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• Born: 22 February 1732
• Birthplace: Westmoreland County, Virginia
• Died: 14 December 1799
• Best Known As: The first President of the United States

George Washington is called "the father of his country" for his crucial role in fighting for, creating and leading the United States of America in its earliest days. Washington was a surveyor, farmer and soldier who rose to command the Colonial forces in the Revolutionary War. He held the ragtag Continental Army together -- most famously during a frigid encampment at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania during the winter of 1777-78 -- and eventually led them to victory over the British. His success in the war made him a tremendously popular figure in America even after he retired to his farm at Mount Vernon in 1783. He was the natural choice to serve as the country's first president in 1789 after the new United States Constitution was ratified. He served two terms, refused a third, and returned to his Virginia farm. In 1798 he was again commissioned as Commander in Chief of the Army, a title he held until his death 18 months later. He was succeeded as president by John Adams.

Washington married the widow Martha Dandridge Custis in 1759; they had no children together, but Washington adopted Martha's children John and Martha... Washington was land-rich but often cash-poor, and had to borrow money in order to get to his first inauguration... Washington had false teeth but, contrary to popular rumor, they were not made of wood. According to the Mount Vernon official site, Washington's dentures "were probably more uncomfortable than wood. They were made of cow's teeth, human teeth, and elephant ivory set in a lead base with springs that allowed him to open and close his mouth"... The story of Washington chopping down a cherry tree is also not true; it was invented by an early biographer of Washington, Parson Mason Weems.

Washington, Gen George (1732-99), first president (1789-97) and the founding father of the USA. He stands as one of the three men—the others being Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt—who came to power at the most critical moments in US history, and perforce shaped the nation in his image.

Washington's military career dated back to the French and Indian war, which gave him ample opportunity to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the British army. Twenty years later this background, plus New England's desire to make common cause with his home state Virginia, made him the unanimous choice to command the newly formed Continental Army, besieging Boston. Eventually he bluffed Howe into evacuating the city with some heavy artillery brought from Fort Ticonderoga, and a large number of dummy cannon. Moving to New York, he suffered a series of defeats that would have broken the spirit of a lesser commander. Half his army was routed at Brooklyn Heights with a loss of 5, 000 men, and the other half simply ran away at Kip's Bay. After further setbacks he was compelled to retreat into New Jersey, with desertion reducing his forces to no more than 6, 000 men. He was not well served by his subordinates, and at Christmas 1776 he himself led a successful attack on Trenton with only 2, 500 men, capturing 1, 000 prisoners. When this drew Cornwallis at the head of 8, 000 men, Washington performed a flank march by night to win another stinging victory at Princeton.

During 1777, while Gates was defeating Burgoyne's invasion from Canada at Saratoga, Washington confronted a larger British force at Brandywine Creek on 11 September, trying to prevent the capture of Philadelphia. Pinned by Howe's main force, he was outflanked by Cornwallis and nearly surrounded. That he salvaged the bulk of his army was probably his finest military achievement, but the congressmen forced to flee Philadelphia at short notice were not inclined to appreciate this. Washington survived the following winter at Valley Forge, without the means to pay or even clothe his men and undermined by a cabal of opportunists seeking to replace him with Gates. He did this mainly by force of personality, but he also built a 40 foot (12 metre) gallows to emphasize that there was force as well as personality involved.

In June 1778, after his protégé Lafayette helped to bring about a French alliance to balance the strategic equation, Washington's plan to cut off British forces under their new commander Clinton, retreating from Philadelphia to New York, failed because of behaviour akin to treachery by Charles Lee at Monmouth Courthouse. This was one of the very few occasions where Washington was seen to lose his legendary self-control, and Lee came close to being suspended not only from command, but from the neck as well.

With Clinton bottled up in New York it was patience that brought the war to a successful conclusion: patience with dilatory French assistance; patience with an army that mutinied twice; patience with a Congress that demanded but did not provide; patience while Greene lost the battles but won the war in the south; patience that was at last rewarded when the French navy briefly won control of the sea around Yorktown, enabling Washington to deliver the coup de grâce.

There being little dispute that his austerity and personal modesty put an abiding stamp on the quasi-monarchical office of president, created with him very much in mind, criticism of him tends to focus on his military leadership. All that needs to be said in rebuttal is that he won, and it is unlikely that anyone else could have maintained unity of purpose among the secessionists, during a very protracted struggle. One has only to compare his performance to that of the similarly situated Davis in 1861-5 to see how easily sectional interests could have prevailed, and doomed the rebellion.

By refusing to serve more than two terms, he set an example followed by all his successors save Franklin Roosevelt, and since 1951 enshrined in the 22nd amendment to the Constitution. George III observed that his retirement and his resignation as army C-in-C fourteen years earlier ‘placed him in a light the most distinguished character of the age’. Upon his death, Congress unanimously voted his memory the eloquent encomium proposed by ‘Light Horse Harry’ Lee (father of Robert E. Lee and not to be confused with Charles of that ilk): ‘first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen’.

Bibliography

• Brookhiser, Richard, Founding Father (New York, 1996)

— Hugh Bicheno

(1732–1799), Revolutionary War commander in chief and first president of the United States

Born into a family on the margins of the Virginia aristocracy, Washington advanced rapidly to local prominence owing to his brother Lawrence's brief career in the British military establishment and to Lawrence's marriage into the powerful Fairfax family. Ambitious and intelligent, though lacking formal education, Washington obtained the office of regional militia adjutant, the assignment of warning the French in the Ohio Valley to depart from lands claimed by Virginia, and afterward the position of special aide to Gen. Edward Braddock. Washington's heroic performance during Braddock's defeat on the Monongahela helped earn him the command of Virginia's frontier defenses during the French and Indian War. Hampered by problems of inadequate manpower and supplies, he performed well, though displaying a lack of respect for higher civil and military authority. His regiment won the praise of crown officers for its training and degree of professionalism, although Washington failed in repeated efforts to have his forces taken into the British army.

Washington's drive and determination, essential qualities for any military commander and revolutionary leader, manifested themselves before 1775 in acquiring still other public posts: county surveyor, vestryman, and legislator. As a planter, he had already shown skill in obtaining land before he inherited Mount Vernon after his brother Lawrence's death. Recognizing the hazards of tobacco growing, he profitably converted much of his acreage to wheat prior to the Revolution, and he continued to accumulate western lands through claims based on his colonial military service.

An early critic of Britain's new colonial policy after 1763, Washington strongly supported boycotting British goods and advocated other forms of nonviolent resistance. Beginning in 1774, he played the leading role in organizing and reforming the Virginia militia, and as a member of the Continental Congress he wore his Virginia uniform to indicate his willingness to serve after hostilities erupted at Lexington and Concord. Because of his military background and experience in dealing with legislative bodies, the highly visible Washington was the obvious choice, and Congress appointed him commander in chief of the Continental army in June 1775.

