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The Riverside Library

George Washington

By

WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER

1922

TO

HARRIET SEARS AMORY

WITH THE BEST WISHES OF HER OLD FRIEND

THE AUTHOR

PREFACE

To obviate misunderstanding, it seems well to warn the reader thatthis book aims only at giving a sketch of George Washington's lifeand acts. I was interested to discover, if I could, the human residuewhich I felt sure must persist in Washington after all was said. Owingto the pernicious drivel of the Reverend Weems no other great man inhistory has had to live down such a mass of absurdities and deliberatefalse inventions. At last after a century and a quarter the rubbishhas been mostly cleared away, and only those who wilfully prefer todeceive themselves need waste time over an imaginary Father of HisCountry amusing himself with a fictitious cherry-tree and hatchet.

The truth is that the material about George Washington is veryvoluminous. His military records cover the eight years of theRevolutionary War. His political work is preserved officially inthe reports of Congress. Most of the public men who were hiscontemporaries left memoirs or correspondence in which he figures.Above all there is the edition, in fourteen volumes, of his ownwritings compiled by Mr. Worthington C. Ford. And yet many personsfind something that baffles them. They do not recognize a definiteflesh and blood Virginian named Washington behind it all. Even sosturdy an historian as Professor Channing calls him the most elusiveof historic personages. Who has not wished that James Boswell couldhave spent a year with Wellington on terms as intimate as those hespent with Dr. Johnson and could have left a report of that intimacy?

In this sketch I have conceived of Washington as of some superbathlete equipped for every ordeal which life might cause him to face.The nature of each ordeal must be briefly stated; brief also, butsufficient, the account of the way he accomplished it. I have quotedfreely from his letters wherever it seemed fitting, first, because inthem you get his personal authentic statement of what happened as hesaw it, and you get also his purpose in making any move; and next,because nothing so well reveals the real George Washington as thoseletters do. Whoever will steep himself in them will hardly declarethat their writer remains an elusive person beyond finding out orunderstanding. In the course of reading them you will come upon manyof those "imponderables" which are the secret soul of statecraft.

And so with all humility—for no one can spend much time withWashington, and not feel profound humility—I leave this little sketchto its fate, and hope that some readers will find in it what I stroveto put in it.

W.R.T.

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS June 11, 1922

CONTENTS

I. ORIGINS AND YOUTHII. MARRIAGE. THE LIFE OF A PLANTERIII. THE FIRST GUNIV. BOSTON FREEDV. TRENTON AND VALLEY FORGEVI. AID FROM FRANCE; TRAITORSVII. WASHINGTON RETURNS TO PEACEVIII. WELDING THE NATIONIX. THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENTX. THE JAY TREATYXI. WASHINGTON RETIRES FROM PUBLIC LIFEXII. CONCLUSIONINDEX

ABBREVIATIONS OF TITLES FREQUENTLY REFERRED TO

Channing = Edward Channing: