His Excellency: George Washington: Difference between revisions
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<blockquote>As Washington sought to understand the translation of this diplomatic message, Tanacharison who apparently spoke fluent French and there fore grasped Jumonville's point before Washington did, decided to take matters into his own hands. He stepped up to where Jumonville lay, in French declared, "Thou art not yet dead, my father," then sank his hatchet into Jumonville's head, split his skull in half, pulled out his brain, and washed his hands in the mixture of blood and tissue. His warrior then fell upon the wounded French soldiers, scalped them all, and decapitated one and put his head on a stake. All this happened under the eyes of the shocked and hapless commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Washington.</blockquote> | <blockquote>As Washington sought to understand the translation of this diplomatic message, Tanacharison who apparently spoke fluent French and there fore grasped Jumonville's point before Washington did, decided to take matters into his own hands. He stepped up to where Jumonville lay, in French declared, "Thou art not yet dead, my father," then sank his hatchet into Jumonville's head, split his skull in half, pulled out his brain, and washed his hands in the mixture of blood and tissue. His warrior then fell upon the wounded French soldiers, scalped them all, and decapitated one and put his head on a stake. All this happened under the eyes of the shocked and hapless commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Washington.</blockquote> | ||
==Chapter 3: First in War== | |||
<blockquote>Before the term "Continental army" gained acceptance, the preferred term was "Army of the United Colonies of North America." (The colonies had yet to become states and the term "American," which ad been used as an epithet by Englishmen to descirbe the provincial creates on the western periphery of the British Empire, still retained its negative connotation.) When Washington approved the design for a "union flag" it looked eerily similar to the Union Jack, so when first hoisted over Cambridge in January 1776 the British troops inside Boston cheered, thinking it signaled surrender.</blockquote> | |||
<blockquote>When the British began their evacuation of Boston in March 1776, he ordered that only troops with pockmarked faces be allowed into the city. And although many educated Americans opposed inoculation, believing that it actually spread the disease, Washington strongly supported it. It would take two years before inoculation became mandatory for all troops serving in the Continental army, but the policy began to be implemented in the first year of the war. When historians debate Washington's most consequential decisions as commander in chief, they are almost always arguing about specific battles. A compelling case can be made that his swift response to the smallpox epidemic and to a policy of inoculation was the most important strategic decision of his military career.</blockquote> | |||
==Chapter 4: Destiny's Child== | |||
Ultimately though this chapter is about Washington's inner personality, so here are the main traits that emerge: | Ultimately though this chapter is about Washington's inner personality, so here are the main traits that emerge: |
Revision as of 00:47, 26 January 2021
Contents
Preface
I also began my odyssey with a question that had formed in my mind on the basis of earlier research in the papers of the revolutionary generation. It seemed to me that Benjamin Franklin was wiser than Washington; Alexander Hamilton was more brilliant; John Adams was better read; Thomas Jefferson was more intellectually sophisticated; James Madison was more politically astute. Yet each and all of these prominent figures acknowledged that Washington was their unquestioned superior. Within the gallery of greats so often mythologized and capitalized as Founding Fathers, Washington was recognized as primus inter pares, the Foundingest Father of them all. Why was that?
Chapter 1: Inner Regions
The story of how Washington's personality formed, starting with his desire for prestige and the opportunity to prove himself in battle. He proves himself as a messenger sent by the British to the French to communicate a claim to the land. This was over rough American terrain and an account of his trip was actually popular back in England.
He was then complicit in a massacre that helped launch the French Indian War, the Battle of Jumonville Glen:
As Washington sought to understand the translation of this diplomatic message, Tanacharison who apparently spoke fluent French and there fore grasped Jumonville's point before Washington did, decided to take matters into his own hands. He stepped up to where Jumonville lay, in French declared, "Thou art not yet dead, my father," then sank his hatchet into Jumonville's head, split his skull in half, pulled out his brain, and washed his hands in the mixture of blood and tissue. His warrior then fell upon the wounded French soldiers, scalped them all, and decapitated one and put his head on a stake. All this happened under the eyes of the shocked and hapless commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Washington.
Chapter 3: First in War
Before the term "Continental army" gained acceptance, the preferred term was "Army of the United Colonies of North America." (The colonies had yet to become states and the term "American," which ad been used as an epithet by Englishmen to descirbe the provincial creates on the western periphery of the British Empire, still retained its negative connotation.) When Washington approved the design for a "union flag" it looked eerily similar to the Union Jack, so when first hoisted over Cambridge in January 1776 the British troops inside Boston cheered, thinking it signaled surrender.
When the British began their evacuation of Boston in March 1776, he ordered that only troops with pockmarked faces be allowed into the city. And although many educated Americans opposed inoculation, believing that it actually spread the disease, Washington strongly supported it. It would take two years before inoculation became mandatory for all troops serving in the Continental army, but the policy began to be implemented in the first year of the war. When historians debate Washington's most consequential decisions as commander in chief, they are almost always arguing about specific battles. A compelling case can be made that his swift response to the smallpox epidemic and to a policy of inoculation was the most important strategic decision of his military career.