Sensitive to civil‐military relations and to the problems of conducting warfare without the resources of a strong government, Washington had learned much since his earlier wartime service in the 1750s. He communicated regularly with the state governors and with the Congress, aware that he was something of a diplomat in a coalition war involving a weak central authority and thirteen sovereign states. His patience and deference added enormously to his stature and respect, as did certain symbolic acts during the war, such as his refusal to accept military pay and his repeatedly expressed wish to retire quietly to Mount Vernon and eschew subsequent honors and office.

During the first major phase of the Revolutionary War, 1775–78, the conflict was fought largely in the northern and middle states, and Washington's immediate command bore the brunt of the British efforts to crack the rebellion. After Washington's siege of the British in Boston, he moved south to meet the enemy at New York in the summer of 1776. His army fought stubbornly but suffered a succession of defeats before Washington retreated and regrouped on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River. Counterattacks that picked off British posts at Trenton and Princeton in New Jersey during the Christmas season reinvigorated the American cause, but the army suffered important defeats the following year at Brandywine and Germantown in Pennsylvania. Yet Washington was a fighter, not a Fabian, as often portrayed, and he learned from his mistakes. He kept coming back, as when he battered the rear guard of the British army at Monmouth when it moved from Philadelphia back toward New York in 1778.

With the war stalemated in the North, Washington capitalized on France's entry into the conflict. Since the British dispersed some regiments to the West Indies and turned increasing attention to the American South, Washington spent the next three years keeping close watch on British forces in New York City and endeavoring to keep his own army up to strength, annual tasks that never eased. His opportunity for a bold stroke did not come again until 1781, when he raced south to cooperate with French military and naval forces in capturing Charles Cornwallis's army on the Virginia Peninsula at the Battle of Yorktown, 19 October 1781.

Washington's stature actually increased during the war's final two years. He dramatically upstaged a band of conspiratorial officers at Newburgh, New York, in 1783, shaming them for their threatening behavior toward a weak Congress. He also wrote two of the great, if neglected, state papers of the Revolution: his “Circular to the States” on the need for a firmer union, and his “Sentiments on a Peace Establishment,” in which he advocated ideas about regular and militia forces that contributed to the debate on national defense in the Constitutional Convention.

Consistently a nationalist in 1775–76, Washington presided at that convention in 1787, threw his weight behind the Constitution's ratification, and accepted (albeit reluctantly) the presidency in 1789, serving two terms. He worked to build a viable peacetime military structure and federalized the militia to put down the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, at the same time avoiding a war with Britain over neutral rights, a conflict that he considered the country ill‐prepared to fight.

Washington always recognized that governments needed power to perform effectively. As general and president, he employed the power available to him but with moderation and restraint. In both his military and his civilian capacities, he set precedents that successful American generals and presidents still follow.

[See also Commander in Chief, President as; Revolutionary War: Military and Diplomatic Course.]

Bibliography

• Douglas Southall Freeman, George Washington, 7 vols., 1948–57.
• Marcus Cunliffe, George Washington: Man and Monument, 1958.
• James Thomas Flexner, George Washington, 4 vols., 1965–72.
• Edmund S. Morgan, The Genius of George Washington, 1980.
• Don Higginbotham, George Washington and the American Military Tradition, 1985.
• John E. Ferling, The First of Men, 1988

(b. Pope's Creek [now Wakefield], Westmoreland County, Va., 22 Feb. 1732; d. Mt. Vernon, Va., 14 Dec. 1799), commander in chief of the Continental Army, president, 1789–1797. Washington's most enduring legacy to the Supreme Court was the precedent he established in his selection criteria for the nomination of justices. During his two terms of office, he made fourteen nominations to the high court—a record that still stands and is unlikely to be surpassed.

Of Washington's fourteen Supreme Court nominations, only ten individuals served. The Senate confirmed twelve, but Robert H. Harrison and William Cushing (as chief justice) declined their appointments. Washington's recess appointment of John Rutledge for chief justice was ultimately rejected. Washington withdrew his selection of William Paterson but later successfully appointed him. Thus, the fourteen nominations involved eleven different men. The ten who served on the Court include the following with their dates of tenure: John Jay (chief justice, 1789–1795), John Rutledge (1789–1791), William Cushing (1789–1810), James Wilson (1789–1798), John Blair, Jr. (1789–1796), James Iredell (1790–1799), Thomas Johnson (1791–1793), William Paterson (1793–1806), Samuel Chase (1796–1811), and Oliver Ellsworth (chief justice, 1796–1800).

President Washington's considerations in naming Supreme Court justices are readily identifiable. First, he insisted that his nominees be political and ideological soul mates. A number of Washington's choices for the high court had established their loyalty to the nation through distinguished service during the Revolutionary War. Washington was particularly impressed with Thomas Johnson's war record, which included recruiting a force of 1,800 soldiers while governor of Maryland and personally leading them to the commander in chief's headquarters. Moreover, the first president insisted that future justices demonstrate support for and advocacy of the new U.S. Constitution. Indeed, all but three of the justices that Washington placed on the Court (Jay, Cushing, and Iredell) had participated in the Constitutional Convention. The first chief executive also established the precedent of choosing judicial nominees solely from his own political party, the Federalists.

Washington's second criterion for Supreme Court service was merit. In addition to having a distinguished record during the Revolutionary War, a Washington nominee had to display a “favorable reputation with his fellows.” For example, James Wilson, who had signed the Declaration of Independence and contributed his abundant talents to the Philadelphia convention, was considered among the outstanding lawyers and legal scholars of his day.

Third, Washington usually chose justices with whom he had forged personal ties. John Blair, for instance, was a fellow Virginian, who had joined Washington and James Madison as the only members of their state delegation to support the entire Constitution.

Fourth, America's first president established the tradition of balancing the nation's highest court along representational lines. Although his predecessors would expand the list of representative criteria to include religious affiliation, race, and gender, Washington focused on the Court's geographic balance. In appointing James Iredell, the president commented: “He is of a State [North Carolina] of some importance in the Union that has given no character to a federal office.”

Finally, he searched for nominees who had political experience at the state or local level or judicial experience on the lower courts. Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut was an illustrative appointee with his previous service as a state judge and as a member of Congress.

See also History of the Court: Establishment of the Union; Selection of Justices.

