George Washington: The Life Of America's First President

In the second half of the 18th century, a brief skirmish at Great Meadows started a long and bitter war. British Redcoats crossed half a world to fight to prevent a breach occurring between Britain and her American colonies. It was the war which would see eventually a young Virginian officer becoming the first President of the United States of America. His name was George Washington. The Washingtons came to America in about 1657. Just after the English Civil War, although they were by no means members of the nobility, they proudly bore a coat of arms and belonged to a solidly established family of minor gentry, which can be traced back to the time of William the Conqueror. By the time George Washington, the future president, was born, on the 11th of February 1732, they owned extensive tobacco plantations in Virginia and were, by any standards, wealthy. His father died in 1743, but George's elder half-brother Lawrence then became his guardian, and is believed to have exercised a profound influence over him. His formal schooling ended when he was only fifteen, but he had by then gained a fair knowledge of mathematics and geography. This practical grounding stood him in good stead, when Lawrence helped to have him appointed surveyor of the massive Fairfax estate in 1748. This involved a fair amount of traveling in the wilderness of the backcountry, and despite his youth he acquitted himself well enough at this to become a public surveyor. Although he seems to have been well suited to it, he did not remain a surveyor for very long. In November 1752 he obtained an appointment as adjutant to the Virginia Militia and an income of a hundred pounds a year. Washington does not appear to have been in any way qualified for the militia job. It involved drilling the volunteer soldiers, and one of his first acts must have been to learn that drill himself. Like most official posts at the time, it was obtained solely through patronage and social influence. Nevertheless, it does demonstrate his early interest in military matters. As a militia officer with some knowledge of the frontier, young Washington naturally came to the notice of the governor of Virginia, Robert Dinwiddie. The striking thing about Washington is that he is not a member of the Virginian aristocracy before the Revolutionary War. Washington's ancestor, who came from England, was an Anglican minister. Washington's father and grandfather were moderate landholders, but by no means wealthy in the Virginia of the 1750s. However, Washington, by the time he's 21, is able to make wealth, to make himself a self-made man, through surveying of land, which he then purchases and develops into quite a significant holding. In fact, 2,000 acres by the time he's 21 in 1753. Moreover, Washington, through these activities of surveying, is able to develop very good political connections. A friend of his is a cousin of Lord Fairfax, who is the largest landowner in northern Virginia, having some 5 million acres. That means Washington has access not only to the emerging Virginian leadership, but also to the British authorities. Despite his youth and inexperience, in 1754, Dinwiddie entrusted him with an extremely important diplomatic task. French soldiers had appeared on the western borders of the colony. Conflict was inevitable. At the time, there were two quite separate French colonies in North America, Canada and Louisiana. The French troops were trying to establish a chain of forts along an overland route between the two colonies by way of the Ohio and the Mississippi valleys. However, if they succeeded in doing this, they would also prevent any further westward expansion of Virginia. After an arduous journey through the wilderness, Washington arrived at the French outposts, only to be faced with calculated obstruction. The first French officers whom he met greeted Washington politely. but firmly declared that they had no authority to deal with the matter. Wearily, the young Virginian headed further northwards in bad weather to meet the French commander, but he too refused to accept Dinwiddie's letter. Just as courteously, he informed Washington that only the King of France himself could decide whether or not his troops could stay on the Ohio. Disappointed, Washington retraced his steps back across the Allegheny Mountains. And in the process, narrowly avoided drowning in an icy river. Since diplomacy had failed, military action must follow. Encouraged by a swift promotion to colonel, he collected two companies of the Virginia Regiment and headed west, spoiling for a fight. This time, his orders were to erect a fort at the strategically important Forks of the Ohio. Unfortunately, it all went badly wrong. Washington and his Indian allies successfully ambushed a French scouting party at Great Meadows on the 28th of May 1754, but all this achieved was to stir up a veritable hornet's nest, and they found themselves facing a major counter-attack. Hopelessly outnumbered, Washington's Virginians and some other troops from Maryland hastily dug in, Building the ominously named Fort Necessity. As the French army approached, the apprehensive Americans wrangled amongst themselves. Captain James McKay, the veteran commander of the Maryland troops, held the king's commission. Therefore, he refused to take orders from the 22-year-old Colonel Washington, who held only a colonial commission. More than that, he argued, perhaps with some justice, that as a regular officer, he actually outranked the youthful and inexperienced Virginian. In the end it made very little difference. Fort Necessity was badly sighted and the Americans were forced to surrender on the 3rd of July. Nevertheless, Colonel Washington's fight at Great Meadows and the defeat at Fort Necessity aroused the attention of the