her age.2

  Luckily, a traveling painter named John Wollaston has left us a portrait of Martha in 1757, when she was still Mrs. Custis. She was unquestionably an attractive young woman, with large hazel eyes and curly brown hair. Her forehead was wide and fine; her strong nose and firmly rounded chin added an air of self-confidence, which was equally visible in her small, firm mouth. She was barely five feet tall, but her figure was full and even eye-catching. One recent biographer called her “a pocket Venus, a petite cuddlesome armful.” By the time she married Washington, Martha had gained enough weight to be considered plump by some people. But the added pounds did not diminish her physical charm.

  III

  Even more important in appreciating Martha Dandridge Custis’s appeal to her husband is her personality. Almost everyone who met her was pleased by her warm, relaxed manner. Very early in life, she revealed a startling capacity to charm the male sex. The Dandridges were middling gentry, like the Washingtons. Everyone was agog when Daniel Parke Custis,
one of the richest men in the colony, fell in love with Martha. The Dandridges had very little cash to spare for a dowry.

  Daniel’s father, Colonel John Custis, already famous for his foul temper, vowed to disinherit his son if he married a penniless Dandridge. For several months, this edict stalemated matters. Daniel had no appetite for arguing with his headstrong parent. John Custis worsened matters by threatening to leave his entire estate to Jack, a mulatto boy he had fathered with Alice, one of his slaves. Daniel—and everyone else—knew he was more than capable of such a bizarre gesture. Soon the imbroglio was the talk of Virginia, with gossips gleefully reporting John Custis’s latest outrageous remark. At one point he gave silver engraved with the Custis coat of arms to an innkeeper’s wife to make sure it would never be owned by “any Dandridge’s daughter.” The woman displayed the gift in her Williamsburg tavern.3

  Who could possibly resolve such an ugly contretemps? Martha Dandridge decided to try. She rode to Williamsburg and confronted the old tyrant in his house on Francis Street. Face to face, the colonel turned into a paper tiger, and then into a pussycat. He was impressed by Martha’s courage—and pleased by her calm, even temper and the direct, sensible way she talked to him about herself and his son. Daniel sent one of his friends, a lawyer named Power, to see his father. He discovered that Colonel Custis had changed his mind about the marriage. The Custises were so rich, his son did not need a dowry to marry Martha Dandridge.4

  The lawyer rushed Daniel the astounding news: “I am empowered by your father to let you know he heartily and willingly consents to your marriage with Miss Dandridge.” Power attributed this miraculous transformation to “a prudent speech” that Martha had made to the colonel. “He is [now] as much enamored with her character as you are with her person,” Power continued. “Hurry down [here] immediately for fear he should change the strong inclination he has to your marrying directly.”5