Washington

As at Mount Vernon, Washington rose at sunup to ride about the camp, lifting sagging spirits with his presence. Suddenly rejuvenated troops were happily digging trenches at four in the morning. “There is great overturning in the camp as to order and regularity,” said an impressed chaplain. “New lords, new laws.”6 A beefy former bookseller from Bost

The most intriguing archaeological find has been the discovery of lead shot and gun flints, showing that Washington allowed selected slaves to keep firearms and hunt wild game in the woods. The remains of fifty-eight animal species have been identified in the slave cellar. The slaves could either eat the game or sell it to the master’s table. Washi

In marching twelve miles through the night toward Princeton, Washington pushed his long-suffering men almost beyond human endurance. It was a long, harrowing march down dark country lanes congealed with ice. The weary men, wrapped in a numb trance, some barely awake, padded against stinging winds; many fell asleep standing up whenever the column ha

Rounding out the group were Thomas Nelson, Jr., son of the late Virginia governor, and Washington’s young nephew Robert Lewis, who had escorted his aunt Martha to New York. Among members of Congress, James Madison stood in a class by himself in his advisory capacity to Washington. When he ran for Congress, Madison had consulted Washington about how

When Washington made plain that he could not contemplate retirement because of “symptoms of dissatisfaction” toward the administration, Jefferson made bold to say that there was only a single source of discontent, the Treasury Department, and “that a system had there been contrived for deluging the states with paper money instead of gold and silver

Starting in the summer of 1791, the Jeffersonians followed with alarm the rampant speculation in government bonds and bank shares. On July 4, 1791, the Treasury had begun selling shares in the new Bank of the United States, and pent-up demand proved so explosive that the entire subscription sold out in one frantic hour. Swarms of investors invaded

As Washington anticipated, the display of military might in western Pennsylvania caused the uprising to wither. But it would stand as the biggest display of armed resistance to the federal government until the Civil War.

Making a major statement about the peril of the American revolt, the Crown had enlisted seventy warships, a full half of the Royal Navy, to deliver an overwhelming blow against the Americans. It decided to gamble all on a military solution to a conflict that was, at bottom, one of principle and that depended ultimately on recovering the lost trust

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.