British government. Reinforcements were at once ordered out from Ireland under a Major General Edward Braddock. Braddock was a cold-stream guardsman and a more than competent soldier, but unfortunately his troops were a pretty poor lot. Regiments stationed in Ireland mustered only half the strength they should have done at this time and were notoriously inefficient. Just two years earlier, some of their officers had to be rather sharply reminded to wear their swords and to stop slouching around in slippers and nightcaps. As a result, the two battalions which Braddock brought with him had to be filled up with raw recruits on their arrival in America. Well aware of the difficulties which he would face in the backcountry, Braddock also set about obtaining the services of George Washington. The young colonel's military record was less than impressive, but he knew the area well. Therefore, in the summer of 1755, he was invited to accompany General Braddock on another expedition to the Forks of the Ohio. By now, the French had erected a strong fort there. Ironically enough, it stood on the spot which had been surveyed by Washington himself. Washington readily agreed to go, but he was disappointed not to be offered a regular commission. Contrary to popular legend, there was no discrimination in the army against American-born officers, and had he wanted to do so, Washington could easily have entered a British regiment. There was no question, however, of the inexperienced young militia officer being given the colonel's rank which he wanted. If he joined the army, he would have to start at At the bottom, just like everybody else. This he was evidently not prepared to do. Swallowing his disappointment, therefore, Washington marched with Braddock as little more than a local guide on his staff. On the 9th of July, 1755, the British and colonial troops were just a few miles short of their objective, when they were ambushed amongst the trees on the banks of the Monongahela River. In the battle which followed, Washington was lucky to escape with his life. We were attacked, very unexpectedly, I must own, by about 300 French and Indians. Our numbers consisted of about 1,300 well-armed men, chiefly regulars, who were immediately struck with such a deadly panic that nothing but confusion and disobedience of orders prevailed amongst them. The officers in general behaved with incomparable bravery, there being nearly Nearly 60 killed and wounded, a large proportion out of the numbers we had. The Virginia companies behaved like men and died like soldiers. I believe out of the three companies that were there that day, scarce were left alive. In short, the dastardly behavior of the English soldiers exposed all those who were inclined to do their duty to almost certain death. And at length, despite every effort to the contrary, they broke and ran as sheep before the hounds, leaving the artillery, Ammunition, provisions, and... Every individual thing we had with us was prey to the enemy. The battle on the Monongahela was a complete disaster, and Braddock himself was mortally wounded towards the end. For a time, the frontier was wide open and undefended. The real long-term damage, however, was done to British-American relations. Braddock's attack on Fort Duquesne in 1755 should have been a British victory. He had numerical superiority. The French did not have a large amount of provisions in the fort. And French commanders in Canada were ready to retreat, but Braddock threw away the victory, in part because he accepted the advice of George Washington. Washington said to send an advance element of Braddock's force across the river, thus splitting the British army in two. That advance force, strung out along the road leading to Fort Duquesne, was attacked by a French party which happened to come across its path. More importantly, the British had themselves in a position where they are surrounded by trees and gullies on both sides of the road. That meant that the French and Indians were not susceptible to the bayonet charge, the one close quarters strategy that could have ensured an overwhelming victory. Instead, British soldiers resorted to trying to fire volleys were picked off one by one by the French and Indian forces, and ultimately Braddock retreated. It's no longer remembered this way, in part because George Washington would later get glory in the 1750s in the French and Indian Wars. But in effect, the British threw away an opportunity in 1755, which could have ended the French and Indian Wars more than four years before the final events that took place in Montreal. It is quite clear that Washington, who was still resentful of their refusal to grant him the regular commission he wanted, blamed the British regulars for the disaster. In reality, it was actually the raw American recruits in Braddock's regiments who were the first to run away. Nevertheless, his own Virginians had suffered some of the heaviest losses, and the bitter sense of betrayal sparked off Washington's growing conviction that the colonists should be allowed to look after themselves. It was a conviction which would be strengthened by his experiences in the three years which separated the battle from the eventual capture of Fort Duquesne. During that time, with a bare 700 men of the Virginia regiment, he was responsible for defending 350 rugged miles of frontier. As if this was not bad enough, he had to do it with little or no help from the royal governor. The British government had quite correctly decided that the war would be won or lost in Canada, not on the Virginia frontier. Nearly all the available troops and supplies would go north, not west. In the short term this was obviously rough on Washington, but unless the French base in Canada was destroyed, the war on the frontier would drag on indefinitely. Far from supporting