The sun was just beginning to peek through Ferry Farm’s windows at the dawn of a new day, but thirteen-year-old George Washington was already up and hard at work at a small table by the bedroom window. As his younger brothers Samuel and John Augustine still lay sleeping nearby and the first of the sun’s rays stretched through the neatly curtained windows and across the small table, the future father of his country busily copied word for word a translation of an old guidebook for princely behavior that a French Jesuit priest wrote called The Rules of Civility. Such a project was no small undertaking for the boy, but little by little he was determined to press on to the end; so he kept scratching at the paper with his quill, careful to keep his ink-stained fingers off the paper. By the time he was finished, young Washington’s manuscript consisted of 110 rules for how to properly conduct himself as a respectable member of society. He took pride in his work, for he would rely on these maxims to guide him throughout a long career in the public light.1
Washington’s youthful act of copying out this antiquated French courtesy manual is almost as well known as Parson Weems’s wholly invented cherry tree episode. Parents and teachers of young students have also used the real episode of the teenage Washington working at his desk as an example to study hard and/or as an admonition to behave properly; however, few have spent any time trying to work out why exactly Washington worked so hard. Some chalk it up as an early testament of Washington’s future greatness, an example of the sober, ambitious adolescent grooming himself for the spectacularly public life he was destined to lead. Others perhaps take a dimmer view of this episode and see it as an example of Washington’s obsessive need for self-control and as a sad attempt by a less than intelligent and socially awkward youth to act normally in the presence of his betters in the desperate hope of attracting the attention of powerful patrons. The reality between these extreme interpretations is somewhere in the middle. Washington was ambitious and, yes, even a little desperate to transcend the social station he was born into. However, his solitary act of copying a courtesy manual word for word into a commonplace book offers an insight into how seriously he took the act of reading, studying, and internalizing the material that he considered to contain useful knowledge. This chapter examines why he developed a taste for reading material that yielded practical knowledge that he could use immediately. To answer this question, it is necessary to probe Washington’s biography and explore where his rigid mentality came from by penetrating the heart of his lifelong self-fashioning project and revealing how his unique pursuit of useful knowledge helped him refine his sense of self.
When Washington was eleven years old, his father, Augustine, died and left his widow, Mary Ball Washington, the single parent to six young children.2 Whatever emotional toll his father’s death took on the young Washington has been lost to history. Washington apparently remembered little of his father, scarcely referring to him in his later writings, and there is no evidence that testifies to how the young boy grieved. The significance of Augustine Washington’s death, however, can still be considered profound for three reasons. First, Washington lost his father at a particular stage of adolescence when he needed his father’s guiding hand to steer him to maturity. Second, as Augustine’s widow never remarried, it meant that Washington and his siblings were raised by a single mother; so the children needed a positive male role model to introduce them into the patriarchal society of the time. Finally, and most critical, the death of Augustine Washington aborted all plans to further his sons’ formal educations.
With Augustine Washington’s death in context, it is therefore possible to trace the origins of George’s self-fashioning back to his mother. Mary Ball Washington set about the task of rearing her children with an intensity uncommon in eighteenth-century women; she sought to instill in her children deference and well-regulated restraint.3 Toward the end of his life, long after his fame had reached beyond American shores, Washington is said to have remarked, “All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.”4 Those who knew her described Mary Ball Washington as a force of nature; her trademark stiff personality and iron will were traits that her famous son inherited. A relative and childhood friend of George’s recalled: “I was often there with George, his playmate, schoolmate, and young man’s companion. Of the mother I was ten times more afraid than I ever was of my own parents. She awed me. . . . I could not behold that remarkable woman without feelings it is impossible to describe. Whoever has seen that awe-inspiring air and manner so characteristic in the Father of his Country, will remember the matron as she appeared when the presiding genius of her well-ordered household, commanding and being obeyed.”5
