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Prologue

During the final years of the war for American independence, no one was trusted more profoundly than George Washington. In its conduct of the war, the Continental Congress seemed little more than a government in name only, and so it was that Washington proved “in the absence of any real government,” as Woodrow Wilson phrased it, “almost the only prop of authority and law.”

This was never more poignantly evident than in the scene at Fraunces Tavern in New York City on December 4, 1783, when Washington ended his military career in a farewell meeting with his officers. After a moment of being at a loss for words, Washington raised his glass and said, “With a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take my leave of you.” Washington extended his hand to shake the hands of his officers filing past. Henry Knox stood nearest, and when the moment came to shake and pass, Washington impulsively embraced and kissed his faithful general. There, in silence, he embraced each of his officers as they filed by, and then they parted.

This dramatic signature to seven years of hard travail testifies how far Washington had conquered the hearts of his countrymen, more decisively than he had conquered the armies of the enemy. The odyssey, the development of thoughts and principles, that brought Washington to this moment had begun at least thirty years earlier; and this development would not end for nearly twenty years more. The story, told in his own words, comprises nearly fifty volumes of correspondence, memoranda, and diaries. We offer here a glimpse culled from these immense resources.

How the nine-year-old whose tentative enthusiasm speaks loudly in the letter to “Dickey Lee” or the adolescent who submitted to the lengthy process of copying out and amending one hundred ten “rules of civility and decent behavior” turned into an intrepid, self-possessed, and comprehending marshall, we shall never know. The little we do know confirms Washington’s birth on February 22, 1732, third son to Augustine Washington, and first to his mother Mary. Washington was only eleven years old when his father died of pneumonia. Those eleven years his family had lived first at Bridges Creek, then at Hunting Creek, and finally near Fredricksburg, all in Virginia. It was at Hunting Creek, rechristened Mount Vernon, that Washington lived from three to seven years of age.

Under the impress of the opinion that background and environment form men, commentators have exceeded themselves in trying to turn the sparse details of Washington’s boyhood and the manifest poverty of his education into a set of formative influences. The strongest influence, however, seems to have been his identification with Mount Vernon. In the long career that followed, Washington always centered his labors on the expectation of returning to Mount Vernon—that is, once he had inherited the estate from his beloved brother, Lawrence. Throughout his life Mount Vernon served as a compass point.

Many have attempted to tell the story, but we lack all essential evidence to judge how far and how fast the habits of youth became the traits that were destined to blossom in Washington’s adulthood. We judge it better, therefore, that Washington himself tell the story. Accordingly, the two juvenile writings here offer a glimpse of the boy that was and the man that was to be.