The story of Washington

Front matter

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Contents

PAGE CHAPTER

I. — Washington's birth 1

II.— Stories of Washington's childhood. ... 6

Introduction

By Edward Eggleston.

This work, like its predecessor, the Story of Columbus, by the same author, is intended to introduce the general reader, and especially the young reader, to what is most interesting and delightful in the history of its subject. While seeking to give pleasure by the selection of interesting material and by the manner of telling the story, the greatest pains have been taken to keep the narrative in strict conformity to the facts as established by the best contemporaneous authority and the careful researches of our critical age. No subject of biography has suffered more from overlaudation than Washington. His wellpoised character, the never-failing public spirit evinced in his career, and the rare fitness of his great qualities to their fortunate opportunity, captivated the imaginations not only of his countrymen but of the world. Even during his lifetime he underwent an apotheosis. Those who wrote about him after his death treated him not as a historical figure to be described accurately and judged impartially, but rather as a demigod to be worshiped. An anecdote of that time represents a patriotic countryman as declaring that Washington was the greatest man in the world's history. When asked for the next greatest xiv INTRODUCTION.

he named the Founder of Christianity. The story but slightly burlesques the attitude of the American public toward Washington in the first half of the nineteenth century. The writer well remembers an editor who at a somewhat later period got himself and his pa|)er into the greatest trouble by venturing, in his issue of the 22d of February, to make some playful remarks regarding probable childish mishaps in the boyhood of Washington.

Not only was the Father of his Country an object of worship to the generations following him, but he had to suffer the still further misfortune of becoming a model. Preacher and schoolmaster and schoolbook moralist sought to enforce every duty by his example, and to exemplify every virtue by stories of the great and good man. These stories were probably not invented deliberately ; they rather grew by a process of unconscious myth making. Washington, by his cherry tree, taught the nobleness of truth-telling. Washington making peace with a man who had knocked him down the day before taught the wisdom of avoiding duels, and so on round the circle of moral and religious virtues. The effect of all this was exactly opposite to what had been designed. Under such treatment Washington as a man disappeared from view, and there was left instead a mere plaster cast. One so far removed from other men could not serve the purpose of an example.

The effect on historical knowledge of all this pious misrepresentation was disastrous. The events of Washington's life were distorted by a preconceived notion of his character. The editors of his writings went so far as to garble his correspondence lest one might catch his

INTRODUCTION. XV

mind in an attitude not perfectly statuesque. Biographers could present him only as exalted in a mirage. The very Indians incorporated the prevailing notion of him into their myths ; and in the later mythology of the Six Nations he appears as a personage dwelling apart, fast by the gate of paradise, and passively gazing on all who enter there without ever breaking silence.

This present account of Washington, while giving careful attention to his military and administrative acts, has spared no pains to record as far as possible those details of his life and those personal anecdotes that preserve to us the living man. Fortunately, so much of Washington's intimate life has been recorded that there is no need to resort to mythical tales. I feel sure that the reader of this book will have no shadowy conception of him when he has enjoyed his boyish letters, has come to know the round of his daily duties as a planter, has seen him haul his seine, has watched him standing reflectively by a camp fire with hands behind him, and with a nose reddened from cold just before he made his famous crossing of the Delaware, has read his letter of advice to Nelly Oustis on the matter of falling in love, and such anecdotes as Bernard's account of the help he rendered to the man who had upset his chaise and tumbled his wife into the ditch. It has seemed worth while to the writer of this life to describe the clothes he wore, the food he ate, and the process of powdering and tying his hair. What passes for the dignity of history is often only a stupid neglect of interesting particulars. The very infirmities of so great a man as Washington are needed to give relief to the picture. That he was austere and exacting in xvi INTRODUCTION.

money affairs, while remarkably generous in some cases, is a fact needed to complete the view of the man ; and no sincere lover of historic truth would wish suppressed the fact that he flew into a rage and swore " till the leaves trembled on the trees " when he found one of his com"- manders playing traitor on the field of Monmouth.

