George Washington

by David O. Stewart

  He reflected on the nation’s challenges, beginning with Congress’s lack of power. “More than half the perplexities of my command,” he wrote to Hamilton, “and almost the whole of the difficulties and distresses of the army, have their origin here.”39 Through the war, Washington had issued “circulars to the states,” exhorting them to pay their soldiers and send supplies. In a final circular, published as a pamphlet, he called for strengthening the national government, making it superior to the states, and granting it the power to tax. Otherwise, he feared, the union could dissolve. He also outlined a structure for a peacetime army that could control Indian conflicts and protect America’s borders with British and Spanish colonies.40

  Most Americans, struggling in a failing economy, paid little notice. In a private letter, he mused that a convention of the people might be necessary to create a new constitution.41

  By November, the British were finally ready to leave.

  * * *

  Reclaiming New York, the site of America’s worst military defeats and the bastion of British power, carried special meaning. In the early afternoon of November 25, Henry Knox and his artillerymen entered first, followed by Washington and Governor Clinton on horseback, then the infantry and citizenry. Crowds cheered wildly. “Every countenance,” one officer wrote, “seemed to express the triumph of republican principles over the military despotism which had so long pervaded this now happy city.”42

  After years amid the spit-and-polish British, a woman thought the Americans “made a forlorn appearance,” adding, “but then they were our troops.” Thinking of “all they had done and suffered for us, my heart and my eyes were full, and I admired and gloried in them.” They raised American colors at Fort George on the island’s southern tip. Guns fired thirteen times, beginning a week of dinners, music, and tributes to the commander in chief. A fireworks show drew ecstatic newspaper accounts detailing each rocket, “balloon of serpents,” “horizontal wheel,” “double cone wheel illuminated,” and “illuminated pyramid with Archimedian screws.” The display, one newspaper insisted, exceeded anything the British had mounted.43

  Washington’s departure for Mount Vernon on December 4 struck a deeper note. At noon, the army’s remaining officers waited in an upstairs room at Fraunces Tavern. Most were junior and had not served long. Only three of twenty-nine major generals were present; of the brigadiers, only one. Many barely knew Washington.44

  He must have thought of absent comrades that morning. Nathanael Greene was still in the South, Lafayette in France. Hamilton stayed away, unsure of his standing after Newburgh. Arnold, the traitor, was in England. Then there were the dead: General Hugh Mercer of Virginia and Washington’s aide, John Laurens, both struck down in battle, and Lord Stirling and General Charles Lee, dead from fever.

  Washington (1783)

  Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

  Washington did not keep them waiting. He attempted to eat from the buffet, but could not. He showed an “emotion, too strong to be concealed.” He filled his glass and raised it. His toast was simple: “I most devoutly wish that your later days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable.” Noting that he could not come to each officer, he invited them to “come and take me by the hand.”

  Knox, who had been eight years at Washington’s side, stood nearest. When he stepped forward, they grasped hands, then embraced. Washington, “suffused in tears, was incapable of utterance.” In silence, each man took his turn, kissed the general, mumbled farewell. “Such a scene of sorrow and weeping,” one officer recorded, “I had never before witnessed.” They were awed by the general “who had conducted us through a long and bloody war, and under whose conduct the glory and independence of the country had been achieved.” They grieved that “we should see his face no more in this world.”45

  The officers followed Washington “in mournful silence” to the barge that would carry him to New Jersey. A large crowd waited. After the barge cast off, he waved his hat in salute. In the two years since Yorktown, Washington had led his men on no campaigns, or on any battlefield, but the inglorious work of holding the army together, then disbanding it peaceably, had been as vital as any battlefield victory.

  * * *

  Washington endured one more farewell. On his way to Mount Vernon, he stopped in Annapolis, where Congress had perched. The commander in chief would report a last time. The occasion did not lack for irony. Gates joined Washington’s escort into the city. The president of Congress was Thomas Mifflin. And Congress was in its usual bedraggled condition. Only seven state delegations were present, a mere twenty delegates.

  None of it fazed Washington. He had won the power struggles. His army had won the war. And he was going home. At a ball staged by the Maryland governor, he danced every dance. He offered a toast that was near to his heart, if not particularly poetic: “Competent powers to Congress for general purposes!”46

  At the resignation ceremony on December 23, the delegates held their seats as Washington entered, keeping their hats on to signify that he answered to them. When he rose and bowed to Mifflin, they removed their hats. Dignitaries and locals crowded the chamber. Women watched from the upstairs gallery.

  Drawing out a paper, Washington’s hand shook violently. He gripped the paper with two hands. The spectators and the delegates wept. Near the end of his statement, Washington’s voice wavered. “The whole house,” a witness recorded, “felt his agitations.” When he mastered himself, Washington concluded:

  Having now finished the work assigned me I retire from the great theatre of action, and bidding an affectionate farewell to this august body under whose orders I have so long acted, I . . . take my leave of all the employments of public life.