Bibliography

• Henry J. Abraham, Justices, Presidents, and Senators: A History of the U.S. Supreme Court Appointments from Washington to Clinton, rev. ed. (1999).
• Henry J. Abraham and Barbara A. Perry, The Father of Our Country as Court‐Packer‐in‐Chief: George Washington and the Supreme Court, in George Washington and the Origins of the American Presidency, edited by Mark J. Rozell, William D. Pederson, and Frank J. Williams (2000)

— Barbara A. Perry

Washington, George (1732-1799) Revolutionary army officer and U.S. president. Born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, George Washington got his first military experience during the French and Indian War (1754-63). He won the conflict's first small engagement after he built Fort Necessity near Fort Pitt in 1754, but soon had to surrender to a superior force. As an aide to Gen. Edward Braddock the next year, Washington organized an orderly retreat after the general was killed in the ambush that decimated his force. Washington commanded all Virginia forces before resigning his commission in 1758. He began the Revolutionary War as a delegate to the Continental Congress, but in June 1775 they selected him unanimously to be commander of chief of the new Continental army. After managing a successful siege of Boston, Washington lost most of his army in a series of disastrous battles around the city of New York in 1776. He revived Patriot fortunes with winter victories at Trenton and Princeton. In 1777 he lost battles at Brandywine and Germantown, as well as the city of Philadelphia. His army dwindled during the hard winter of 1777-1778 at Valley Forge, but Baron von Steuben's training and the French alliance improved the American situation. Washington's forces performed much better at Monmouth in 1778 as the British withdrew from Philadelphia to New York. Activity in the northern theater quieted after the British shifted their primary efforts to the South, but in 1781 Washington took a combined French-American army south to join with Gen. Nathanael Greene's forces at Yorktown, and with the assistance of the French fleet they forced the capitulation of Lord Charles Cornwallis's army. Washington remained in command of American forces until late 1783, awaiting the peace and quelling discontent in his poorly-paid army. After the war he presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and was elected the new nation's first president in 1789. He served wisely and well before leaving office in 1797. He had one last appointment to military service in 1798, when President John Adams made Washington a lieutenant general in charge of a Provisional Army preparing for possible war with France, but the crisis passed and he never took the field. He died at his plantation at Mount Vernon.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

George Washington (1732-1799) was commander in chief of the American and French forces in the American Revolution and became the first president of the United States.

George Washington was born at Bridges Creek, later known as Wakefield, in Westmoreland County, Va., on Feb. 22, 1732. His father died when George was eleven years old, and the boy spent the next few years with his mother at Ferry Farm near Fredericksburg, with relatives in Westmoreland, and with his half brother at Mount Vernon. By the time he was 16 he had a rudimentary education, studying mathematics, surveying, reading, and the usual subjects of his day. In 1749 Washington was appointed county surveyor, and his experience on the frontier led to his appointment as a major in the Virginia militia in 1752.

French and Indian War

Virginia governor Robert Dinwiddie appointed the 21-year-old Washington to warn the French moving into the Ohio Valley against encroaching on English territory. Washington published the results of this expedition, including the French rejection of the ultimatum, in the Journal of Major George Washington … (1754). Dinwiddie then commissioned Washington a lieutenant colonel with orders to dislodge the French at Ft. Duquesne, but a superior French force bested the Virginia troops. This conflict triggered the French and Indian War, and Great Britain dispatched regular troops under Gen. Edward Braddock in 1755 to oust the French. Braddock appointed Washington as aide-de-camp.

Later in the year, after Braddock's death, Dinwiddie promoted Washington to colonel and made him commander in chief of all Virginia troops. Throughout 1756 and 1757 Washington pursued a defensive policy, fortifying the frontier with stockades, recruiting men, and establishing discipline. In 1758, with the title of brigadier, he accompanied British regulars on the campaign that forced the French to abandon Ft. Duquesne. With the threat of frontier violence removed, Washington resigned his commission, soon married the widow Martha Custis, and devoted himself to life at Mount Vernon.

Washington took seriously his role of stepfather and guardian of Martha's two children; it was his duty, he wrote, to be "generous and attentive, " and he was. His stepdaughter's death at 17 was an emotional shock to him. When his stepson died in 1781, after serving in the Virginia militia at Yorktown, Washington virtually adopted two of his four children.

Early Political Career

Washington inherited local prominence from his family, just as he inherited property and social position. His grandfather and great-grandfather had been justices of the peace, a powerful county position in 18th-century Virginia, and his father had served as sheriff and church warden, as well as justice of the peace. His half brother Lawrence had been a representative from Fairfax County, and George Washington's entry into politics was based on an alliance with the family of Lawrence's father-in-law, Lord Fairfax.

Washington was elected as a representative to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1758 from Frederick County. From 1760 to 1774 he served as a justice of Fairfax County, and he was a longtime vestryman of Truro parish. His experience on the county court and in the colonial legislature molded his views on Parliamentary taxation of the Colonies after 1763. He opposed the Stamp Act in 1765, arguing that Parliament "hath no more right to put their hands into my pocket, without my consent, than I have to put my hands into yours for money." As a member of the colonial legislature, he backed nonimportation as a means of reversing British policy in the 1760s, and in 1774 he attended the rump session of the dissolved Assembly, which called for a Continental Congress to take united colonial action against the Boston Port Bill and other "Intolerable Acts" directed against Massachusetts.

In July 1774 Washington presided at the county meeting which adopted the Fairfax Resolves, which he had helped write. These resolves influenced the adoption of the Continental Association, the plan devised by the First Continental Congress for enforcing nonimportation of British goods. They also proposed the creation in each county of a militia company independent of the royal governor's control, the idea from which the Continental Army developed. By May 1775 Washington, who headed the Fairfax militia company, had been chosen to command the companies of six other counties. The only man in uniform when the Second Continental Congress met after the battles of Lexington and Concord, he was elected unanimously as commander in chief of all Continental Army forces. From June 15, 1775, until Dec. 23, 1783, he commanded the Continental Army and, after the French alliance of 1778, the combined forces of the United States and France in the War of Independence against Great Britain.

Revolutionary Years

Throughout the Revolutionary years Washington developed military leadership, administrative skills, and political acumen, functioning from 1775 to 1783 as the de facto chief executive of the United States. His wartime experiences gave him a continental outlook, and his Circular Letter to the States in June 1783 made it clear that he favored a strong central government.

Washington returned to Mount Vernon at the end of the Revolution. "I have not only retired from all public employments, " he wrote his friend the Marquis de Lafayette, "but I am retiring within myself." But there was little time for sitting "under the shadow of my own vine and my own fig tree." He kept constantly busy with farming, western land interests, and navigation of the Potomac. Finally, Washington presided at the Federal Convention in 1787 and supported ratification of the Constitution in order to "establish good order and government and to render the nation happy at home and respected abroad."

First American President

The position of president of the United States seemed shaped by the Federal Convention on the assumption that Washington would be the first to occupy the office. In a day when executive power was suspect - when the creation of the presidency, as Alexander Hamilton observed in The Federalist, was "attended with greater difficulty" than perhaps any other - the Constitution established an energetic and independent chief executive. Pierce Butler, one of the Founding Fathers, noted that the convention would not have made the executive powers so great "had not many of the members cast their eyes toward General Washington as President, and shaped their ideas of the Powers to be given a President, by their opinions of his Virtue."