But how admirably does the character of this illustrious man bear the closest scrutiny ! The more one grows familiar with it the more does Washington seem to deserve his unique place in history. There were other men as good as he, there were generals more brilliant than he. Franklin was a greater philosopher, Chatham a greater statesman, Jefferson was greater as a political theorist ; but history has no other character, perhaps, in which so many admirable traits were so equally balanced. Hardly any other man has ever arisen who combined a capacity for manoeuvres so brilliant as the capture of Trenton, the night march on Princeton, and the sudden blow at long reach which destroyed Cornwallis, with the patience to wear out years in the weary waiting which was indispensable to the success of a small and scattered population contending with a great power. Earely has the world seen a victor who sought no profit for himself, a man who had made himself the adored leader of his people, who put away from him with repulsion every suggestion that he should seek personal aggrandizement. Without laudation or rhetorical flourish, the writer of this work has told the story, and the reader leaves the contemplation of Washington more than ever filled with admiration for one who was not the most brilliant leader or the greatest thinker of his age, but who, by the sum of his qualities.

IxNTRODUCTION. xvii

must remain the most illustrious figure in the history of the eighteenth century.

A grateful acknowledgment is due for the friendly assistance rendered by many persons to the illustrator in the arduous work of gathering material for the pictures. It is proper to mention in particular the courteous kindness of General G. \V. Custis Lee, who put his valuable family portraits at the disposal of the artist. Dr. J. M. Toner, Mr. Allen, the librarian of the State Department, the Ladies Mount Vernon Association, Mr. F. D. Stone, of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, and the librarians of the New York Historical Society were very obliging and helpful.

Joshua's Rock, on Lake George.

THE STORY OF WASHINGTON.

CHAPTER I. WASHi:N^GTOi^'s BIRTH

Whek a man has become famous, dignified ancestors are sure to be provided for him. Efforts have been made to connect George Washington with more than one family of consequence in England bearing his name. It has recently been discovered, however, that the two Washington brothers who came to America in Cromwell's day were the sons of a certain Lawrence Washington, who was a college graduate and a poor parson, rector over a little church at Purleigh, in England, and who died in 1652, leaving his children still young and no doubt very needy. A few years after their father's death — that is, about 1657 — the two eldest sons, John and Lawrence Washington, emigrated to America.

The wild lands of Virginia were to be had at a very low rate in those days, and an enterprising man might there become the owner of a tract as large as the estate of a great nobleman in England. For this reason many poor gentlemen, like the Washington brothers, came to Virginia to become planters and seek their fortunes in rais-

2 THE STORY OF WA^INGTON.

ing tobacco, the staple of the country. Tlie elder of the two emigrant brothers, John Washington, who was about twenty-three when he landed in the Xew World, was the great-grandfather of George. He became in time a member of the Legislature, or House of Burgesses as it was called, and a county magistrate. Nearly twenty years after he had come to Virginia to live, there appeared some very bad omens, " a comet streaming like a horse-tail westward," a flight of pigeons which was so dense that the birds broke down the trees where they roosted, and swarms of flies which came out of " spigot-holes " in the earth. Old planters shook their heads, and remembered that there was such a flight of pigeons before the last Indian massacre. In course of time two men were killed by the savages, as every one had expected, and the people found their bodies on the way to church. Some Virginians rode after the murderers and fell upon the first Indians they found, without stopping to ask whether they were the real offenders. Indian troubles followed, and John Washington marched as colonel at the head of a number of Virginians against an Indian fort in Maryland. While the white men were holding a parley with some Indian chiefs at this fort, the bodies of more massacred men were brought in, and the colonists were so enraged that they bound five of the chiefs and " knocked them on the head." After six weeks of siege the Indians marched out of their fort in the night, killing the sleeping guards and yelling defiance at their besiegers. This was the beginning of the Indian troubles which led to Bacon's rebellion ; so that John Washington was probably something of a rebel as well as an unsuccessful Indian-fighter.

WASHINGTON'S BIRTH. 3

Augustine Washington, the grandson of John Washington and the father of George, was born in 1694. He was married twice. His first wife, whose maiden name was Jane Butler, was the mother of four of his children. Two of these died when they vvere very young. The mother herself died in 1728, leaving two boys, Lawrence and Augustine. Washington's father was married again in 1730 to Mary Ball, who was then twenty-six years old. On the 11th of February, 1732, old style, the young wife had a boy born to her, who was named George. The date of his birth would be the 22d of February, new style, and this is the date that is celebrated as Washington's birthday. The little George had afterward brothers and sisters named Betty, Samuel, John Augustine, Charles, and Mildred. Mildred died in babyhood.

Washington was born in a low-pitched, single-story frame house containing four rooms, and having an immense outside chimney at either end. This house stood in Westmoreland County, between Bridge's and Pope's Creeks, and from it could be seen the Potomac Eiver and the shore of Maryland. One breezy morning in April, when George was about three years old, dead leaves and brush were burning in the garden near this house. Some sparks settled among the shingles and set the house afire. Augustine Washington was away from home, but while slaves were trying to put out the fire, Mrs. Washington, with the cook and a maid, moved the furniture from the house, which soon burned down.

As Washington's father was agent for some iron works at Fredericksburg, and wished to live near them, he did not rebuild his burned house, but went to live on another plantation, on the banks of the Rappahannock, opposite to the town of Fredericksburg. This was a fourroomed house, with outside chimneys, much like the other.

Washington's ancestors seem to have been good business men. True Virginia planters of that time, they led a robust, out-of-door life, riding about to oversee their plantations, hunting in the immense stretches of surrounding woods, and eating the plain food raised on their own lands. These men were ever ready for a wrangle with their Governors in the house of Burgesses, fiv-

VIEW OF FREDERICKSBURG FROM THE WASHINGTON PLANTATION ON THE RAPPAHANNOCK.

or for a brush with the Indians. But in spite of his homely life, the Virginia planter remembered that he was a gentleman, and took pains to preserve the somewhat antiquated manners brought by his ancestors from the Old World. Ships came to his own door direct from England, for what is called Tidewater Virginia is a land of peninsulas watered by rivers and estuaries. These

WASHINGTON'S BIRTH. 5

tobacco craft, which carried away the planter's vakiable crop, brought back in exchange furniture, plate, linen, and fine dress, to lend a touch of fashion to the otherwise rude life of the Virginia gentleman. Sometimes the planter took his family visiting over the rough roads in a great yellow coach, brought over also on the tobacco ship, and sometimes he drove with his wife and daughters to Williamsburg to attend the balls given at this little capital. Th« Washingtons were of the plainer class of planters. They had fewer luxuries and endured more hardships than the members of the great families about them.

George Washington was a true child of this generous, active, out-of-door life — a life wJiich called forth all the endurance and hardihood of the frontiersman, at the same time that it fostered dignity and courtesy, together with a high sense of honor and independence.

THE STORY OF WASHINGTON.

CHAPTER 11.

- STORIES OF WASHINGTON'S CHILDHOOD.

Several of the most famous tales of Washington's boyhood are told by an odd character known as Parson Weems, who preached in Pohick church for a while after the war. W^ashington attended this church, and he and his wife often entertained W^eems in their hospitable house. As the odd parson no doubt gossiped with all the old people about the neighborhood, he had a good chance to pick up any anecdotes about the great man's childhood. Unfortunately, Parson Weems was more fond of a good story than of the strict truth. Having a large family to support, he left off preaching and became a book peddler. He rode about in an old-fashioned gig, selling his own writings and those of others. He told so many amusing stories and played the fiddle so well, that he was a very successful peddler. He would enter a bar room with a temperance tract he had written, and mimic a drunken man so perfectly that he had no trouble in selling his tracts to the laughing crowd. It is told of Weems that he once fiddled for a dance from behind a screen, lest people should be shocked to see a parson fiddling in such a place. The screen fell over, however, and revealed the fiddling preacher, to the great amusement of the crowd.