  The scene, the witness reported, was “inexpressibly solemn and affecting.” Mifflin, though, was unmoved. He read a brief response without emotion.47

  Washington hurried toward the ferry that would take him across the Potomac to home. He arrived on Christmas Eve.

  * * *

  Of all of his achievements, nothing so impressed Washington’s contemporaries as this resignation. For a man with a talent for winning trust, it was the ultimate proof of his honor. By ensuring that the army disbanded—even though unpaid—and then going home himself, Washington cemented a tradition of civilian control over the military that is essential in any system of self-government. His resignation completed his identity as the truest American.

  Washington’s retirement was no savvy career move designed to advance his public standing. He ached to go home. He was worn out. He had no wish for power over his neighbors. His resignation struck a perfect note in a nation that was weary of war and mistrusted powerful men. Victorious generals often take power. Julius Caesar did. So, too, did Oliver Cromwell. Napoleon soon would do it in France, and Simón Bolívar in South America. Washington, however, went home. Englishmen struggled to believe it, according to an American visitor. “’Tis a conduct so novel,” he wrote, “so inconceivable to people, who far from giving up powers . . . are willing to convulse the empire to acquire more.”48

  For the rest of Washington’s life, that resignation would refute any charge that he acted for self-aggrandizement. Not Washington. Not the man who turned his back on power.

  His reputation had reached an almost mythical level, his virtue so immaculate that other mortals could barely aspire to it.49 Washington surely knew the encomiums were overblown. He felt his limitations. But he also understood his strengths.

  As he celebrated Christmas at Mount Vernon that year, he could revel in winning the fight for American independence against long odds. He hoped to glide into a retirement filled with private satisfactions. That would not be so. His country had too many troubles, and it relied on him too much.

  THE NATION

  Chapter 38

  Home, Not Retired

  Despite icy weather that
often left him housebound, Washington reveled in his return to Mount Vernon in early 1784. To Lafayette, he contrasted his new “tranquil enjoyments” with the life of a soldier “ever in pursuit of fame,” or a statesman “whose watchful days and sleepless nights are spent in devising schemes to promote the welfare of his own—perhaps the ruin of other countries.” Washington resolved to move “gently down the stream of life, until I sleep with my fathers.” His relief at escaping the cockpit of events, leaving the nation in the care of others, was genuine.1

  In late February, he was “just beginning to experience that ease, and freedom from public cares which . . . takes some time to realize.” He no longer planned the day’s business from the moment he awakened. He felt like a traveler who “after treading many a painful step, with a heavy burden on his shoulders, is eased of the latter,” having evaded “the quicksands and mires which lay in his way.”2

  Family came first now, and his had evolved. Small children shouted at Mount Vernon again: Jack Custis’s two youngest, four-year-old Eleanor (Nelly), and two-year-old George Washington Parke (Washy). Martha’s two older granddaughters lived nearby with their mother and new stepfather, Dr. David Stuart. A nephew, George Augustine Washington (Charles’s son), formerly an army major, left for the islands visited by Washington and brother Lawrence thirty years before. Like Lawrence, the young man had tuberculosis.3

  For Washington’s mother, Mary, wartime stress had heightened her chronic money anxieties, which became so well known that Virginia legislators had proposed to support her with public funds. Mortified, Washington blocked the effort, insisting that he provided her with a “commodious house, garden and lots,” and that she had regular income.4

  After the Yorktown surrender, Washington had escorted his mother to a Fredericksburg ball in his honor. He later asked his brother Jack to investigate her complaints about an overseer, cautioning that her “imaginary wants are indefinite, and oftentimes insatiable, because they are boundless and always changing.” Shortly after leaving the army, he visited her again.5

  Mount Vernon had suffered from the war, as had his fortune. By one estimate, the war cost him half his net worth. Not only had farm revenues plunged, but Washington had drawn no salary while inflation sapped the value of investments and loans to friends.6 Those losses were offset by his incompletely documented claims for $447,000 of wartime expenses. Though Congress had not paid other soldiers, it reimbursed Washington promptly.7

  He again rose early to work in his office until breakfast, then rode twenty miles through his farms, directing the day’s efforts by his enslaved workers. A visitor marveled that his host “has a great turn for mechanics,” and oversaw everything, “condescending even to measure the things himself.” He fussed over the finishes for the large room being built for entertaining, and the outside gallery with its commanding river view.8

  After midafternoon dinner, he returned to his office. “It’s astonishing the packets of letters that daily come,” a visitor reported. Vigilant on money matters, Washington kept “as regular books as any merchant.”9

  If there were no evening guests, he studied the newspapers, reading choice items aloud. Nelly Custis, Martha’s granddaughter, recalled him as a “silent, thoughtful man” who never told a war story in her presence. According to a friend, Washington was “uniformly grave, and smiled but seldom, but [was] always agreeable.” Martha’s good cheer dissolved the spell that Washington could cast over first-time visitors. With those he knew, he passed the wine around freely and grew lively. He avoided talking politics, preferring to discuss farming or improving navigation on the Potomac.10