him, therefore, Governor Dinwiddie appeared at times to go out of his way to obstruct the increasingly impatient young Virginian, and his successor, the Earl of Loudoun, seemed no better. Washington did not realize it at the time, of course. But this experience would later stand him in good stead when he commanded the Continental Army. Although the war with France would still drag on for another five years, the capture of Fort Duquesne by a small British expedition in December 1758 meant that the Virginia frontier was at last secure. Disappointed in all his hopes for military glory, however, Washington decided to retire once more into civilian life. He may well have been encouraged in this resolve by his future wife. In January 1759, George Washington married a wealthy widow named Martha Custis. The match brought him an additional $100,000 worth of property, but it would be quite unfair to suggest that he married the widow for her money. Both of them were the same age, and he was already by any reckoning a wealthy man in his own right. Making his home at Mount Vernon, Washington then spent the next 15 years as a prosperous tobacco planter. During that time, he served repeatedly in the Virginian House of Burgesses, and had a wide circle of acquaintances among the leading men in the colony. Nevertheless, in the early years, he does not seem to have taken a very prominent part in colonial politics. Instead, his diaries show him to be a methodical businessman, with an enthusiastic interest in fox hunting. History ensured, however, that he would not end his days as an obscure country gentleman. All wars are ruinously expensive, both for the victors as well as for the vanquished. The Seven Years' War ended with Britain triumphant in North America. The French had been decisively defeated, and Canada was now held by the British crown. Now, in order to try and recover some of the costs, the American colonies were to be subjected to direct taxation for the first time. This unprecedented proposal was greeted with great dismay and resentment. Americans everywhere soon raised the famous cry of no taxes without representation. The more moderate ones declared that they did not really begrudge paying the king his due. Their objection was simply that the taxes were levied by the parliament in London rather than by their own provincial assemblies, such as the Virginia's House of Burgesses. Each of the 13 colonies had its own charter granted by the crown. These set out their rights and privileges. including the right to elect their own governments or assemblies. These were supposed to advise the royal governor in much the same way as the parliament in London advised the king. Until now, therefore, they had very largely been allowed to decide their own affairs and, of course, to raise their own taxes. However, if the colonists' charters could be arbitrarily overwritten by parliament in the matter of taxes, it was widely feared that they might just as easily be overwritten in other matters as well. Washington serves until 1758, four years working with the British, but the one thing he never achieves is a royal commission, so he never becomes a British officer. Ironically, the British might have prevented Washington serving as a revolutionary commander if they'd been more farsighted, but the short-term effect is that Washington gives up his military career. Between 1758 and 1775, he is a Virginia landholder, developing his plantation at Mount Vernon, and having a good deal of respectability, serving in the House of Burgesses, Virginia House of Commons for a time. But he's not very prominent. That is until the Revolutionary War begins. You see, Washington has that military experience, something that few Americans have in 1775. And that's the first thing that makes him a logical choice to lead the American armies into the field. The second thing is a geographical accident. The original leaders of the drive for independence, people like Samuel Adams, who had started the Boston Tea Party, John Adams, they were from Massachusetts, which, besides Virginia, was the largest colony, but was also considered a bit hot-headed, wanting independence too much. Washington, because he's from Virginia and not Massachusetts, thus becomes a logical choice, as it were, to smooth over differences between the factions who want independence immediately and those who still see some conciliation with the British. Washington thus becomes, in effect, commander-in-chief of the American armies in 1775. As the revolutionary movement gathered pace throughout the colonies, George Washington came to be increasingly identified with the loose political grouping known as the Patriots. He strongly opposed the more moderate measures which were proposed, such as drafting petitions to the King and Parliament. He not only argued that they would simply be rejected, as indeed they were, but he also stoutly declared that he did not believe in begging for what he and his fellow colonists believed to be their just rights. The Ministry may rely on it that Americans will never be taxed without their own consent, and that we shall not suffer ourselves to be sacrificed piecemeal, though God only knows what is to become of us. Threatened as we are with so many hovering evils as hang over us at present, having a cruel and bloodthirsty enemy upon our backs, the Indians, between whom and our frontier inhabitants many skirmishes have happened, and with whom a general war is inevitable, whilst those from whom we have a right to seek protection are endeavouring to fix the shackles of slavery upon us. When the Virginia House of Burgesses was dissolved by the royal governor in May 1770, George Washington was amongst the members who defied him by immediately reconvening at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg. There they