One particular area that Mary Ball Washington maintained command over was her eldest son’s education. Washington was educated at local schools and for a brief period by a private tutor while he was living in the home of his older half-brother Lawrence. The time spent under the direction of this tutor was the closest that the young Washington would ever come to a classical education, for he was schooled in the “principles of grammar, the theory of reasoning, on speaking, the science of numbers, the elements of geometry, and the highest branches of mathematics, the art of mensuration, composing together with the rudiments of geography, history, and the studies which are not improperly termed ‘the humanities.’”6 Furthermore, he received instruction “in the graceful accomplishments of dancing, fencing, riding, and performing the military exercises,” in all of which he gained conspicuous proficiency in a remarkably short time.7 A university education, however, was financially out of the question, and with little hesitation, Mary Ball Washington squelched Lawrence’s plans to train her son for an officer’s career in the Royal Navy.8
To supplement her children’s educations, Mary Ball Washington read aloud to them from the Bible and from several anthologies of sermons on a daily basis.9 Most if not all of these books would go to George, who retained them in his private library for the rest of his life.10 These daily catechisms were meant to inspire piety in the Washington children and to underscore the central place religious texts occupied in an orthodox, moral life. Mary Ball Washington was equally spartan with regard to her treatment of her children’s accomplishments. Throughout her long life, she made a habit of deriding her eldest son’s achievements, never appearing to exhibit the least bit of parental pride.11 The contradictory versions of the highly embellished stories of Washington’s relationship with his mother as told by the likes of the Marquis de Lafayette and Parson Weems were fabrications designed to obfuscate the imperfections in Washington’s personal history in favor of an idealized image of Mary Ball Washington and were advanced at a time when the concept of republican motherhood was shaping women’s roles in the new nation. Mary Ball Washington’s parenting style was to leave an indelible mark on her eldest son, who throughout his life was incredibly thin skinned and painfully fearful of criticism.12
Thus with his mother’s discipline to guide him, the youthful Washington devoted considerable time in his daily routine to reading and self-improvement, and in so doing he cultivated what would become a lifelong habit of seeking out instructional books first and, to a secondary degree, books for pleasure, such as travel narratives and literature.13 One of his earliest notes in his childhood commonplace books recorded that he read “the reign of King John and in the Spectator read to No. 143.”14 These schoolboy commonplace books offer a few glimpses of what Washington the student was like. Although they are small and limited in scope, these notebooks reveal fleeting glimpses into the workings of one of the most difficult to penetrate minds in American history. The most important message embedded in his early writings is not their content, which reflects the typical lessons children across the colonies were learning; rather, it is the artistry and care with which he committed these lessons and notes to the pages. Just as he would demonstrate on a much larger and grander scale with Mount Vernon as an adult, the young Washington enjoyed connecting beauty and utility.15 The neatness of Washington’s early reading notes signifies a serious approach to his studies that is reflective of the discipline his mother instilled in him.
From childhood Washington harbored ambitions to circulate in the most elite social circles and serve in the highest levels of the military and government, so he set out early to acquire the requisite knowledge to achieve those goals. Not only did he copy the Rules of Civility, but capitalizing on his natural mathematical ability, Washington also taught himself how to conduct land surveys using his father’s instruments and books borrowed from William Fairfax.16 Learning how to conduct land surveys paid several important dividends to Washington. First, he developed an appreciation, and indeed a hunger, for land. Acquiring profitable real estate would be one of his lifelong passions. Second, he gained the skills necessary to earn a living, which was essential for an ambitious youth with little inheritance and no benefactor. Next, once he established himself as a reputable surveyor, he was able to reach out to some of the wealthy landowners of Virginia who could use his services and in the process could become his patrons. Finally, he learned patience and perseverance in reconnoitering land by spending days at a time in the wilderness, experiences that greatly hardened his constitution and prepared him for the military life he wanted so badly to lead.17
Without his father to guide him, the upwardly mobile Washington earnestly sought to gain the attention of a surrogate who could usher him into Virginia society. Through Lawrence and, even more important, Lawrence’s in-laws, the Fairfaxes, Washington slipped into the mix of provincial Virginian high society. His imposing physical size made him hard to miss in crowded ballrooms. He was graceful, especially on the dance floor, and he quite literally danced his way into the attentions of the rich and powerful. Because of his natural shyness, lack of formal education, and perpetual fear of ridicule, however, he shied away from learned conversations, observed much, and preferred to speak only when he was sure of himself.18