  Washington called agriculture “amongst the most favorite amusements of my life,” even “delectable.” He searched for ways to improve his crops, trying river mud as fertilizer and a new system for harvesting wheat. He experimented with seeds from China, Africa, and Siberia, and with corn strains from around America.11

  Profits, however, were elusive. Fifteen months after returning home, Washington complained that he survived on a loan secured before he left New York. Nine months later, his message was unchanged: “My wants are pressing—some debts which I am really ashamed to owe are unpaid.” And after nine more months: “The fact is, I am really in want of money.”12

  Washington tried to capitalize on a gift from King Carlos III of Spain: a jackass for breeding mules. The jackass, called Royal Gift, proved slow to rise to his duties, which amused his owner. The animal, Washington joked, mimicked “his late royal Master, who cannot . . . perform seldomer, or with more majestic solemnity.” Washington deployed a female jackass to stir Royal Gift’s ardor, then switched in a mare when Royal Gift was ready to couple.13

  The stream of visitors to Mount Vernon—relatives, neighbors, and passersby—increased the financial strain. Travelers, Robert Morris wrote, “cannot pass . . . without gratifying their wishes by an interview with the first man of the age.” They included portrait painters cashing in on Washington’s fame, and the French sculptor Houdon, creating a statue of Washington for the Virginia state capitol. When Washington dined alone with Martha in late June 1785, he calculated it was their first dinner without guests for eighteen months.14

  Washington’s recreational pursuits dwindled. He recorded no gambling wins or losses, and confined his fox hunting to a few weeks training hounds sent by Lafayette. He complained about the flood of correspondence and ordered books on history, self-improvement, and geography.15

  Washington resumed his correspondence with George William Fairfax, long ago moved to England, following a wartime interruption (both men suspected that authorities had intercepted their letters). Washington regretfully reported that fire had destroyed Belvoir, where “the happiest moments of my life had been spent.” George William complained good-naturedly of being harassed for letters of introduction to the great Washington.16

  And Washington continued his quest to ease the pain from bad teeth and worse dentures. He again sought out the dentist who created his false teeth at the end of the war. In 1784, Washington purchased nine teeth from “Negroes,” presumably people he owned. Those teeth most likely were used for his new dentures, which also were fashioned from walrus tusks, cows’ teeth, and whalebone. Nothing, however, saved his own teeth. By 1789, he would have only one.17

  Washington still followed public events closely, and was pulled back into them when the Society of the Cincinnati, a fraternal association of former army officers, fell into political controversy. A 1783 pamphlet denounced the society as an aristocratic coup-in-waiting. Critics focused on gauzy references in the society’s charter to public affairs (the former officers still hoped to be paid for their army service), and a frankly aristocratic provision that membership passed to the eldest male child. A Massachusetts legislative committee warned that the Cincinnati threatened “the peace, liberty, and safety of the United States.” North Carolina considered barring society members from its legislature.18

  Though not involved in establishing the group, Washington had accepted its presidency, a step he likely came to regret. To calm the storm, he resolved to win reforms of its charter at the society’s first general meeting in May 1784 in Philadelphia. To achieve that end, however, he would have to engage in debate, something he usually avoided.19

  Addressing nearly fifty convention delegates in early May, he proposed eliminating any hereditary element, any political reference in the group’s charter, or the appointment of honorary members. When others defended the hereditary feature, Washington repeated himself in “a very long speech,” speaking, according to one witness, “with much warmth and agitation.” Ultimately, the convention approved his proposals, but the state societies never eliminated hereditary membership.20

  Washington thought the society’s actions were inadequate, but when the controversy faded, he accepted reelection as its president. His identification with the Continentals remained fierce, and he despised “the ungenerous conduct o
f their country” toward the soldiers. The veterans were his brothers. He would stand with them always.21

  * * *

  Washington still saw development of the west as central to America’s future, and still hoped for income from his lands there. After leaving the army, he moved to solidify his title to parcels in western Virginia and searched again for new tenants.22 Jefferson soon channeled Washington’s passion for the Potomac as the key that could unlock the frontier. If the upper stretches of the river were cleared of obstacles and connected by road to the Ohio River, it could efficiently carry goods and people back and forth to the interior. Jefferson employed shameless flattery: “What a monument of your retirement would it be!”23

  Washington required little persuading. Lamenting the “inertitude” of Congress, he thought the project promised “immense advantages.” He organized a western trek with his old friend Dr. Craik and his nephew Bushrod, brother Jack’s son. He wanted no one else along. “It can be no amusement for others to follow me in a tour of business,” he explained, “nor would it suit me to be embarrassed by the plans, movements, or whims of others.” He hoped to unleash income from his lands in western Pennsylvania and in what is now West Virginia. His few western tenants paid rent sporadically, and no one was buying his land at his prices.24

  Dr. James Craik

  Courtesy of the National Museum of Health and Medicine

  The trek began on the first of September, the beginning of a rainy spell. Crossing the mountains, which he had done frequently in younger days, now was “tedious and fatiguing.” Yet he managed rough travel for more than a month. A description from the time portrays him as “about six foot high, perfectly straight and well made, rather inclined to be lusty.”25