adopted the agreement circulating through the colonies that no British goods should be imported. It was this agreement which led directly to the incident immortalized as the Boston Tea Party. A cargo of tea consigned to American merchants was dumped by a patriot gang into Boston Harbor. This was a calculated affront to the authority of the Crown, and in retaliation the British government promptly passed a number of punitive measures. First came the Boston Port Bill, effective from the 1st of June 1774. This effectively closed the harbor by prohibiting the loading or unloading of ships there until punitive damage had been paid for the Tea Party. Then came the Administration of Justice Act. This provided that those accused of a capital crime committed in aiding the government could not be tried in the same colony. Although they were obviously bitterly resented by the Americans, neither act was unjustified. In particular, the Justice Act ensured that British soldiers and officials could maintain law and order without risking prosecution for assault or worse at the hands of the Patriot Courts. The third act, however, was a different matter entirely. For it confirmed the Patriots' worst fears. The Massachusetts Government Act of May 1774 virtually annulled the colonists' charter and gave the governor unfettered control. Besides this particular act, all the other measures paled into insignificance for it struck at the very independence of all the colonists. The other provincial assemblies quickly rallied around And in August 1774, George Washington was appointed one of the Virginia delegates to the First Continental Congress. He apparently made little impression at the time on the other delegates at the Congress, but he was firmly convinced that it would come to a fight. On his return to Virginia, he strongly urged that military preparations should get underway at once. A number of militia companies were raised, and he personally drilled some of the volunteers. Not only had George Washington decided that there was going to be a war, he also seems to have decided that if there was going to be an American army, he was the man who was going to lead it. At the Second Continental Congress in May 1775, he was much more conspicuous. He could hardly fail to be, since he insisted on wearing his militia uniform at all times, and talking knowledgeably on military matters. The rather obvious hint was soon taken. Thus far, the New England Colonies had taken the lead in resistance to the Crown, but if they were ultimately to succeed, they needed the wholehearted support of the Southern Colonies as well. They could best do this by naming someone from one of the Southern Colonies as Commander-in-Chief, and who better for the job than Colonel George Washington of Virginia. His military record might be less than impressive, of course, but he was on the spot And by constantly wearing his smart, blue, and buff militia uniform, he left the delegates in no doubt that he was both ready and willing to take on the job. On the 15th of June, 1775, George Washington was unanimously elected to take command of the American forces. And like many another husband before and since, he hastily assured his wife that it really wasn't his idea. As it has been a kind of destiny that has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that my undertaking it is designed to answer some good purpose. It was utterly out of my power to refuse this appointment without exposing my character to such censures as would have reflected dishonor upon myself, and given pain to my friends. This, I am sure, could not, and ought not, to be pleasing to you, and must have lessened me considerably in my own esteem. No mention, you see, of the fact that he had been parading around in his militia uniform for the past six weeks. Anyway, it made no difference, for by then the fighting had already begun in Massachusetts. On the night of the 18th of April, 1775, a picked force of British soldiers slipped out of Boston with the intention of seizing and destroying a Patriot arms dump at Concord. Forewarned of their coming, the Massachusetts militia began mustering. And at first light on the 19th, a confrontation took place on Lexington Green between Captain Parker's company and the British advance guard. Who fired the first shot that morning is still the subject of dispute, but there is no doubting the result. In a matter of minutes, eight Americans were dead and ten more wounded. Later that day, at Concord's North Bridge, another and much more serious fight occurred. Soon afterwards, the British troops began retreating back to Boston, harried all the way by American militia. In the end, they successfully made their escape. But for the Patriots, there was to be no turning back. The long-anticipated shooting war had begun, and Boston was besieged. Just two days after George Washington was appointed commander-in-chief, and while he was still making his way north, the first real battle of the war took place outside Boston at Bunker Hill on the 17th of June, 1775. The battle was undoubtedly a defeat for the American militia, but afterwards they were able to derive considerable comfort from their performance. They had been driven from their entrenchments, it was true, but they were not routed. And the attacking British forces had suffered terrible losses. Undaunted, therefore, the Patriots resolved to continue the siege and await the arrival of General Washington. He formally took command of the army at Cambridge, outside Boston, on the 3rd of July, and thus entered upon the most important period of his life. It's almost difficult to find George Washington because he's so covered up by myth. Washington, the father of our country. Washington, first in war, first in peace. He emerges as a calm, unflappable, quick-thinking, but always