Chapter 4: Destiny's Child
Ultimately though this chapter is about Washington's inner personality, so here are the main traits that emerge:
Ambition: Washington seeks to prove himself in war and to increase his rank. He also marries Martha, a wealthy widow, to marry up in prestige. Washington never attended university and was not a "gentleman" in the sense of wealthy landowner, though his family wasn't poor either. He also aggressively wrote to the British to take his advice when they sent Forbes to attack the French. (After all, Washington had been present at the earlier embarrassing loss against the French, though his reputation had grown as a result.)
Self-confidence: Washington asks the VA governor to give him the Virginia Regiment to defend Ohio Country using the flexible, forest-fighting techniques that you needed to use against Native Americans who attacked from behind trees. The British army only knew about standing in a line with bright colors -- a technique that seems optimized for obedience and uniformity. Washington's fighters needed to be more self-sufficient in battle. (An interesting parallel to the future form of American government?)
Sensitivity to rank: Washington was constantly anxious about his rank and was quick to offend when anyone questioned either his rank of the quality of his Virginia Regiment.
Passion (that he could control): He was the very model of self-control, but both in war and in love he felt strong feelings. He made a big stink against the British when they didn't take his advice to move into the Ohio Country through VA (they chose PA) and refused to serve and complained a ton. And he had a ... love thing with Sarah Fairfax (the wife of his best friend) that emerges in his letters. But he had ambition so he sucked it up and ignored the affair, marrying Martha.
Chapter 2: The Strenuous Squire
He marries into money, the Curtis family. It seems like his experiences with war were 1/2 of what drove him away from England and towards independence. With war it was the ineptitude of the British in understanding the Ohio Valley and in defending it, and the possibilities of expansion for the colonialists, which he came to think of as inevitable.
But with Martha Curtis' money suddenly Washington had an estate. This entangled him with England on money matters which eventually helped convince him that as an economic matter entanglement with Europe was outdated and the future was economic independence.
If his views on slavery were typical of his time and his class, there was one area in which he proved an exception to the pattern of behavior expected of a prominent Virginia gentleman: he was excessively and conspicuously assiduous in the defense of his own interests, especially when he suspected he was being cheated out of money or land.
Sounds like Virginia was full of wannabe English nobility that adapted all sorts of affectations of the British wealthy. But included in these affectations was a nonchalance towards money that ended up driving many Virginia landowners (like Jefferson) into poverty. It also sounds like the game was somewhat rigged against them, since they were selling almost entirely tobacco and the markets were made in England -- they were subject to whatever prices their English contacts offered, and the risk was held entirely by the American colonists.
[Washington] accused his wine dealer of thievery for not filling one cask of Madeira to the top. Ship captains delivering his wheat and flour for sale in the Carribean never got the price the thought he deserved. When he hired a friend, Valentine Crawford, to assist in the management of his western lands, he drafted the following instructions: "as you are now receiving my Money, your time is not your own; and that every day or hour misapplied is a loss to me, do not therefore under a belief that as a friendship has long subsisted between us, many things may be overlooked in you..." Neither Jefferson nor most other members of Virginia's planter elite could have written such words, for they convey an obsessive concern with his own economic interests that no proper gentleman was supposed to feel, much less express, so directly. (Perhaps this is the underlying reason why Jefferson and so many other Virginia planters would die in debt, and Washington would die a very wealthy man.)
The more Washington thought about it, the more he concluded that no amount of diligence on his part, no spell of excellent weather, no favorable fluctuations in the tobacco market, could combine to pull him out of debt, because the mercantile system itself was a conspiracy designed to assure his dependency on the likes of Cary. When Washington thought of that abstract thing called the "British Empire" he did not think politically, envisioning the Hanoverian kings and the members of Parliament. He thought economically. The face he saw was Robert Cary's. And he did not trust him.
"Does it not appear," he asked rhetorically, "as clear as the sun in its meriian brightness, that there is a regular, systematic plan formed to fix the right and practice of taxation upon us?" In a long letter to Bryan Fairfax, George William's half brother, he repeated the conspiracy charge, then added the provocative argument that, unless the colonies stood together against this challenge, Great Britain would make us tame & abject Slaves, as the Blacks we rule over with such arbitrary Sway." The slavery analogy is startling, both because of its stark depiction of the power emanating from London, and because its potency and credibility grew directly out of Washington's personal familiarity with the exercise of just such power over his own slaves. During the American Revolution several English commentators called attention to the hypocrisy of slave owners wrapping their cause in the rhetoric of liberty. In Washington's case, the rhetoric was heartfelt precisely because he understood firsthand the limitless opportunity for abuse once control was vested in another. He did not see himself as a hypocrite so much as a man determined to prevent the cruel ways of history from happening to him.