George Washington

by David O. Stewart

  29. From Adam Stephen, 23 December 1755, GWP; Ward, Adam Stephen, 29; Frederick County, Virginia, December 11, 1755, Election Poll, in George Washington Papers, Series 4, General Correspondence, GW/LOC Digital Collection.

  30. To Dinwiddie, 13 January 1756, GWP; to Adam Stephen, 1 February 1756, GWP.

  31. Address, 8 January 1756, GWP; to John Ashby, 28 December 1755, GWP.

  32. To Dinwiddie, 13 January 1756, GWP.

  11. A WILDERNESS OF DIFFICULTIES

  1. Moreau, A Memorial, 36; Freeman 2:23; to Colonel William Fairfax, 23 April 1755, GWP.

  2. From Dinwiddie, 23 January 1756, GWP; Orders, 17 September 1755, GWP; Flexner 1:145.

  3. Pennsylvania Gazette, February 12, 1756 (arrival in Philadelphia), February 19, 1756 (departure for New York); Boston Evening Post, February 23, 1756 (arrival in Philadelphia); Boston Gazette, March 1, 1756 (arrival in Boston and reputation for military skill); Pennsylvania Gazette, February 23, 1756 (consulting with Governor Shirley), March 18, 1756 (arrival in Philadelphia from the northward); New York Mercury, February 16, 1756 (arrival in New York), March 22, 1756 (arrival in Philadelphia from the northward).

  4. From Andrew Burnaby, 23 June 1760, GWP.

  5. Flexner 1:145–46; J. A. Leo Lamay, The Life of Benjamin Franklin: Soldier, Scientist, and Politician, 1748–1757, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press (2009), 3:516.

  6. Flexner 1:145–47; Paul Leicester Ford, Washington and the Theatre, New York: Dunlap Society (1899), 15, 17; Ferling, The Ascent of George Washington, 31.

  7. Dinwiddie to William Shirley, 24 January 1756, in Dinwiddie Records 328–29; Knollenberg, George Washington, The Virginia Period, 48.

  8. New York Mercury, May 24, 1756; Boston Gazette, May 31, 1756.

  9. To Robert Hunter Morris, 9 April 1756, GWP; Horatio Sharpe to William Shirley, 10 April 1756, in William Hand Browne, ed., Correspondence of Governor Horatio Sharpe, Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society (1888), 1:389; Franklin to Deborah Franklin, 25 March 1756, PBF; Lamay, Benjamin Franklin, 523; Longmore, The Invention of George Washington, 38.

  10. From Adam Stephen, 29 March 1756, GWP; to Dinwiddie, 7 April 1756, GWP; New York Mercury, May 3, 1756; Boston Evening-Post, May 10, 1756; New York Mercury, May 17, 1756; Freeman 2:150.

  11. To Dinwiddie, 7 April 1756, GWP; to John Robinson, 7 April 1756, GWP.

  12. To Dinwiddie, 7 April 1756, GWP; Freeman 2:171–72, 2:181. Stephen also criticized the proposed chain of forts. From Stephen, 1 August 1756, GWP.

  13. To Dinwiddie, 16 April 1756, GWP; to John Robinson, 16 April 1756, GWP.

  14. From Dinwiddie, 8 April 1756, GWP; from William Fairfax, 14 April 1756, GWP; from John Robinson, 17 April 1756, GWP.

  15. To Dinwiddie, 18 April 1756, GWP; to Robinson, 16 April 1756, GWP; to Robinson, 18 April 1756, GWP; Lewis, For King and Country, 212.

  16. From William Stark, 18 April 1756, GWP; Orders, 20 and 21 April 1756, GWP; Council of War, 21 April 1756, GWP.

  17. To Dinwiddie, 22 April 1756, GWP; Maury, Memoirs of a Huguenot Family, 403 (June 15, 1756).

  18. To Dinwiddie, 24 April 1756, GWP.

  19. From Robinson, 3 May 1756, GWP; from Colonel William Fairfax, 13–14 May 1756, GWP.

  20. Anderson, Crucible of War, 159; to Dinwiddie, 23 May 1756.

  21. From Dinwiddie, 29 April 1756, GWP; Memorandum respecting the Militia, 1–2 May 1756, GWP; Memorandum respecting the Militia, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 May 1756, GWP; Virginia Colonial Militia Memorandum Book, April–May 1756, GW/LOC Digital Collection, Series 6, 11, 14, 17 (May 16, 17–18, 19); Council of War, 14–15 May 1756, GWP; to Dinwiddie, 25 June 1756, 23 May 1756, GWP; Freeman 2:194.