clear-thinking individual. Now, in fact, the real Washington did have some character defects. He was rash to judgment at times. More importantly, he could be an extremely cold person with people on first meetings. He was not flamboyant like Napoleon. He was not extroverted like maybe the Duke of Wellington was with his men. But what Washington had and what was essential, both as a military person and as a statesman, was that he commanded authority. People listened to him, and people would then carry out decisions based upon the authority that he invested upon them. That respect was something that put him above political party, it put him above faction within the military, and it meant that if there was a crisis in the Revolutionary War or in the young United States of America, Washington was the one figure to whom all Americans could turn. Washington was no military genius, and even his biggest battles were to be little more than skirmishes by European standards. He rarely had more than about 12,000 men under his personal direction, and very often less. But throughout the next seven years, he displayed considerable determination, fortitude, and above all, leadership. He was to need those qualities. The siege of Boston dragged on until the following March. The British position was well nigh impregnable, and it was really a matter of waiting to see who would tire of it first. In the meantime, it might be fair to say that the newly appointed General Washington usually had rather more trouble from his own army than from the British one. Their officers, generally speaking, are the most indifferent kind of people I ever met. I have already broke one colonel and five captains for cowardice and for drawing more pay and provisions than they had men in their companies. There are two more colonels under arrest and to be tried for the same offenses. In short, they are by no means such troops in any respect as you or I are led to believe of them from the accounts which were published, but I need not make myself enemies amongst them by this declaration. Although it is consistent with truth, for I dare say the men themselves will fight very well. Despite calling themselves the Continental Army, the American forces were still in fact made up of poorly organized and disciplined militiamen. There were a few cannon and some men who claimed to know how to fire them, but no military engineers and very few cavalrymen. Hardly any of them wore military uniforms, and what was more, all of them were due to be disbanded on the 31st of December, 1775. Unless something was done about this, the British Army might well wake up on the 1st of January, 1776, to find the siege lines empty. Washington's first task, therefore, was to form a real Continental Army out of the various forces raised by the individual colonies, or states as they now called themselves. Right at the outset of the war, of course, the American forces were made up of militia, the famous Minutemen, the embattled farmers and so on, who had given the British Army quite a shock at Lexington and Concord. First place, of course, the British didn't believe that the Americans would fight. And then when the Americans did fight, they got a shock at the fact that the Americans actually won. The Americans themselves took great pride in this, and to some extent this was their undoing. Because while the American militia was very good in certain conditions, Pulled out to defend a particular locality from behind walls, trees and so on and so forth. That was a very different matter from actually facing an army in the field and defeating it in an open battle. Which ultimately the Americans needed to do to win the war. Washington, to his great credit, recognised this. And much of his... period as commander-in-chief of the American forces was not spent as a commander in the field leading his men into battle but rather preparing them for that battle turning them from militia who were fine behind the stone wall but absolutely useless in the open into proper regular soldiers who were fit to face the British army in the field They never actually achieved that entirely. There was never really a battle in the open where American forces fought toe-to-toe with the British ones and beat them head-on, with one or two minor exceptions, some skirmishes through Cowpens. On the whole, the Americans didn't quite come up to it, but they came up good enough to actually do it at the end of the day. British ineptitude, political interference and so on all conspired, but without that American regular army, in the end Washington could not have won the war. Fortunately, a conspicuous lack of activity on the part of the British Army gave him the time which he so desperately needed to turn this unwashed rabble into something which actually resembled an army. The forty-odd existing regiments were reorganized into just twenty-eight large ones, and the men were formally enlisted for one year. Each soldier had to provide his own firelock and bayonet, as in militia days, but the army promised to pay, feed, and clothing. Unfortunately, it was a promise which could rarely be kept. As well as forming new units, Washington also found that he had to replace the many unsuitable officers, and the snarl of the Virginia aristocrat can still clearly be heard in a letter which he wrote to a friend at this time. It is among the most difficult tasks I ever undertook in my life to induce these people to believe that there is, or can be, danger till the bayonet is pushed into their breasts. Not that it proceeds from any uncommon prowess, but rather from an unaccountable kind of stupidity in the lower classes of people, which, believe me, prevails but too generally among the officers of the Massachusetts part of the army, who are nearly all the same kidney with the privates, and adds not a little