STORIES OF WASHINGTON'S CHILDHOOD. 7

The odd old parson wrote a life of Washington, in which he told some stories of the great man's boyhood which he said he had learned from an old lady who was a cousin of the family and had visited, when she was a girl, in the

WASHINGTON UEl'ltoVED FOR WANT OF GENKROSITY.

house of Mr. Augustine Washington. The stories are not improbable in themselves, and are doubted only because they are told by the queer parson, who loved a good story too well. ♦

Washington's father, when the boy was five years old — so runs one of these, tales — once invited the young lady cousin who was then visiting the family to go with him and little George to the orchard. ^Vhen they got there they found the ground covered with fallen apples, while the trees were so loaded that they were breaking with the weight of the fruit.

" Now, George," said his father, " look here, my son : don't you remember when this good cousin of yours brought you that fine, large ai3ple last spring, how hardly I could i^revail on you to divide with your brothers and sisters, though I j^romised you that, if you would but do it, God Almighty would give you i:»lenty of apples this fall?"

The little George hung his head, and presently said, "Well, pa, only forgive me this time, and see if I ever be so stingy any more."

The next story told by Weems is the famous little hatchet tale. He says that Washington's father took a great deal of pains to teach the child to tell the truth, and charged him, should he ever happen to do anything wrong, to come and tell of it, when, instead of a beating, he should have honor and love as a reward. George, who was about six years old, was given a little hatchet for his own. One day, when he was amusing himself hacking pea sticks in the garden, he presently fell upon a young English cherry tree, which his father valued a great deal, and barked it very badly. When Mr. Augustine Washington discovered the mischief he was very angry, and declared that he would not have taken five guineas for his cherry tree^

*' George," said he, " do you know who killed that beautiful cherry tree, yonder in the garden? "

The boy hesitated a moment. " T can't tell a lie, pa.

STORIES OF WASHINGTON'S CHILDHOOD. 9

you know I can't tell a lie," said he, presently ; " I did cut it with my little hatchet."

The boy's father, so says Weems, remembered his promise and praised George, declaring that he was glad that he had lost his tree, since it liad been the occasion of the child's daring to tell the truth.

Another of Weems's stories is that Washington's father once planted the letters of the boy's name in a cabbage bed in the garden. Some time after, the child came into the house all excitement, crying:

" pa ! come here ! come here ! "

" What's the matter, my son ; what's the matter ? "

" Oh, come here, I tell you, pa, come here, and I'll show you such a sight as you never saw in your lifetime ! "

George took his father's hand and pulled him into the garden. " There, pa ! " he exclaimed, " did you ever see such a sight in your life ? "

" Why, it does seem like a curious affair, sure enough, George."

" But, pa, who did make it there?" asked the child.

" It grew by chance, I suppose, my son."

" By chance^ pa I Oh, no, it never did grow there by chance, pa. Indeed, that it never did ! "

" Hey ! Why not, my son ? "

" Why, pa, did you ever see anybody's name in a plant bed before ? "

" Well^but, George, such a thing might happen, though you never saw it before."

" Yes, pa, but I did never see the little plants grow up so as to make one single letter of my name, and then standing one after another to spell my name so exactly.

• and all so even at the top and bottom. pa, you must not say that chance did all this. Indeed, somebody did it, and I dare say now, pa, you did it, just to scare me, because I am your little boy."

Whereupon, according to Weems, W^ashington's father drew a little lesson from the plant bed, by which he made him understand something about the heavenly Father, who made things grow for his benefit.