  22. Orders, 6–8 July 1756, GWP; from Robert Stewart, 20 and 23 June, 3 July 1756, GWP; from Thomas Walker, 30 June 1756, GWP; from Colonel William Fairfax, 1 July 1756, GWP; Orders, 5–9 August 1756, GWP; from Adam Stephen, 25 July 1756, GWP; to Adam Stephen, 18 May 1756, GWP. Stephen did not explain what type of “wheeling” he administered, though the term often referred to a method of execution that entailed tying a person to a wheel and bludgeoning him or her with a club. Trina N. Seitz, “A History of Execution Methods in the United States,” in Clifton D. Bryant, ed., Handbook of Death and Dying, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications (2003), 1:357. Sometimes discipline worked. Upon recapturing a group of twenty militiamen who deserted in the night, Washington ordered the relatively mild sentence of twenty lashes each. The entire militia company then enlisted in the regiment, concluding that if they were going to have to serve in Winchester, they might as well be paid. To Dinwiddie, 4 August 1756, GWP.

  23. To Dinwiddie, 27 April 1756, GWP; to William Cocks, 4 June 1756, GWP; to Henry Peyton, 4 June 1756, GWP.

  24. Anderson, Crucible of War, 160; Ian K. Steele, “The Shawnees and the English: Captives and War, 1753–1765,” in Barr, The Boundaries Between Us, 12; Ferling, “Soldiers for Virginia,” 306; Louis M. Waddell, “Defending the Long Perimeter: Forts on the Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia Frontier, 1755–1765,” Pennsylvania Hist. 62:171, 177 (1995); B. Scott Crawford, “A Frontier of Fear: Terrorism and Social Tension along Virginia’s Western Waters, 1742–1775,” West Virginia Hist. 2:1, 8 (2008); Lewis, For King and Country, 218; Pennsylvania Gazette, July 1, 1756; New York Mercury, July 5, 1756; Boston News-Letter, August 12, 1756; New York Mercury, September 6, 1756; Pennsylvania Gazette, October 7, 1756; New Hampshire Gazette, October 28, 1756.

  25. To Dinwiddie, 4 August 1756, GWP.

  26. To John Robinson, 24 April 1756, GWP; Orders, 5–9 August 1756, GWP; to Peter Hog, 21 July 1756, GWP; to Robert Stewart, 22 July 1756, GWP; from Robert Stewart, 23 July 1756, GWP; Council of War, 10 July 1756, GWP; to Thomas Waggener, 13 July 1756, GWP; to Dinwiddie, 14 August 1756, GWP; to Thomas Waggener, 5 August 1756, GWP.

  27. Barr, “‘This Land Is Ours and Not Yours,’” in Barr, The Boundaries Between Us, 35; from Stephen, 1 August 1756, GWP; from Dinwiddie, 12 July 1756, GWP; from Robert Stewart, 31 July 1756, GWP; to Dinwiddie, 4 August 1756, GWP.

  28. Proclamation, 15 August 1756, GWP; Pennsylvania Gazette, September 16, 1756; Baugh, The Global Seven Years War, 8.

  29. From John Kirkpatrick, 22 September 1756, n. 2, GWP; Longmore, The Invention of George Washington, 40–41; from William Ramsay, 22 September 1756, GWP; from John Robinson, 16 November 1756, GWP; Peter R. Henriques, Realistic Visionary: A Portrait of George Washington, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press (2006), 11; from Augustine Washington, 16 October 1756, GWP; Lewis, For King and Country, 222.

  30. Hall, Executive Journals 6:13 (3 September 1756).

  31. To Dinwiddie, 9 November 1756, GWP; Freeman 2:220; to John Robinson, 9 November 1756: GWP; see also Hall, Executive Journals 6:18 (14 October 1756).

  32. To Henry Knox, 27 April 1787, GWP.

  33. From Colonel William Fairfax, 26–27 April 1756, GWP; to Dinwiddie, 16 April 1756, GWP; Freeman 2:199.

  34. From George Mercer, 17 August 1756, GWP; from Adam Stephen, 20 August 1756, GWP; Fraser, The Washingtons: George and Martha, 11; Freeman 2:204.

  35. To John Robinson, 5 August 1756, GWP.

  12. BITING THE HAND

  1. To Dinwiddie, 4 and 14 August 1756, GWP; from Dinwiddie, 19 August, 30 September, and 30 October 1756, GWP; Adam Stephen’s Council of War and George Washington’s Comments, 30 October 1756, GWP; from Dinwiddie, 26 October 1756, GWP. Washington’s evaluation of Fort Cumberland was confirmed by at least one observer, who reported that it was “so irregular that I believe trigonometry cannot give it a name. No part of it will defend the other.” William A. Hunter, “Thomas Barton and the Forbes Expedition,” PMHB 95:431, 469 (1971); to Robinson, 5 August 1756, GWP.

  2. From Dinwiddie, 16 November 1756, GWP.

  3. To Dinwiddie, 24 November 1756, GWP.

  4. From Dinwiddie, 10 December 1756, 27 December 1756, GWP.

  5. To Joh
n Robinson, 19 December 1756, GWP; to William Bronaugh, 17 December 1756, GWP.

  6. To Dinwiddie, 19 December 1756, GWP.

  7. Dinwiddie to Major General James Abercrombie, in Dinwiddie Records 2:424–25 (28 May 1756); to John Campbell, Earl of Loudoun, 25 July 1756, GWP.

  8. Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, Life of William, Earl of Shelburne, London, Macmillan & Co. (1875) 81; The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Co. (1888), 208; Stanley Pargellis, Lord Loudoun in North America, New Haven: Yale University Press (1933), 81–82.

  9. To John Campbell, Earl of Loudoun, 10 January 1756, GWP; William Guthrie Sayen, “George Washington’s ‘Unmannerly’ Behavior: The Clash Between Civility and Honor,” VMHB 107:5, 25 (Winter 1999).

  10. To James Cuninghame, 28 January 1757, GWP; from Dinwiddie, 2 February 1757, GWP. Before leaving for Philadelphia, Washington had to suppress a mutiny. He had the leaders flogged, “several severely,” and imposed death penalties he lacked authority to execute. He proposed to keep the mutineers imprisoned “under apprehensions of death” before pardoning them. Dinwiddie approved his actions. To Dinwiddie, 12 January 1757, GWP; from Dinwiddie, 26 January 1757, GWP.

  11. Freeman 2:235–36; Moreau, A Memorial, Appendix VIII; Flexner 1:173–74. Ben Franklin also was engaged with the conference in Philadelphia and likely renewed his acquaintance with Washington. From Benjamin Franklin to the Earl of Loudoun: Answers to Criticisms of the Supply Bill, 21 March 1757, PBF (editor’s note).

  12. To Dinwiddie, 10 March 1757, GWP; Longmore, The Invention of George Washington, 43–45.

  13. From Colonel William Fairfax, 31 March 1757, GWP; to Dinwiddie, 2 April 1757 (and editor’s note 2), GWP; from John Robinson, 3 November 1757, GWP.

  14. Anderson, Crucible of War, 204; from Dinwiddie, 5 April 1756, 7 April 1756, GWP; Hall, Executive Journals 6:34–38 (4 April 1757); from Dinwiddie, 16 May 1757, GWP.

  15. Pennsylvania Gazette, March 10, 1757; Boston Gazette, March 21, 1757; New York Mercury & New York Gazette, March 14, 1757; from George Mercer, 24 and 26 April 1757, GWP; to Dinwiddie, 24 and 30 May 1757, GWP; from Dinwiddie, 23–27 May 1757, GWP; Hall, Executive Journals 6:44–45 (7 May 1757); David B. Trimble, “Christopher Gist and the Indian Service in Virginia, 1757–1759,” VMHB 64:143, 150–51, 160 (April 1956).

  16. From John Dagworthy, 14 June 1757, GWP; from James Livingston, 15 June 1757, GWP; to Dinwiddie, 16 June 1757, GWP; Council of War, 16 June 1757, GWP; from John Dagworthy, 17 June 1757, GWP; to John Stanwix, 21 June 1757, GWP; to Colonel William Fairfax, 25 June 1757, GWP; to Dinwiddie, 27 June 1757, GWP; to Charles Carter, 2 July 1757, GWP; to John Stanwix, 8 July 1757, GWP; to Dinwiddie, 11 July 1757, GWP; to John Stanwix, 16 June 1757, 28 May 1757, GWP.