to my difficulties, as there is no such thing as getting officers of this stamp to exert themselves in carrying orders into execution. To curry favor with the men by whom they were chosen seems to be one of the principal objects of their attention. Only some 10,000 men volunteered to join the Continental Army in the first year of the war, rather than the 14,000 which had been hoped for. Nevertheless, with the sometimes rather dubious assistance of the state militias, Washington was at least able to face the inevitable British counterattack. Boston was eventually evacuated by the British Army in March 1776. Carried north to Halifax by the Royal Navy, it regrouped there and then launched a massive offensive against New York. The formal declaration of independence on the 4th of July 1776 may have raised morale a little, but General Howe and his tough British regulars came frighteningly close to turning it into a hollow joke. Hopelessly outmaneuvered by Howe, Washington scattered his forces too widely and saw them I saw them defeated in a number of battles. These culminated in the disaster at Fort Washington on the 16th of November 1776. For a time it looked as though the Continental Army might be completely destroyed. Fortunately, hidden by a thick fog, Washington succeeded in evacuating most of his men across to the safety of the Jersey Shore. New York fell to the triumphant redcoats And the demoralized American army retreated southwards through the jerseys. Under a lesser leader, Patriot resistance might well have collapsed that winter, but Washington now showed his true greatness. Most of his men had enlisted for just one year, and that year was up on the 31st of December. As things stood, there was no reason whatever for them to re-enlist, and serve what was increasingly looking like a lost cause. Refusing to admit defeat, Washington launched one last counterattack through the snow. On the 26th of December, he recrossed the icy Delaware River and surprised and destroyed a brigade of Hessian troops at Trenton, New Jersey. Buoyed up by that success, he then went on to launch another heavy raid against British troops at Princeton on the 3rd of February, 1777. Both operations were in reality quite minor affairs, but few other commanders would have dared to attempt them in the dead of winter, with demoralized, starving, and half-naked troops. These raids gave the Continental Army some confidence in itself at last. Enough men re-enlisted to keep it going for another year. But it was going to need that confidence, for the worst was yet to come. Washington's biggest problem was that he was always fighting a war on two fronts. Before him lay the ever-formidable British Army. Behind him lay his political foes, an ineffectual Congress, and the uncooperative individual state governments. The states, separately, are too much engaged in their local concerns and have far too many of their ablest men withdrawn from the general council. In a word, I think our political system may be compared with the mechanism of a clock, and that our conduct should derive a lesson from it. For it answers no good purpose to keep the smaller wheels in order, if the greater one, which is the support and prime mover of the whole, is neglected. Forever wrangling amongst themselves and always more concerned with the immediate priorities of the various states, they frequently left the Continental Army starved of money, men, clothing and supplies. Indeed a major problem throughout the war and afterwards was that just about the only thing which united all of the states was a desire to be independent of Britain. They had little desire to cooperate with each other. And some officers and politicians even went so far as to grumble that they might actually prefer to be ruled by the British Crown than by the Continental Congress. This unsatisfactory situation was not helped by Washington's inept handling of the Pennsylvania campaign in the summer of 1777. Washington's command of the American forces in the Revolutionary War was his first command. And, as sometimes happens to first-time commanders, he could make tactical mistakes. For example, he nearly had most of his force captured in New York by the British in 1776. But where Washington showed skill was in the ability to extricate himself from mistakes. So, for example, he retreated from New York, lost part of his force, but retained most of it, and then by counterattacking, was able to inflict pin-prick defeats upon the British in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. If the British could have trapped Washington, if they could have been more forward in their thinking, Washington might have gone down as a military failure. But he wasn't trapped. He persisted. He ducked. He dived. And ultimately, he was around at the end, when the British were defeated at Yorktown. So Washington made mistakes, but in the end, he showed more mobility and more forethought than his British opponents. The British commander, General Howe, struck southwards. Once again, he easily outmaneuvered and defeated Washington, this time at the Brandywine Creek, and then captured Philadelphia. Undaunted, Washington regrouped and counterattacked, only to be heavily defeated yet again at Germantown on the 4th of October. There was no alternative but to withdraw to Valley Forge, some 20 miles from Philadelphia. An entrenched camp was constructed there, and Washington settled down for the winter. Almost at once he faced a challenge to his authority. The northern states had agreed to his appointment in the first place, simply in order to ensure the support of the south. Since then he had failed to win any real victories. Worse still, first New York had been captured and now Philadelphia, the seat of the provisional government. Next year, who knew what further disasters might be