Washington

The plan to extend navigation of the Potomac influenced American history in ways that far transcended the narrow matter of commercial navigation. It created a set of practical problems that could be solved only by cooperation between Virginia and Maryland, setting a pattern for a seminal interstate conference at Annapolis in September 1786 and inde

Isolated critics branded Washington a hypocrite for clinging to his slaves after a revolution fought in the name of freedom. At the Massachusetts convention that ratified the Constitution, one speaker deplored his status as a slaveholder. “Oh, Washington, what a name he has had! How he has immortalized himself!” he exclaimed, then remarked that Was

As the historian Joseph Ellis notes, George Mason probably helped Washington “to develop a more expansive vocabulary to express his thoughts and feelings, but the thoughts, and even more so the feelings, had been brewing inside him for more than twenty years.”13

The British made three courageous attempts to take the bridge, and each time American artillery repulsed them, strewing many cadavers in their wake. “The bridge looked red as blood,” wrote Sergeant Joseph White, “with their killed and wounded and red coats.”45 Several hundred British and Hessian soldiers died in vain attempts to storm the American

Dismayed that, since mid-March, President Adams had absented himself from the capital, staying at his home in Quincy, Washington said that Federalists were aggrieved at his behavior while Republicans “chuckle at and set it down as a favorable omen for themselves.”26

Augustine’s early death robbed George of the classical education bestowed on his older brothers, leaving him with an enduring sense of stunted, incomplete schooling. His father’s death threw the boy back upon his own resources, stealing any chance of a lighthearted youth. From then on, George grew accustomed to shouldering weighty family burdens.

A couple of days later Washington returned to the Senate, which approved the three commissioners to negotiate with the Creeks. It proved his farewell appearance in the Senate chamber. In a decision pregnant with lasting consequences, Washington decided that he would henceforth communicate with that body on paper rather than in person and trim “advi

It speaks to Washington’s humility that the greatest man of his age was laid to rest in a communal tomb where nobody could single out his grave or honor him separately. All visitors could do was peer through the slats of a rough oak door into a gloomy, malodorous den of ancient coffins.

As the eldest child, Martha Dandridge was occupied with domestic skills that she later taught to indentured servants and slaves at Mount Vernon. Her industrious nature must have pleased George Washington. Both of them were early risers, used every moment profitably, and stuck to the same daily routines.