  17. General Court-Martial, 25–26 July 1757, GWP; to John Stanwix, 15 July 1757, GWP; to Dinwiddie, 3 August 1757, GWP.

  18. Memoranda, 10–29 July 1757, GWP.

  19. Freeman 2:268; to Dinwiddie, 24 September 1757, GWP.

  20. Warren R. Hofstra, The Planting of New Virginia: Settlement and Landscape in the Shenandoah Valley, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press (2004), 255; from Robert Stewart, 27 September 1757 (and editor’s note 4), GWP; to Dinwiddie, 9 October 1757, GWP; from Gabriel Jones, 9 October 1757, GWP; to Dinwiddie, 5 October 1757, GWP.

  21. To John Robinson, 10 June 1757, GWP; to Dinwiddie, 11 July 1757.

  22. To Dinwiddie, 10 and 11 July 1757, GWP; from Dinwiddie, 13 and 17 July 1757, GWP; from Dinwiddie, 17 July 1757, GWP; to Dinwiddie, 10 June 1757, GWP; from Dinwiddie, 24 June 1756, GWP; from Dinwiddie, 13 August 1757, GWP.

  23. To Dinwiddie, 27 August 1757, GWP; from Dinwiddie, 2 September 1757, GWP.

  24. To Dinwiddie, 17 September 1757, GWP.

  25. From Dinwiddie, 24 September 1757, GWP; to Dinwiddie, 5 October 1757, GWP.

  26. From Dinwiddie, 19 October 1757, GWP; to Dinwiddie, 24 October 1757, GWP.

  27. To Richard Washington, 15 April 1757, GWP; to Anthony Bacon & Co., 10 September 1757, GWP; to Richard Washington, 10 September 1757, GWP; Robert F. Dalzell Jr. and Lee Baldwin Dalzell, George Washington’s Mount Vernon, New York: Oxford University Press (2000), 40–42.

  13. NEW PATHS

  1. Ward, “Fighting the ‘Old Women,’” 315–16, 318; Ferling, Ascent of George Washington, 33.

  2. Flexner 1:192–93.

  3. Soltow, The Economic Role of Williamsburg, 6, 7, 14; from Robert Carter Nicholas, 5 January 1758, GWP; Fraser, The Washingtons, 24–25; Joseph E. Fields, Worthy Partner, 3–7; from Robert Carter Nicholas, 23 January 1756, GWP.

  4. To Nelly Custis, 16 January 1795, GWP.

  5. As the historian Edmund Morgan wrote of Virginians generally, “Though marriage was supposed to be connected somehow with love, it was also an investment, and anyone who entered upon it with a good share of capital was expected to take care that his partner should also contribute a proper share.” Edmund S. Morgan, Virginians at Home: Family Life in the Eighteenth Century, Williamsburg: Colonial Williamsburg (1952), 31.

  6. Helen Bryan, Martha Washington: First Lady of Liberty, New York: John Wiley & Sons (2002), 40; Keller, Biography in Social Dance, 15; Martha Washington to Anna Bassett, 1 June 1760, reprinted in Charles Moore, “Washington’s Family Life at Mount Vernon,” in Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine 50:288, 294 (May 1923); Invoice to Robert Cary & Co., 10 July 1773, GWP. Martha had another suitor, Charles Carter of Cleve (Fraser, The Washingtons, 26), but he may have been disqualified in Martha’s mind because he had a dozen children from earlier marriages. Brady, Martha Washington, 5.

  7. Martha Custis to Robert Cary & Co., 20 August 1757, in Fields, Worthy Partner, 5; Martha Custis to John Hanbury & Co., 20 August 1758, in Fields, Worthy Partner, 6; from John Mercer to Martha Custis, 24 April 1758, 21 October 1758, in Fields, Worthy Partner, 39, 54; and 61–76 (inventories of estates).

  8. From Robert Stewart, 24 November 1757, GWP; from Nathaniel Thompson, 20 February 1758, GWP.

  9. Titus, The Old Dominion at War, 120; Flexner 1:193–95.

  10. Freeman 2:306; Baugh, The Global Seven Years War, 358; Burton K. Kummerow, “Two Roads: The Race for the Forks of the Ohio and the Future of America,” Western Pennsylvania Hist. (Winter 2008–2009), 38, 41; Lengel, General George Washington, 69.