expected. On the other hand, the northern generals have been much more successful. General Horatio Gates had not only defeated a British army led by General Burgoyne at Saratoga in October, he had even forced it into a humiliating surrender. It was time, they thought, to replace Washington with a New England man, ideally General Gates. A rather ineptly organized plot, later known as the Conway Cabal, was set in motion that winter. However, the army remained firmly behind Washington. Gates lost his nerve and the New Englanders backed off. Washington had dealt firmly with this particular threat to his authority, but the state of his army still gave him much greater cause for concern. Without arrogance, or the smallest deviation from truth, it may be said that no history, now extant, can furnish an instance of any army suffering such uncommon hardships as ours have done. And, hearing them, with such patience and fortitude, To see men without clothes to cover their nakedness, without blankets to lie on, without shoes by which their marches may be traced by the blood from their feet, and almost as often without provisions as with any, marching through frost and snow, and at Christmas, taking up their winter quarters within a day's march of the enemy, without a house or a hut to cover them, and submitting to it without a murmur. is a mark of patience and obedience, which in my opinion can scarce be paralleled. The suffering endured by the American forces at Valley Forge has passed into legend, yet there is little doubt that it was Washington's leadership which pulled them through, and indeed forged them into the tough professional army that went on to win the war. Until now the army had muddled along More or less according to a wide variety of drill books. and the sometimes rather hazy practices of individual officers. The defeat at Germantown in October had very largely been the result of fumbling inefficiency. At first all had gone well. The British outposts were driven in. Washington's ambitious plan for an attack by several converging columns seemed to be working, but then it all fell apart. A thick fog did not help, and the unexpectedly stout resistance of the British 40th Foot also upset the delicate timetable. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, the fact remained that a plan which the British Army could have executed with ease was simply too complicated for the poorly trained Americans. Washington therefore resolved that the winter should be spent in rectifying the matter. He himself had once favored good old Humphrey Bland's treatise of military discipline. which he had learned as a militia officer in Virginia, but it was now rather out of date. Something much simpler was needed. Luckily, just at that moment, an extremely talented Prussian officer named Friedrich von Steuben arrived on the scene, and Washington greatly to his credit allowed him free reign. It was von Steuben who drilled the Continentals incessantly that winter, and at last taught them how to maneuver and fight properly. Nevertheless, without General Washington's own efforts, and above all his inspiration, the army might still have wasted away. Instead, the Continental Army took the field in the spring, smaller but much leaner and fitter than ever before. By then, the British Army had decided to abandon Philadelphia and return to New York. Washington set off in pursuit, and at Monmouth Courthouse on the 28th of June 1778, his confident and well-trained troops fought a very creditable battle against the British rear guard. Monmouth was in fact the last major battle fought by Washington for three years. During that time, he did his best to keep the main British army blockaded in New York, while most of the fighting shifted southwards to the Carolinas and Virginia. Meanwhile, the American victory at Saratoga brought the French into the war. Their assistance was not entirely welcomed by many of the American leaders, including Washington himself. They had begun their careers by fighting the French, and now they found it difficult to wholeheartedly accept them as allies. Nevertheless, despite some initial disappointments, the French intervention promised to be decisive. In August 1781, Washington reluctantly decided that there was no realistic prospect of retaking New York. Instead, he resolved to lead a combined French and American army southwards into his home state of Virginia. Matters have now come to a crisis. I was obliged. From the shortness of the French admiral's stay on the coast to the apparent disinclination of the French naval officers to force the harbor of New York. The feeble compliance of the states to my requisitions Hitherto, with little prospect for the greater exertion in the future, and to give up all idea of taking New York, and instead, therefore, to remove the French troops and the detachment from the American army to the head of the Elk, to be transported to Virginia, all for the purpose of cooperating with the French forces from the West Indies against the British troops there. Obviously, a large proportion of Washington's army had to be left behind, keeping the main British army bottled up in New York. Equally naturally, most of those left behind were New Englanders, but Washington knew that this campaign would be the decisive one. The war would be won or lost in Virginia, and therefore he ensured that there were at least some troops from every state in his army. Hopelessly outnumbered, the British army, led by Lord Cornwallis, took its stand at Yorktown, and surrendered to General Washington after a short siege on the 19th of October, 1781. Although the war was still to drag on for another two years, Washington's victory at Yorktown, the only real military victory he ever gained, had decided the issue. American independence was now secure. The last British