Titans of History

WASHINGTON

1732–1799

The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves … The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army.

George Washington, in his general orders to the Continental Army (July 2, 1776)

George Washington, the first president of the United States and commander of the American army in the War of Independence against Britain, remains the paragon of the decent, honest—and hugely gifted—leader. Covered in glory, blessed with all the talents, equipped for the highest office and command, he was a gentleman who combined virtue and modesty with ambition to serve. Legend has it that he turned down a crown, though in fact there was no scepter to offer. He set the standards of probity and honesty for every president who followed him.

Born in Virginia in 1732 to a family of landowners who had emigrated from northern England in 1657, Washington started in public service as a brash young lieutenant colonel in the Virginia militia. In May 1754 he commanded a small force in—and perhaps initiated—the opening engagement of the French and Indian War (at the Battle of Jumonville Glen), which would eventually become the worldwide Anglo-French conflict known as the Seven Years’ War. A few days later he built Fort Necessity on the Ohio River, though when it was besieged by a larger French force, he was eventually forced to capitulate—the only surrender of his career. The next year he again fought the French, under British general Edward Braddock.

His natural talents, military and administrative, earned his promotion to colonel and commander-in-chief of the Virginian troops in 1755, at only age twenty-three, and in 1758 he served under General John Forbes in the successful campaign to capture the French Fort Duquesne. Afterward, Washington returned to his Mount Vernon estate, married a wealthy widow, Martha Curtis, and entered politics. In June 1774 he led the Virginia legislature’s call for a continental congress to coordinate opposition to unpopular British colonial policies. In June 1775, after fighting had broken out, Congress unanimously elected him commander-in-chief of the Continental Army.

During the War of Independence, Washington managed to train the American army and to hold together all the different personalities and the differing characters of the states that made up the alliance, even in the face of defeat and adversity. Having forced the British to evacuate Boston in 1776, after a year-long siege, he committed mistakes in his defense of New York, losing the Battle of Long Island (the largest battle of the war) to General Howe and retreating, short of men and supplies, into Pennsylvania. Late in the year, however, he crossed back into New Jersey and took the British by surprise, defeating them at Trenton and Princeton.

But in 1777 his forces were defeated at the Brandywine in September and at Germantown in October, and Howe occupied Philadelphia. Washington led his army to Valley Forge in Pennsylvania, where the weakened forces encamped through the winter of 1777–8, perhaps the lowest ebb of the revolutionary cause. It was Washington’s personality above all that held together his broken army during that long winter. He used his almost dictatorial wartime powers with caution, tempered with bold action and skilled improvisation, common sense and respect for civil power. Aided by French entry into the war, in 1781 Washington commanded the superb Yorktown campaign against the British commander Cornwallis, whose army was besieged in the Virginia town which, after much bombardment, surrendered on October 19, 1781. This was to be the final major battle of the war.

After his victories, Washington retired to Mount Vernon. In 1787 he attended the Philadelphia Convention that discussed the creation of a new American government. Washington was elected president of the convention but refrained from joining the debate. The office of president of the United States was created to head the new government, and in 1788 Washington was elected to the post, winning re-election in 1792. As president, he attempted to maintain neutrality between the pro-French faction led by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and the pro-British faction of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, but he generally favored the latter, angering those who supported the French revolutionary cause and wanted another war with Britain. When Washington’s second term ended, he refused to stand for a third, setting a precedent that held for 140 years before being enshrined in law by the Twenty-second Amendment in 1951.

His calm, dignified leadership was followed by a civilized return to private life at Mount Vernon, where this democratic hero of talent and decency, the founder of a future superpower, died of a throat infection in 1799.