  11. Pitt to Governors of Massachusetts, et al., December 30, 1757, in Gertrude Selwyn Kimball, ed., Correspondence of William Pitt, New York: The Macmillan Co. (1906) 1:136–37; Pitt to Governors of Pennsylvania, et al., December 30, 1757, in Kimball, Correspondence of Pitt, 1:140–42.

  12. Freeman 2:309; McIlwaine, Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1755–58, 8:503 (7 April 1758) and 8:506 (12 April and 2 June 1758); Hall, Executive Journals 6:96–99 (2 June 1758).

  13. Baugh, The Global Seven Years War, 321, 333.

  14. To John Stanwix, 10 April 1758, GWP; to Thomas Gage, 12 April 1758, GWP.

  14. BACK INTO THE WOODS

  1. Forbes to Pitt, 20 October 1758, in Irene Stewart, ed., Letters of General John Forbes relating to the Expedition Against Fort Duquesne in 1758, Pittsburgh: Colonial Dames of America (1927), 59; Kummerow, “Two Roads,” 38; Henry Bouquet to John Forbes, 11 June 1758, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers 2:74; Shannon, Iroquois Diplomacy, 158.

  2. Forbes to Bouquet, 27 June 1758, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers 2:136; Bouquet to Forbes, 21 June 1758, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers 2:120; New Hampshire Gazette, July 14, 1758; Boston Gazette and Boston Evening Post, July 10, 1758.

  3. William A. Hunter, “Thomas Barton and the Forbes Expedition,” PMHB 95:431, 448–50 (1971); Bouquet to Forbes, 21 June 1758, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers 2:125; to Bouquet, 3 July 1758, 13 July 1758, GWP; Preston, “‘Make Indians of Our White Men,’” 293; to John Blair, 4–10 May 1758, GWP; from John Blair, 24 May 1758, GWP; Lewis, For King and Country, 246; from Thomas Waggener, 10 May 1758, GWP; to John Forbes, 19 June 1758, GWP.

 
4. Anderson, Crucible of War, 233; Bouquet to Forbes, 11 June 1758, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers 2:73; Forbes to Bouquet, 10 June 1758, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers 2:64; Forbes to Bouquet, 14 July 1758, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers 2:207; Bouquet to Forbes, 26 June 1758, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers 2:97; Bouquet to Forbes, 14 June 1758, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers 2:88; Bouquet to Forbes, 15 July 1758, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers 2:215; Bouquet to Forbes, 21 July 1758, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers 2:253.

  5. Richard Peters to Forbes, 12 July 1758, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers 2:197; “Indian Conference,” 11 July 1758, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers 2:187; Hugh Cleland, George Washington in the Ohio Valley, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press (1955), 189–90; Forbes to Bouquet, 18 August 1758, in James, Forbes Writings, 180–82; Forbes to Pitt, 6 September 1758, in James, Forbes Writings, 202–6; Forbes to the Shawnees and Delawares, 19 November 1758, in James, Forbes Writings, 216; Anderson, Crucible of War, 270–71; Trimble, “Christopher Gist and the Indian Service in Virginia, 1757–1759,” 143, 163; Calloway, The Indian World of George Washington, 146.

  6. To Henry Bouquet, 16 July 1758, GWP; Bouquet to Forbes, 31 July 1758, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers 2:290; Bouquet to Forbes, 11 July 1758, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers 2:179 (“this is a matter of politics between one province and another”); Bouquet to Forbes, 31 July 1758, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers 2:290 (Bouquet mistrusts Pennsylvania official who claims road is easy).

  7. Baugh, The Global Seven Years War, 357; William H. Shank, Indian Trails to Superhighways, York, PA: American Canal & Transportation Center (1988), 16; Forbes to William Pitt, 10 July 1758, in Stewart, Forbes Letters, 24; Forbes to Bouquet, 6 July 1758, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers 2:163.

  8. Bouquet to Forbes, 11 July 1758, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers 2:182; Bouquet to Forbes, 21 July 1758, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers 2:251; Forbes to Pitt, 6 September 1758, in James, Forbes Writings, 202.