After his unanimous choice as president in 1789, Washington helped translate the new constitution into a workable instrument of government: the Bill of Rights was added, as he suggested, out of "reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen"; an energetic executive branch was established, with the executive departments - State, Treasury, and War - evolving into an American Cabinet; the Federal judiciary was inaugurated; and the congressional taxing power was utilized to pay the Revolutionary War debt and to establish American credit at home and abroad.

As chief executive, Washington consulted his Cabinet on public policy, presided over their differences - especially those between Thomas Jefferson and Hamilton - with a forbearance that indicated his high regard for his colleagues, and he made up his mind after careful consideration of alternatives. He approved the Federalist financial program and the later Hamiltonian proposals - funding of the national debt, assumption of the state debts, the establishment of a Bank of the United States, the creation of a national coinage system, and an excise tax. He supported a national policy for disposition of the public lands and presided over the expansion of the Federal union from eleven states (North Carolina and Rhode Island ratified the Constitution after Washington's inaugural) to 16 (Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee were admitted between 1791 and 1796). Washington's role as presidential leader was of fundamental importance in winning support for the new government's domestic and foreign policies. "Such a Chief Magistrate, " Fisher Ames noted, "appears like the pole star in a clear sky….His Presidency will form an epoch and be distinguished as the Age of Washington."

Despite his unanimous election, Washington expected that the measures of his administration would meet opposition, and they did. By the end of his first term the American party system was developing. When he mentioned the possibility of retirement in 1792, therefore, both Hamilton and Jefferson agreed that he was "the only man in the United States who possessed the confidence of the whole" and "no other person … would be thought anything more than the head of a party." "North and South, " Jefferson urged, "will hang together if they have you to hang on."

Creation of a Foreign Policy

Washington's second term was dominated by foreign-policy considerations. Early in 1793 the French Revolution became the central issue in American politics when France, among other actions, declared war on Great Britain and appointed "Citizen" Edmond Genet minister to the United States. Determined to keep "our people in peace, " Washington issued a neutrality proclamation, although the word "neutrality" was not used. His purpose, Washington told Patrick Henry, was "to keep the United States free from political connections with every other country, to see them independent of all and under the influence of none. In a word, I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others."

Citizen Genet, undeterred by the proclamation of neutrality, outfitted French privateers in American ports and organized expeditions against Florida and Louisiana. For his undiplomatic conduct, the Washington administration requested and obtained his recall. In the midst of the Genet affair, Great Britain initiated a blockade of France and began seizing neutral ships trading with the French West Indies. Besides violating American neutral rights, the British still held posts in the American Northwest, and the Americans claimed that they intrigued with the Indians against the United States.

Frontier provocations, ship seizures, and impressment made war seem almost inevitable in 1794, but Washington sent Chief Justice John Jay to negotiate a settlement of the differences between the two nations. Although Jay's Treaty was vastly unpopular - the British agreed to evacuate the Northwest posts but made no concessions on neutral rights or impressment - Washington finally accepted it as the best treaty possible at that time. The treaty also paved the way for Thomas Pinckney's negotiations with Spanish ministers, now fearful of an Anglo-American entente against Spain in the Western Hemisphere. Washington happily signed Pinckney's Treaty, which resolved disputes over navigation of the Mississippi, the Florida boundary, and neutral rights.

While attempting to maintain peace with Great Britain in 1794, the Washington administration had to meet the threat of domestic violence in western Pennsylvania. The Whiskey Rebellion, a reaction against the first Federal excise tax, presented a direct challenge to the power of the Federal government to enforce its laws. After a Federal judge certified that ordinary judicial processes could not deal with the opposition to the laws, Washington called out 12, 000 state militiamen "to support our government and laws" by crushing the rebellion. The resistance quickly melted, and Washington showed that force could be tempered with clemency by pardoning the insurgents.

Washington's Contributions

Nearly all observers agree that Washington's 8 years as president demonstrated that executive power was completely consistent with the genius of republican government. Putting his prestige on the line in an untried office under an untried constitution, Washington was fully aware, as he pointed out in his First Inaugural Address, that "the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people."

Perhaps Washington's chief strength - the key to his success as a military and a political leader - was his realization that in a republic the executive, like all other elected representatives, would have to measure his public acts against the temper of public opinion. As military commander dealing with the Continental Congress and the state governments during the Revolution, Washington had realized the importance of administrative skills as a means of building public support of the army. As president, he applied the same skills to win support for the new Federal government.

Despite Washington's abhorrence of factionalism, his administrations and policies spurred the beginnings of the first party system. This ultimately identified Washington, the least partisan of presidents, with the Federalist party, especially after Jefferson's retirement from the Cabinet in 1793. Washington's Farewell Address, though it was essentially a last will and political testament to the American people, inevitably took on political coloration in an election year. Warning against the divisiveness of excessive party spirit, which tended to separate Americans politically as "geographical distinctions" did sectionally, he stressed the necessity for an American character free of foreign attachments. Two-thirds of his address dealt with domestic politics and the baleful influence of party; the rest of the document laid down a statement of firs principles of American foreign policy. But even here, Washington's warning against foreign entanglements was especially applicable to foreign interference in the domestic affairs of the United States.

His Retirement

Washington's public service did not end with his retirement from the presidency. During the "half war" with France, President John Adams appointed him commander in chief, and Washington accepted with the understanding that he would not take field command until the troops had been recruited and equipped. Since Adams settled the differences with France by diplomatic negotiations, Washington never assumed actual command. He continued to reside at Mount Vernon, where he died on Dec. 14, 1799, after contracting a throat infection.

At the time of Washington's death, Congress unanimously adopted a resolution to erect a marble monument in the nation's capital "to commemorate the great events of his military and political life"; Congress also directed that "the family of General Washington be requested to permit his body to be deposited under it." The Washington Monument was finally completed in 1884, but Washington's remains were never moved there.

Further Reading

The most thorough biography of Washington is Douglas Southall Freeman's monumental six-volume George Washington, completed in a seventh volume by John A. Carroll and Mary Wells Ashworth (1948-1957). The one-volume condensation of Freeman's work by Richard Harwell (1968) offers a well-rounded portrait of Washington as a person and as a public figure. Another major work is the splendidly written study by James Thomas Flexner, George Washington (1965-1972).

The best brief surveys are Esmond Wright, Washington and the American Revolution (1957); Marcus Cunliffe, George Washington: Man and Monument (1958); and James Morton Smith, ed., George Washington: A Profile (1969), a group of essays by 11 historians. Assessments of Washington by contemporaries and by historians appear in Morton Borden, comp., George Washington (1969). For details on the first presidential elections see Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., ed., History of American Presidential Elections (4 vols., 1971).