Just as the ambitious young man was beginning to make his way into the world of Tidewater society, he was dealt another crushing blow: Lawrence died in 1752 after a long and painful struggle with tuberculosis. Lawrence’s death was no doubt harder for the younger Washington to bear than the death of their father, for not only was Washington older and better able to grasp the ways in which death affected the lives of those left behind but also Lawrence had been his younger brother’s savior, hero, and mentor throughout his formative teen years. In his will Lawrence bequeathed to his heartbroken younger brother three lots in Fredericksburg and the remote hope that if he were to outlive Lawrence’s widow, Anne, and infant daughter (as long as she died without issue), he would inherit the clear title to Mount Vernon and the lands connected to it.19 This bequest was small comfort to Washington, who felt both the emotional and practical loss of a beloved older brother and mentor. Although he could take comfort that Lawrence’s father-in-law, William Fairfax, would step into the role of benefactor and Lawrence’s brother-in-law George William Fairfax would breach the emotional gap as a reliable best friend, Washington surely knew that it was time that he seriously made a name for himself in the world. He lobbied for and received a commission as an adjutant in the Virginia Regiment, one of Lawrence’s old posts, and he became a member of a newly organized Masonic Lodge in Fredericksburg, rising quickly to Master Mason. Additionally he continued to conduct land surveys, accumulating handsome profits.20
Now twenty-one years old, Washington finally began climbing the daunting social ladder, one rung at a time. He still needed an opportunity to impress the powerful men of Virginia who had noticed him only long enough to commission him. After all, military officers who earned no laurels typically failed to achieve lasting fame, for Virginia society was teeming with men who styled themselves as colonels. Washington had his opportunity to make a name for himself when the French invaded the Ohio Territory, lands that Virginia’s Ohio Company traditionally claimed for the British crown. In October 1753 George II ordered the Virginians to construct forts along the Ohio River and to send an emissary to determine if the French were in fact trespassing on British soil. If they were, the men were to drive them out by force of arms.21 The prospect of traveling from Williamsburg to the French fort near what is now Pittsburgh in the winter was nothing short of frightening in the three-mile-per-hour world in which Washington lived, but with what would become a typical disregard for physical danger, he leaped at the chance to deliver his king’s ultimatum. Robert Dinwiddie, Virginia’s lieutenant governor, chose Washington probably because no one else stepped up to volunteer for such a dangerous mission; however, really no one was more qualified than Washington was. All those years of surveying experience taught him valuable lessons about how to navigate difficult terrain and survive in the wilderness, and he was physically very strong. The journey was harrowing, and Washington escaped death on at least two occasions. On the return leg of the trip, an Indian guide turned on him and fired a musket at near-point-blank range but missed. The unscathed Washington wisely opted not to hunt his attacker down and instead pushed ahead at a blistering pace to avoid any further attacks by other hostile Indians. As he and his guide, Christopher Gist, tried to cross a rushing river on a hastily built raft, Washington fell in and almost froze to death.22 Washington survived, however, and his mission was successful on a number of levels. On an immediate, practical level, Washington successfully made the British government’s ultimatum clear to the French command present in the disputed territory. On a strategic level, after Washington’s safe return to Williamsburg he confirmed the assumptions that the British and colonial governments were making about French intensions: they were certainly planning to stay, thus making war probable. With the murky situation cleared up, the would-be belligerents no longer had to guess what the other was thinking.
On a personal level, this mission made Washington famous. He kept a detailed record of his journey — complete with rich descriptions of the lands that he crossed, the French fortifications he visited, and all the details of his narrow escapes — and gave the record to Dinwiddie upon returning to Williamsburg. Dinwiddie immediately had it published in both Virginia and London to advertise the severity of the crisis on the frontier, and in so doing he made Washington a celebrity. Washington was given a day to prepare and submit the manuscript, and he evidently felt pressured. Although not uncommon for authors at that time, he made a point to write the advertisement for the book himself. He apologized “for the numberless Imperfections of it” and emphasized that he had “no leisure to consult of a new and proper form to offer it in, or to correct or amend the diction of the old, neither was I apprised . . . that it ever would be published.”23 The text of the journal offers evidence that Washington did not intend for it to be published. Many of the entries appear hastily written while others read like minutes of a meeting. Moreover, he makes frequent use of abbreviations, and the sentence structure is halting. Despite Washington’s apparent fears that his work would be ridiculed for its amateurish prose, the book was widely read, frequently reprinted on both sides of the Atlantic, and often quoted.24 At the age of twenty-two, the young man whose prospects had previously been uncertain was an internationally published author and was newly promoted to lieutenant colonel and second in command of the Virginia Regiment.