Besides Weems's doubtful stories, there are two letters which are said to have passed between George, when he was nine years old, and Richard Henry Lee, a little boy, who afterward became a great Revolutionary character, and to whom Washington wrote many letters in after-life. George's letter seems too correct for a little boy, though he may have had help from the friend who is supposed to have composed the rhyme at the end of the little note. Richard wrote :

" Pa brought me two pretty books full of pictures he got them in Alexandria they have pictures of dogs and cats and tigers and elefants and ever so many pretty things cousin bids me send you one of them it has a picture of an elefant and a little Indian boy on his back like uncle jo's sam pa says if I learn my tasks good he will let uncle jo bring me to see you will you ask your ma to let you come to see me. Richard He:nrt Lee."

George answered :

"Dear Dickey : I thank you very much for the pretty picture book you gave me. Sam asked me to show him the pictures and I showed him all the pictures in it; and

STORIES OF WASHINGTON'S CHILDHOOD. U

I read to him how the tame elephant took care of the master's little boy, and put him on his back and would not let anybody touch his master's little son. I can read three or four pages sometimes without missing a word. Ma says I may go to see you and stay all day with you next week if it be not rainy. She says I may ride my pony, Hero if Uncle ^Ben will go with me and lead Hero. I have a little piece of poetry about the picture book you gave me but I mustn't tell you who wrote the poetry.

" G. W.'s compliments to R. H. L., And likes his book full well Henceforth will count him his friend, And hopes many happy days he may spend. Your good friend,

George Washin^gtox.

" I am goiug to get a whip top soon, and you may see it and whip it."

The Sam in the letter was George's brother, and the " uncle jo " and " Uncle Ben " Avere no doubt old negro slaves.

To turn from doubtful stories and letters to what we certainly know of his childhood, George Washington attended a little school kept by a man named Hobby. It was very hard, in those rude days in Virginia, for planters to get any education for their children, and George's father bought Hobby as a bond-servant,* that he might

* The lot of poor men in that day was a hard one, and many such came to this country to escape misery in England. The captain of the ship that brought such a man was allowed to sell him for four have a schoolmaster for his children. The schoolhoiise is said to have stood in an old field — tliat is, a field exhausted by the growing of tobacco and allowed to grow up to pines. Here the little George learned to read, write, and cipher, and that by no very short cuts, for Hobby was probably only the poorest kind of a teacher. Weems tells, however, that the old man was very proud in after-life of having taught the great general. He drank a good deal, especially on Washington's birthday, and he would boast on such occasions that " 'twas he who, between his knees, had laid the foundation of Washington's greatness."

y£ars to repay his passage. Many men, convicted of small crimes in England, were transported and sold for seven years. Those convicts who could read and write were often purchased for schoolmasters.

WASHINGTON AS A BOY. 13

Chapter III

washinCtTo:n' as a boy. 17Jf3-17Jf6.

When" George Washington was eleven years old, his father was taken suddenly ill and died, at the age of fortynine. To his eldest son, Lawrence, he left a place on the Potomac, which was afterward named Mount Vernon, with other lands, and shares in the iron works which he superintended. To his second son, Augustine, he willed the plantation in Westmoreland County where George had been born. George himself was to have the lands on which the family lived on the Rappahannock, but only after his mother's death. The other sons had six or seven hundred acres each, and the daughter Betty was also provided for. Mrs. Washington was left in charge of the lands of all her children until they should come of age.

In after-life, Washington said that he remembered his father's fondness for him, but that he believed he owed his fortune and fame to his mother. Mrs. Washington was a person of much sternness and force. She was probably a woman of the old Virginia type, in the time when planters were also frontiersmen and their children had few opportunities for education. Though she belonged to a good family, her accomplishments were of tlie plainest sort, such only as were needed by a housekeeper in

THE STORY OF WASHINGTON.

rude times. She was left a youug widow in charge of tracts of land and negroes, a kind of property which yielded only a very poor living without the greatest watch-

HALL IN THE PART OF MOUNT VERNON BUILT BY LAWRENCE -WASHINGTON.

fulness. She was in the habit of riding around her plantation in an open gig and overseeing all that went on, and she was feared by all about her.