Recommended for general historical background are Merrill Jensen, The New Nation: A History of the United States during the Confederation, 1781-1789 (1950), John C. Miller, Federalist Era, 1789-1801 (1960); and John Richard Alden, A History of the American Revolution (1969).

For more information on George Washington, visit Britannica.com.

Washington, George (1732-99). First president of the USA. Washington's ancestors came from Northamptonshire and settled in Virginia in 1657. He inherited the Mount Vernon estate in 1752 when his half-brother died. Washington's first military experience was gained in the Virginia militia. He was appointed commander of the Virginia forces at the age of 23, and elected to the state legislature. After attending the first and second continental congresses in 1774 and 1775, he was elected commander of the congress forces. His first victory of any importance was at Trenton in December 1776 and he held his army together through the terrible winter at Valley Forge in 1777-8. At the end of hostilities, on 19 April 1783, he led the triumphal march into New York. When the Federal constitution was adopted, Washington was the obvious choice for the presidency, and was unanimously elected and re-elected in 1789 and 1793. He retired in 1797 to spend his last two years back in Mount Vernon.

• Born: Feb. 22, 1732, Westmoreland County, Va.
• Political party: none
• Education: schooling through age 15
• Military service: adjutant, Southern District of Virginia, 1752; lieutenant colonel and colonel, Virginia Regiment, 1754; commander of Virginia Military, 1755–58; commander in chief of Continental Army, 1775–83
• Previous government service: surveyor, Culpeper County, Va., 1749–51; Virginia House of Burgesses, 1759–74; justice of the peace, Fairfax County, Va., 1760–74; First Continental Congress, 1774; Second Continental Congress, 1775; presiding officer, Constitutional Convention, 1787
• Elected President, 1789; served, 1789–97
• Died: Dec. 14, 1799, Mount Vernon, Va.

George Washington was the victorious commander in chief of the American military during the revolutionary war, the presiding officer at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and the first President of the United States. Without Washington's leadership the country might have remained a British colony and evolved into a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations. And without Washington's work at the convention there would be no office of the Presidency as we know it today.

George Washington was born on one of six plantations owned by his father, Augustine Washington. George's father died in 1743, leaving the family 10, 000 acres and 50 slaves. Thereafter George was raised by his half-brother Lawrence, who was 14 years his senior, at the Epsewasson plantation at Little Hunting Creek, which Lawrence renamed Mount Vernon. His schooling ended at age 15, when he became a plantation supervisor and land surveyor. After Lawrence married a daughter of Colonel William Fairfax, one of the largest and most powerful landowners in Virginia, George was invited to survey Fairfax lands in the Shenandoah Valley, receiving 550 acres in compensation. Between 1749 and 1751 he was surveyor of Culpeper County. In 1752, after Lawrence died, George inherited the 2, 500-acre estate (with its 18 slaves) at Mount Vernon, becoming a large plantation owner at age 20.

Washington was soon influential in public affairs. In February 1753 he was named a major and adjutant of the Virginia Militia. In October he was sent by Governor Robert Dinwiddie to the frontier on Lake Erie to warn the French against occupying lands claimed by Great Britain, but the French rejected the ultimatum. The following year he was commissioned a lieutenant colonel and returned to the West. On May 28 he fought an engagement with the French that led to his promotion to colonel. He then constructed Fort Necessity and awaited a French counterattack. On July 4 the superior French forces captured the fort, accepted Washington's surrender, and let him return to Virginia, but only after he signed capitulation papers (written in French) admitting that he had fired on French officers while they had been under a flag of truce—a statement Washington later disavowed, saying he had not understood the language. These battles marked the start of the French and Indian War in the Americas and of the Seven Years War throughout the world.

Washington accompanied General Edward Braddock on an expedition against Fort Duquesne—near where Pittsburgh stands today—in 1755. The general disregarded Washington's advice on how to fight the Indians allied with the French. On July 9 Braddock was killed during the fighting, and Washington prevented the British defeat from becoming a complete rout. “I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me,” Washington later wrote. On his return he was named commander of the Virginia Militia. By 1758 he had defeated the French at Fort Duquesne and renamed it Fort Pitt.

In 1759 Washington resigned his commission with the rank of brigadier general and married a widow named Martha Dandridge Custis, who had two children by her previous marriage and plantations of 15, 000 acres, much of the land near Williamsburg, Virginia. Washington resumed tobacco farming, served in the Virginia House of Burgesses, and was a justice of the peace. He began opposing British colonial policies, particularly the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which discouraged settlement in the West (where Washington owned land in the Ohio Valley), and the Stamp Act of 1765, which taxed imports. After the governor disbanded the House of Burgesses for protesting the Stamp Act, Washington played a major role in their unauthorized meetings at Raleigh Tavern in 1770 (when it drew up resolutions calling on people not to import British goods, so that they would not pay the hated stamp tax) and in 1774 (when it called for a meeting of a continental congress). He was a delegate to the First Continental Congress of 1774, where he declared, “I will raise one thousand men, subsist them at my own expense, and march myself at their head for the relief of Boston.” On June 15, 1775, the Second Continental Congress named Washington commander in chief of the Continental Army. He refused to take any pay for the position.

Washington assumed command of his volunteers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on July 3, 1775, shortly after the Battle of Bunker Hill. He forced the British to evacuate Boston in March 1776 and concentrate their forces in New York. Washington was defeated at the Battle of Long Island in August and at the Battles of Manhattan and White Plains. He retreated into New Jersey and then into Pennsylvania. On Christmas night, 1776, he crossed the Delaware River and defeated British forces at Trenton, New Jersey. Then he captured Princeton and Morristown. But British reinforcements forced his withdrawal, and he was defeated at Brandywine Creek and Germantown, leading to the loss of Philadelphia. The Conway Conspiracy, a plot to replace Washington with General Horatio Gates, the hero of the Battle of Saratoga, went nowhere, as Congress reaffirmed its support for the beleaguered commander. Washington's forces regrouped at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, in October 1777. Three thousand of his troops deserted.

Although badly supplied, the troops who stuck it out during the harsh winter emerged from Valley Forge in the spring of 1778 as a disciplined army with superb morale. And the French had decided to help the Americans. With the British withdrawing from Philadelphia and regrouping in New York to await the arrival of a French fleet, Washington won the Battle of Monmouth in June 1778. He then surrounded and kept British forces in New York at bay while other military units fought in the South and won in the North west. But in 1780 there were new defeats: Charleston, South Carolina, fell and General Gates lost the Battle of Camden. Some troops mutinied when rations were cut.