ships sailed out of New York Harbor on the 4th of December 1783, and that evening he bid farewell to his officers at Francis Tavern in the city, and retired to his estates. At length, I am become a private citizen. On the banks of the Potomac, and under the shadow of my own vine, and my own fig tree, free from the bustle of a camp, and the busy scenes of public life, I am solacing myself with those tranquil enjoyments of which the soldier, the statesman, and the courtier can have very little conception. I have not only retired from all public employments, but I am retiring within myself, And you'll be able to view the solitary walk. and tread the paths of private life with a heartfelt satisfaction. He was not, however, allowed to retire from public life for very long. The American colonists had won their independence from Britain, but there was still no real agreement as to how they should now be governed. At first, there was simply a very loose confederation of the 13 states. Each was free to govern itself as it pleased, but it soon became apparent that something better was required. In 1787, General Washington was one of the Virginia delegates to the Federal Convention in Philadelphia, which hammered out a revised set of Articles of Confederation. These now bound the various states together under a federal government. Having led the American army to victory during the war, Washington was elected unanimously to be the first President of the United States. He took the oath of office in New York City on the 30th of April, 1789. and went on to be re-elected for a second term in 1792. Then, feeling that he had more than done his duty to his country, he declined to serve a third term and retired in 1797. There is little doubt that he would have again been re-elected had he stood for office, but by now he was sick of politics. Despite their assistance during the war, Washington was never fully reconciled to the French, and in 1793 he maintained American neutrality, What is not so important is what Washington did as what people later thought that he did for America. It was important in the early days of the Republic for Washington to be seen as the unifier, the man above party, the man above region, the man who would support neither Britain nor France overseas, the man of neutrality. In fact, Washington in his presidency between 1789 and 1797 was very partial. He's very partial to the Federalist cause, which believed in a strong capital in Washington, one which had authority over the states. Washington, for example, supported a national bank. Washington put down rebellions of farmers over taxes on whiskey in the early 1790s. Washington signed a treaty with the dreaded British enemy in 1795, less than 15 years after he had defeated them on the battlefield. Having begun his career by fighting them, it was perhaps fitting that he should end it in the same way. In 1798, he was called from retirement to command the army being raised for an expected war with France, but he was destined not to leave it, for he died unexpectedly at Mount Vernon on the 14th of December, 1799. No general, however talented, is invincible, and Washington suffered suffered more defeats than most. I think it would be fair to say that although Washington was a very good commander of an army, a commander-in-chief, he was not a great field commander and certainly would not rank as one of the great captains. He was tactically inept. He had very little experience of handling large bodies of troops and, to be honest, this showed whenever he tried to actually fight battles. He was certainly an unlucky general. Napoleon was a great believer in luck and he would not have employed George Washington. Nevertheless... There is probably no doubt that Washington was the right man in the right place at the time. While he was no field commander, he was a good commander-in-chief, who can perhaps best be compared with, say, General Marshall during the Second World War. General Eisenhower was the man who led the American forces in Europe. The marshal was the commander-in-chief who made sure that those forces were in the right place, properly trained and properly equipped. And that, I think, is probably the best comparison you can make with Washington's role in the battle. Not a good field commander, but definitely a good commander-in-chief. Excellent political general. He was able to keep Congress happy, though he was never happy with Congress, and he was able to inspire his men. He was a man to look up to but certainly I could be fair to say not a man to win battles. Yet for all that it is doubtful whether any other of the American leaders could have led them to ultimate victory as Washington did. It was Washington and Washington alone who held the army together during those terrible winters of 1776 and 1777 when defeat seemed almost inevitable. In 1800, a man named Weems brought out a small book about Washington, and this didn't talk about Washington as president and whether he sided with Alexander Hamilton or Thomas Jefferson. It talked about Washington as a small boy, a boy who after chopping down a cherry tree went to his father and said, I cannot tell a lie, it was I who cut down the cherry tree and took the punishment for the offense. It was that symbol of honesty, integrity, and decency that the young America wanted to project both at home and abroad. And that is why Washington became the father of his country. Arguably, there were better field commanders in the American Army, men who understood soldiering and how to maneuver armies as Washington never could. Benedict Arnold certainly was one. But none of them had the strength of character, the patience, the determination, and even the humor. Which George Washington displayed in the eight crucial years which won independence for the United States of America.