" Pray," said she to an overseer who wished to do

WASHINGTON AS A BOY. 15

otherwise than she had ordered, " who gave you any judgment in the matter ? I command you, sir ; there is nothing left for you but to obey."

Mrs. Washington's sons stood in awe of her when they were grown to be tall fellows. One of George's comrades said in after-years that he feared her much more than he did his own parents. " We were as mute as mice in her presence," said he.

Schools were few and poor in Washington's boyhood, and his mother sent him, soon after his father's death, back to his birthplace to live with his brother Augustine, who was now a grown man, to attend the school of a certain Mr. Williams. We do not know just how much he learned at this new school, but his four or five years under Mr. Williams did not teach him correct spelling or the commonest rules of English grammar, as some of his early writings show. He seems to have learned a good deal from a book which has recently been discovered with his name in it and the date of 1742, when the boy was ten years old. This book is called The Young Man's Companion, or Arithmetek Made Easy, and it claims to teach a boy without a tutor how to " read and write true English," how to write letters and make out various papers such as bills, bonds, releases, and wills, how to measure timber, and how to survey land, with various other useful things. Blank books are still preserved in which the boy Washington copied out various legal forms, some ])oor poetry, and one liundred and ten rules of behavior which are very quaint, and old, no doubt, in their origin. These rules are very curious. Some of them exhibit the rude habits of the time when it was thought necessary to teach a young man not to kill vermin " in the sight of others." Another rule, which forbids a man to put his feet " upon the fire, especially if there be meat before it," shows how common it was in early clays to live in the kitchen. The boy was taught, among many other things, " Shake not the Head, Feet, or Legs, rowl not the Eys, lift not one eyebrow higher than the other, wry not the mouth." He was to keep the nails, hands, and teeth clean, yet he was to show " no great concern for them." He was not to read in company ; he was not to play the doctor when he visited the sick ; he was not to laugh himself when hesaid anything witty ; he was to see that his clothes Avere brushed every day, and was not to " play the peacock, looking everywhere about " him to see if he were " well decked " ; he was to select good company, for he was told that it was " better to be alone than in bad company " ; he was not to speak " of doleful things in a time of mirth," nor mention " death and wounds " at table ; he was not to look at the blemishes of others ; finally, he was taught great deference in the presence of his superiors and proper behavior toward his inferiors. This remarkable set of rules, which Washington copied so carefully when he was a boy, closes with the words, " Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience." These old blank books show that the boy Washington Avas already practicing those painstaking habits with his pen which led him in later life to keep careful accounts of all his expenses, diaries of his doings, and copies of his letters.

Although Washington seems to have been something of a model boy, he was still very much given to manly,

• out-of-door sjoorts. At school, so tradition says, he loved to play soldier, dividing the boys into armies, and Gcgrge was j^retty sure to be commander on one side or the other. There are many tales about Washington's great strength in running, and his skill in throwing to a great distance. Perhaps the distance has grown with the years, for, when people make a hero of a man, they like to think that he showed signs of his wonderful qualities in boyhood ; though what throwing has to do with good generalship, or how foot-races lead to the presidency it would be hard to tell. They go to show, however, what was no doubt true, that Washington was a hardy, manly boy. To this day the very spot where George threw a piece of slate across the Raj^pahannock is ^lointed out. The slate, of course, cleared the river and landed some thirty yards on the opposite side. The people of Virginia firmly believe also that Washington threw a stone up some two hundred feet to the arch of the natural bridge- from below, while some have it a silver dollar. Even in the Xorth there is a legend of Washington's throwing a stone from the top of the Palisades into the Hudson, Avhen he was a general.