In 1781 Washington's forces feigned preparations for an attack on New York. He and the French general Rochambeau secretly went south to face the British in Virginia. They joined up with another French general who was commanding American troops, the Marquis de Lafayette, and lay siege to the British. The arrival of a French fleet in the midst of the York-town campaign of 1781 forced British general Lord Charles Cornwallis to surrender his 8, 000-man force on October 19, 1781. This defeat ended hostilities. Washington then took his army to Newburgh, New York, to await the articles of peace, which were signed in November 1782, to become effective January 20, 1783. On March 15, 1783, Washington quelled a mutiny by senior officers who wished to disperse Congress and name Washington as an American king. His refusal to join the “Newburgh mutiny” and his insistence on preserving civil government made him the most influential political figure in the country.

Washington retired from the army on December 4, 1783, bidding farewell to his officers at Fraunces' Tavern in New York City. He resumed farming at Mount Vernon and toured the lands Congress had given him in the West. In 1785 Mount Vernon was the setting for a conference between representatives from Maryland and Virginia, who settled issues involving navigation on the Potomac River. That meeting led to the Annapolis Convention of 1786, which, in turn, called for a new constitutional convention for the following year.

In 1787 James Madison and others prevailed upon Washington to attend the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, and on May 25 he was named presiding officer. His participation ensured the success of the enterprise, especially because Washington played the key role in ensuring ratification of the new constitution by Virginia.

By unanimous vote of the electoral college on February 4, 1789, Washington was elected the first President of the United States. On April 30, he was inaugurated on the balcony of Federal Hall in New York City. In his inaugural address to Congress he appealed for a Bill of Rights to be added to the Constitution. He refused to accept a salary as President.

Washington had several goals for his Presidency. The first was to establish precedents, or set examples, that would preserve a republican form of government after his term of office. He also aimed to put the finances of the nation on a sound footing, to normalize relations with the British, and to develop the frontier. The methods that he and his Treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, devised to achieve these goals created divisions within his administration.

Hamilton wanted a “strong and energetic executive” who would dominate Congress and take control of policy-making. He wanted to levy taxes on whiskey and other goods to raise revenues and pay government debts. He also wanted an alliance (or at least a treaty of friendship) with the British in order to encourage British investment in new U.S. industries.

The President generally supported Hamilton in his plans for industrialization, assumption of the states' revolutionary war debts, creation of a national bank, protective tariffs on imported goods to help U.S. industry, excise taxes on whiskey to raise revenue, and strict neutrality in the wars between Great Britain and France. Hamilton was opposed on many of these policies by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who proposed closer relations with the French and disagreed with Hamilton's revenue measures, his idea of a national bank, and his plans to industrialize the nation.

Near the end of his first term, Washington accepted Jefferson's resignation. Now firmly in the camp of the Federalists organized by Hamilton, Washington was reelected by a unanimous vote of the electoral college in February 1793. He then allowed Hamilton to raise revenues through a whiskey excise tax. When Western farmers rebelled against paying the tax, Washington and Hamilton used military force to put down the Whiskey Rebellion in the summer of 1794. Washington cemented the alliance with Great Britain with Jay's Treaty, ratified in 1795. He accepted the resignation of his new secretary of state, Edmund Randolph, because Randolph had been bribed by the French to oppose the treaty. Washington's strong government secured the West as well: the new frontier state of Kentucky was created in 1792, and Tennessee joined the Union in 1796.

Washington retired after his second term at the age of 64, publishing a farewell address to the nation on September 17, 1796, that warned of the perils of “foreign entanglements” and of “the baneful effects of the spirit of party” in domestic affairs. On July 4, 1798, in the midst of a crisis with France, Congress named him commander in chief of the Army of the United States, but he never took actual command of forces. For the last years of his life he pursued agricultural interests at Mount Vernon and enjoyed his family, especially Martha's grandchildren, two of whom he adopted after the death of their father. He died of pulmonary complications suffered during a snowstorm on December 14, 1799. In Philadelphia, one of his officers, Henry Lee, gave the famous eulogy, “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

See also Adams, John; Articles of Confederation; Creation of the Presidency; Washington's Farewell Address

Sources

• Richard Brookhiser, Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington (1996; reprint, New York: Free Press, 1997). Marcus Cunliffe, George Washington: Man and Monument, rev. ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1982). James Thomas Flexner, Washington: The Indispensable Man (New York: New American Library, 1979). Ralph Ketcham, Presidents above Party: The First American Presidency, 1789–1829 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984)

(1732-1799), Virginia planter, commander of the Continental army, and first president of the United States. Washington was the son of Augustine Washington, a Virginia planter of modest wealth. When he died in 1743, George went to live with his older brother at Mount Vernon.

As a youth, Washington worked as a surveyor and in 1754 was sent with a military expedition to maintain Virginia's claim to Ohio lands against the French. In a battle fought in the wilderness he and most of his men were forced to surrender. After his release, he was appointed head of Virginia's militia on the frontier and served until 1758.

In 1759, Washington married Martha Custis, a wealthy widow. Marriage and the responsibilities of running a plantation helped him mature emotionally and intellectually. By 1770 he was an experienced leader--a vestryman, a justice of the peace, and a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. He was a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses, where John Adams remarked on his "soldier-like air" and, along with everyone else, thought he was the natural leader of the Continental army when it took shape in 1775.

As military commander, Washington's strategy grew from a clear vision of the large political objective of the Revolution: independence. His task was to hold the army together and maintain an armed resistance to the British forces in America while Congress sought foreign aid and recognition. The army had to remain intact to persuade Britain that the Americans were not going to surrender; only when that conviction pervaded British governing circles would independence be won.

During the war Washington suffered several defeats, but he held his forces together and won at Trenton and Princeton (1776-1777), and most important, at Yorktown (1781). His leadership and sense of strategy made him a superb commander in chief. His respect for civilian control, despite the weakness of Congress, proved especially important to the new Republic.

When the war ended, Washington returned to Mount Vernon and the life of a tobacco planter. But he was called out of retirement to preside at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 at Philadelphia. His great prestige supported the new government and made his election as the first president of the United States almost inevitable.

Washington's achievements as president were also enormous. He was creating a new government--its institutions, offices, and practices were not completely described in the Constitution--and he persuaded the American people that their future lay in a union under a strong central authority.

Cabinet members Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson soon disagreed over domestic and foreign policy. Washington backed Hamilton on key issues--the funding of the national debt, the assumption of state debts, and the establishment of a national bank chartered by the federal government--but he did not favor Hamilton's plan for the support of manufactures. Washington felt more confident of his knowledge of foreign affairs than he did of domestic policy. In 1790 when Spain seized three British ships in Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island, territory claimed by the Spanish, Washington maintained American neutrality and did the same in 1793 when war broke out between France and England. Jefferson objected, urging that the Treaty of Alliance with France be upheld, and left the government not long after. Washington settled outstanding issues with Britain through Jay's Treaty (1795) and with Spain through Pinckney's Treaty (1795). He put down the farmers in western Pennsylvania who instigated the Whiskey Rebellion (1794) and dealt a blow to the Indians of Ohio, after they were defeated by Gen. Anthony Wayne, in the Treaty of Greenville (1795).

