White House: The Story of America: George Washington

In order to form a more perfect.

And our sacred honor.

Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers form.

First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen. Light Horse Harry Lee's words from the official eulogy of George Washington were once famous. Nowadays we usually think of Washington as as the granite figure on Mount Rushmore are Gilbert Stewart's famous painting, Solemn and distant. But at the time of the American Revolution, 43 year old George Washington was in the prime of his life. Battle tested, strong and vigorous.

At 6 foot 2 inches, he was a natural leader of men. Washington did not write the Declaration of Independence or or the Constitution or the Federalist Papers. Yet his defiant, inspiring and commanding writings far outweigh those of his contemporaries. As a military general, he lost more battles than he won. Yet Washington fearlessly led an untrained army to defeat the greatest military power in the world.

If the Declaration of Independence was an expression of the American mind, as Jefferson called it, George Washington was its embodiment. He brought the Revolution's principles to life and in doing so brought this country into being. This was the man who founded America.

George Washington was born on February 22, 1732 near Pope's Creek in Westmoreland County, Virginia, the first of six children of Augustine and Mary Ball Washington.

What he learned came mostly from self study and practical experience. He knew the Bible and Shakespeare, read Seneca in Cicero, and studied history in the political writings of the day. As a young man, Washington was a surveyor and traveled extensively in the area west of the Appalachian Mountains. He wanted to join the British Navy but his mother objected. At the age of 21, Washington sought a commission and was appointed by the British as a major in the militia.

Later as a lieutenant colonel, his regiment was sent to the Ohio Valley to challenge a French incursion. The resulting skirmishes marked the opening of the French and Indian War. Since he could advance no further in British ranks. Being a colonial subject, Washington resigned his commission and instead volunteered as an aid to General Edward Braddock, who led a British expedition to expel the French from Fort Duquesne. When they were ambushed and Braddock was mortally wounded, it was Washington with two horses shot from under him and his clothes pierced by four musket balls, who rallied the panicked troops and formed a rear guard, allowing the remaining force to retreat.

After that he was appointed colonel of the provincial Virginia regiment, which made him the highest ranking American military officer in the colony.

In 1758, Washington was elected a member of the House of Burgesses. The next year he married the young widow Martha Custis, who would be his wife for the next 40 years, and they established their home at Mount Vernon. He served as a vestryman in their nearby Anglican parish. Washington had inherited slaves, and more came with his marriage. But he eventually opposed slavery, wished to see its abolition, and in his will upon Martha's death, freed his slaves.

As the colonial crisis heated up, Washington sponsored a series of resolutions denying the right of the British parliament to tax the colonists, and along with George Mason, introduced the Fairfax resolves, which closed Virginia's trade with England. In 1774, Washington was elected as a Virginia delegate to the continental congress in Philadelphia. After Lexington, Concord, Washington urged Congress to prepare for war. He attended sessions in his uniform to show that he was deadly serious.

When Congress recognized the militia forces around Boston as a continental army, there was really no question who would be selected to command them. General Washington left Philadelphia just as news broke of the battle of bunker Hill.

Once outside Boston, he immediately set out to force the British to battle or to leave, which they did After Washington had cannons placed on Dorchester heights, threatening the breeze ships in Boston's harbor. Anticipating that the British would attack New York next, he swiftly moved his army there. It is often argued that Washington followed a Fabian strategy modeled after the Roman general who defeated a superior enemy through a war of skirmishes and attrition. But Washington was also a bold general when the opportunity presented itself. After retreating across New Jersey, for instance, Washington executed a daring attack by crossing the icy Delaware river on December 26, 1776, with 2,000 men to attack Hessian mercenaries occupying Trenton.

Washington then led his outnumbered Continental army against British forces near Princeton, New jersey. When his men wavered in the battle, Washington rode to the front lines well within range of British muskets, to rally them in a counterattack that secured the victory. Those two battles, Trenton and Princeton, changed the momentum of the whole war.

Washington's greatest strategic operation culminated in the last great battle of the American revolution.

The victory at Saratoga had induced the French to form a military alliance with the Americans, and that created a new opportunity. In 1781, Washington initially planned to attack British forces in New York City, but quickly saw a chance to seal a march on the enemy. He spread misinformation, forged documents, and kept watchfires burning while he secretly led 8,000 troops over 400 miles from New York to trap Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia.

Washington coordinated movements with both the French army and navy to prevent British naval reinforcement or evacuation and orchestrated the formal siege that forced Cornwallis to surrender his entire army. That Victory shattered British resolve to continue the war. Washington's greatest act as general occurred after Yorktown, but before the peace Treaty of 1783.

The Continental army had not been paid consistently for years due to Congress's financial struggles, and the officers were frustrated by Congress's seeming ingratitude for their service. Some proposed drastic action, refusing to disband or even marching on Philadelphia to threaten Congress. Washington called a general meeting and then showed up unexpectedly to speak to his officers. He denounced the mutinous talk as subversive, appealing to their patriotism and recalling the last words of the Declaration to your own sacred honor. Then, pulling out a pair of glasses to read a letter from Congress, he said, gentlemen, you'll permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have grown not only gray, but almost blind in the service of my country.

The conspiracy immediately collapsed.

Later that year, Washington's circular address to the states set off a series of events which culminated in the constitutional convention of 1787. Washington was elected its president. Be assured, future president James Monroe reminded another future president, Thomas Jefferson. His influence carried this government. Is it any wonder that Washington was unanimously elected to be the first president of the United States?

The arc of Washington statesmanship was complete. He had led his people from revolution through war to a constitutional republic. Twice during the revolution, Washington was granted absolute power by Congress to do whatever was necessary to for the cause. Twice he gave that power back. When one of his colonels proposed that Washington be made a king, he rejected the idea in utter disgust.

After the war, Washington resigned his military commission. After two terms as president, he resigned that too.

The French revolution ended in violence, the guillotine and the wars of Napoleon. That the American Revolution did not was largely because of Washington, who sought an independent nation of self governing people living freely, to use his favorite biblical metaphor, under their own vine and fig tree. The moderation and virtue of a single character, Jefferson later reflected, probably prevented this revolution from being closed, as most others have been, by a subversion of that liberty it was intended to establish. When he resigned for the last time, Washington left his beloved country enduring advice in his farewell address. Uphold the Constitution, be vigilant in protecting the liberty of all, guard the nation's independence, and above all, maintain the civic and moral character necessary for self government.

George Washington is pater patriai, the father of our country. But he never had children of his own. We are his children. Together we must live up to this inheritance, especially now on our nation's 250th birthday.

Sam.