In Washington's first term, an opposition began to make itself heard, and in his second term, the outlines of the first party system, composed of the Democratic-Republican and Federalist parties, became clear. Washington never understood the need for political parties, seeing something sinister in them. Fatigued and somewhat discouraged, he retired to Mount Vernon after he left the presidency.

Bibliography:

Douglas Southhall Freeman, George Washington: A Biography, completed by J. A. Carroll and M. W. Ashworth, 7 vols. (1948-1957).

Author:

Robert Middlekauff

See also Continental Congresses; Elections: 1789 , 1792; Federalist Party; Philadelphia Convention; Presidency; Revolution. For events during Washington's administration, see Bank of the United States; Bill of Rights; Chisholm v. Georgia ; Jay's Treaty; Judiciary Act of 1789; Report on Manufactures .

1732–99, 1st President of the United States (1789–97), commander in chief of the Continental army in the American Revolution, called the Father of His Country.

Early Life

He was born on Feb. 22, 1732 (Feb. 11, 1731, O.S.), the first son of Augustine Washington and his second wife, Mary Ball Washington, on the family estate (later known as Wakefield) in Westmoreland co., Va. Of a wealthy family, Washington embarked upon a career as a surveyor and in 1748 was invited to go with the party that was to survey Baron Fairfax's lands W of the Blue Ridge. In 1749 he was appointed to his first public office, surveyor of newly created Culpeper co., and through his half-brother Lawrence Washington he became interested in the Ohio Company, which had as its object the exploitation of Western lands. After Lawrence's death (1752), George inherited part of his estate and took over some of Lawrence's duties as adjutant of the colony. As district adjutant, which made (Dec., 1752) him Major Washington at the age of 20, he was charged with training the militia in the quarter assigned him.

The French and Indian War

Washington first gained public notice late in 1753 when he volunteered to carry a message from Gov. Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia to the French moving into the Ohio country, warning them to quit the territory, which was claimed by the British. In delivering the message Washington learned that the French were planning a further advance. He hastened back to Virginia, where he was commissioned lieutenant colonel by Dinwiddie and sent with about 400 men to reinforce the post that Dinwiddie had ordered built at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers.

The French, however, captured the post before he could reach it, and on hearing that they were approaching in force, Washington retired to the Great Meadows to build (July) an entrenched camp (Fort Necessity). Late in May he had won his first military victory (and his colonelcy) when he surprised (through the intelligence of his Native American allies) a small body of French troops. The French soon avenged this defeat, overwhelming him with a superior force at Fort Necessity on July 3, 1754. He surrendered on easy terms on July 4 and returned to Virginia with the survivors of his command. These battles marked the beginning of the last of the French and Indian Wars in America, in which Washington continued to figure.

As an aide to Edward Braddock he acquitted himself with honor in that general's disastrous expedition against Fort Duquesne in 1755. After the debacle he was appointed commander in chief of the Virginia militia to defend the frontier, and in 1758 he commanded one of the three brigades in the expedition headed by Gen. John Forbes that took an abandoned Fort Duquesne. With this episode his pre-Revolutionary military career ended.

The American Revolution

In 1759, Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis, a rich young widow, and settled on his estate at Mt. Vernon. He was a member (1759–74) of the house of burgesses, became a leader in Virginian opposition to the British colonial policy, and served (1774–75) as a delegate to the Continental Congress. After the American Revolution broke out at Concord and Lexington, the Congress organized for defense, and, largely through the efforts of John Adams, Washington was named (June 15, 1775) commander in chief of the Continental forces.

He took command (July 3, 1775) at Cambridge, Mass., and found not an army but a force of unorganized, poorly disciplined, short-term enlisted militia, officered by men who were often insubordinate. He was faced with the problem of holding the British at Boston with a force that had to be trained in the field, and he was constantly hampered by congressional interference. Washington momentarily overcame these handicaps with the brilliant strategic move of occupying Dorchester Heights, forcing the British to evacuate Boston on Mar. 17, 1776.

Against his wishes the Continental Congress compelled him to attempt to defend New York City with a poorly equipped and untrained army against a large British land and sea force commanded by Sir William Howe. He was not yet experienced enough to conduct a large-scale action, and he committed a military blunder by sending part of his force to Brooklyn, where it was defeated (see Long Island, battle of) and surrounded. With the British fleet ready to close the only escape route, Washington saved his army with a masterly amphibious retreat across the East River back to Manhattan. Seeing that his position was completely untenable, he began a retreat northward into Westchester co., which was marked by delaying actions at Harlem Heights and White Plains and by the treacherous insubordination of Charles Lee. The retreat continued across the Hudson River through New Jersey into Pennsylvania, as Washington developed military skill through trial and error.

With colonial morale at its lowest ebb, he invaded New Jersey. On Christmas night, 1776, he crossed the Delaware, surrounded and defeated the British at Trenton, and pushed on to Princeton (Jan. 3, 1777), where he defeated a second British force. In 1777 he attempted to defend Philadelphia but was defeated at the battle of Brandywine (Sept. 11). His carefully planned counterattack at Germantown (Oct. 4, 1777) went awry, and with this second successive defeat certain discontented army officers and members of Congress tried to have Washington removed from command. Horatio Gates was advanced as a likely candidate to succeed him, but Washington's prompt action frustrated the so-called Conway Cabal.

After Germantown, Washington went into winter quarters at Valley Forge. Seldom in military history has any general faced such want and misery as Washington did in the winter of 1777–78. He proved equal to every problem, and in the spring he emerged with increased powers from Congress and a well-trained striking force, personally devoted to him. The attack (June 28, 1778) on the British retreating from Philadelphia to New York was vitiated by the actions of Charles Lee, but Washington's arrival on the field prevented a general American rout (see Monmouth, battle of). The fortunes of war soon shifted in favor of the colonial cause with the arrival (1780) of French military and naval forces, and victory finally came when General Cornwallis surrendered to Washington on Oct. 19, 1781. Washington made the American Revolution successful not only by his personal military triumphs but also by his skill in directing other operations.

Presidency

At the war's end he was the most important man in the country. He retired from the army (at Annapolis, Md., Dec. 23, 1783), returned to Mt. Vernon, and in 1784 journeyed to the West to inspect his lands there. Dissatisfied with the weakness of the government (see Confederation, Articles of), he soon joined the movement intent on reorganizing it. In 1785 commissioners from Virginia and Maryland met at Mt. Vernon to settle a dispute concerning navigation on the Potomac. This meeting led to the Annapolis Convention (1786) and ultimately to the Constitutional Convention (1787). Washington presided over this last convention, and his influence in securing the adoption of the Constitution of the United States is incalculable.

After a new government was organized, Washington was unanimously chosen the first President and took office (Apr. 30, 1789) in New York City. He was anxious to establish the new national executive above partisanship, and he chose men from all factions for the administrative departments. Thomas Jefferson became Secretary of State, and Alexander Hamilton Secretary of the Treasury. His efforts to remain aloof from partisan struggles were not successful. He approved of Hamilton's nationalistic financial measures, and although he was by no means a tool in the hands of the Secretary of the Treasury, he consistently supported Hamilton's policies. In the Anglo-French war (1793) he decided against Jefferson, who favored fulfilling the 1778 military alliance with France, and he took measures against Edmond Charles Édouard Genet. Jefferson left the cabinet, and despite Washington's efforts to preserve a political truce the Republican party (later the Democratic party) and the Federalist party emerged.

Washington was unanimously reelected (1793), but his second administration was Federalist and was bitterly criticized by Jeffersonians, especially for Jay's Treaty with England. Washington was denounced by some as an aristocrat and an enemy of true democratic ideals. The Whiskey Rebellion and trouble with the Native Americans, British, and Spanish in the West offered serious problems. The crushing of the rebellion, the defeat of the Native Americans by Anthony Wayne at Fallen Timbers, and the treaty Thomas Pinckney negotiated with Spain settled some of these troubles. Foreign affairs remained gloomy, however, and Washington, weary with political life, refused to run for a third term. Washington's Farewell Address (Sept. 17, 1796), a monument of American oratory, contained the famous (and much misquoted) passage warning the United States against “permanent alliances” with foreign powers. Washington returned to Mt. Vernon, but when war with France seemed imminent (1798) he was offered command of the army. War, however, was averted. He died on Dec. 14, 1799, and was buried on his estate.

There are many portraits and statues of Washington, among them the familiar, idealized portraits by Gilbert Stuart; the statue by Jean Antoine Houdon, who also executed the famous portrait bust from a life mask; and paintings by Charles Willson Peale, John Trumbull, and John Singleton Copley. His figure also has bulked large in drama, poetry, fiction, and essays in American literature. The national capital is named for him; one state, several colleges and universities, and scores of counties, towns, and villages of the United States bear his name. Wakefield and Mt. Vernon are national shrines.

Writings

The Univ. of Virginia is preparing a new edition of the complete writings of Washington. Under the editorship of D. Jackson, W. W. Abbot, D. Twohig, and P. Chase, 43 volumes have been published (1976–). The long-standing edition of Washington's writings (39 vol., 1931–44) was edited by J. C. Fitzpatrick. His journals—that of his Barbados journey in 1751–52 (1892), that of his journey to the West (1905), and his diaries (ed. by J. C. Fitzpatrick, 4 vol., 1925)—were also edited separately. An old standard edition of his writings is that by W. C. Ford (14 vol., 1889–93), and S. Commins edited a one-volume selection, Basic Writings (1948). Other standard sources of his works are The Washington Papers (1955, repr. 1967), edited by S. K. Padover, and The George Washington Papers (1964), edited by F. Donovan. There have been innumerable editions of his Farewell Address and many separate editions of others of his works.

Bibliography

There have been a great many studies of phases and incidents of Washington's career and a continual stream of biographies; the definitive biography is by D. S. Freeman (7 vol., 1948–57; abr. ed. 1968); Volume VII was written after Freeman's death by J. A. Carroll and M. W. Ashworth of his staff. The biography (1940) begun by N. W. Stephenson and completed by W. H. Dunn is full and eminently useful; so is the four-volume biography by J. T. Flexner (1965–72). The early biography by “Parson” M. L. Weems is important chiefly because it contains many of the now-famous Washington legends, such as that of the cherry tree. Biographies of Washington by eminent men of another day include those by J. Marshall, J. Sparks, and W. Irving. Among the shorter biographies are those by P. L. Ford (1896, repr. 1971), W. Wilson (1896, repr. 1969), J. Corbin (1930, repr. 1972), L. M. Sears (1932), J. C. Fitzpatrick (1933, repr. 1970), N. Callahan (1972), R. Brookhiser (1996), J. M. Burns and S. Dunn (2004), and J. J. Ellis (2004).

See also W. C. Ford, Washington as Employer and Importer of Labour (1889, repr. 1971); G. A. Eisen, Portraits of Washington (3 vol., 1932); E. S. Whitely, Washington and His Aides-de-Camp (1936, repr. 1968); F. R. Bellamy, The Private Life of George Washington (1951); C. P. Nettels, George Washington and American Independence (1951); M. Cunliffe, George Washington: Man and Monument (1958); L. M. Sears, George Washington and the French Revolution (1960); B. Knollenberg, Washington and the Revolution (1940, repr. 1968) and George Washington, the Virginia Period, 1732–1775 (1964); T. N. Dupuy, The Military Life of George Washington (1969); F. MacDonald, The Presidency of George Washington (1974); E. S. Morgan, The Genius of George Washington (1980); G. Wills, Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment (1984); J. E. Ferling, The First of Men (1988); G. Vidal, Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson (2003); H. Wiencek, An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America (2003); D. McCullough, 1776 (2005).

(1732-1799)

1754

The Journal of Major George Washington. Washington provides an account of his first military experience in 1753 in the Ohio territory against the French and the Indians. Of his first combat experience, the young lieutenant observes, "I heard the bullets whistle, and believe me, there is something charming in the sound."

1796

The Speech of George Washington, Esq., Late President of the United States of America: On His Resignation of That Important Office. Commonly known as the "Farewell Address," the speech had probably been written with the aid of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. In it, Washington discusses his presidency; stresses the importance of national unity; warns against party conflicts; emphasizes the value of religion, morality, and education; and advises against "entangling alliances" with foreign governments.

The first president of the United States, and the commanding general of the victorious American army in the Revolutionary War. The best known of the Founding Fathers, Washington is called the father of his country. He was born in 1732 in Virginia and showed early talent as a surveyor and farmer. He served as an army officer in the French and Indian War, as a member of the Virginia legislature, and as a delegate to the Continental Congress. In the summer of 1775, a few weeks after the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, he took command of the American army. He and his men won early victories over the British in New Jersey at Trenton and Princeton, despite a great lack of training and supplies. Washington is particularly remembered for keeping up morale during the hardships of winter encampment at Valley Forge. His victory at the Battle of Yorktown ended the fighting.

Washington presided at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and in 1789 he was unanimously elected the first president under the new Constitution. As president, he pursued a careful foreign policy, endorsed the financial program of Alexander Hamilton, and put down the