Washington was completely unprepared and unqualified for this promotion. For example, British officers who occupied comparable ranks and positions had spent decades in the army before reaching that level. During their course of service, they would have been expected to maintain their studies of the military arts through reading both classic and new texts on the science of warfare, histories of well-known campaigns, and biographies of great commanders. British officers had an overwhelming preference for Continental books as opposed to English ones. Additionally most British officers preferred reading those Continental books in their original languages; therefore, it was expected that they were able to read in multiple languages, with French, Italian, and German being the most important. At a minimum, however, a mastery of French was virtually required for all senior officers.25 Evidence suggests that Washington read Julius Caesar’s Commentaries and a life of Alexander the Great on recommendation from William Fairfax; however, that was the limit of Washington’s military education to date.26 His limited formal education never included French lessons. It would prove to be a significant factor as Washington’s upcoming mission unfolded.
By mid-March 1754 reports from the Ohio Country were filtering into Williamsburg that the French were about to make a hostile move. Dinwiddie soon tasked Washington with building up Virginia’s defenses on the frontier in anticipation of a possible French invasion. What followed was a blunder from top to bottom. On April 2, 1754, Washington set out for the wilderness with 160 soldiers who were as inexperienced as he was. His convoy moved slowly as the men also had to forge the road they were traveling. Three weeks later, Washington received intelligence that the French had attacked a small combined force of British soldiers and their Indian allies while they were constructing a fort on the forks of the Ohio River named Fort Duquesne. The news that a numerically superior French force was bearing down on them trickled through the ranks of Washington’s men, devastating morale. Many threatened to desert. Washington was unfazed. He responded to the unfolding situation with a “glowing zeal.”27 He was so confident in his abilities and his position as commander that he dashed off briskly phrased letters to Lieutenant Governor James Hamilton of Pennsylvania and Governor Horatio Sharpe of Maryland, urging them to send reinforcements. Still in his attempt to be diplomatic in the face of his utter brashness, Washington included a half apology to Sharpe: “I ought first to have begged pardon of your excellency for this liberty of writing, as I am not happy enough to be ranked among those of your acquaintance.” Then trying to spur the governors to act through patriotism, he continued his appeal, stating that the present crisis “should rouse from the lethargy we have fallen into the heroic spirit of every free-born Englishman to assert the rights and privileges of our king.”28 Despite the clumsy nature of these early attempts at fostering good civil-military relations, Washington was evidently successful because the governors complied.29 Washington’s continued audacity, which led to the series of unfortunate events in the coming days, was of course attributable to his youth, inexperience, and lack of education. He seemed to lose sight of the fact that in addition to his demonstrated abilities during that initial mission to the French, he also owed his promotion to his connections. In short, Washington allowed his ego to drive his actions, and it would lead catastrophically to poor decision making in the days and weeks to come.
The unfortunate events that followed sparked the Seven Years’ War. On May 28, 1754, Washington’s old guide, Christopher Gist, reported that he saw a small party of French soldiers heading to Washington’s position and less than five miles away. Washington hastily dispatched Capt. Peter Hogg, one of his subordinates, with seventy-five men to intercept the French party between the meadows and the Monongahela River. An intelligence update from his Indian ally, Tanacharison the Half King, however, alerted Washington that he had sent his men in the wrong direction. He decided that he had to act. Taking forty-seven men on a night march through a driving rain, Washington rendezvoused with Half King early the following morning, and the two leaders decided to attack the French jointly.30 Indian scouts led Washington’s force to the French location, and as Washington described in his diary:
We formed ourselves for an Engagement, marching one after the other in the Indian manner: We were advanced pretty near to them, as we thought, when they discovered us; whereupon I ordered my company to fire; mine was supported by that of Mr. Wag[gonn]er’s, and my Company and his received the whole Fire of the French, during the greatest Part of the Action, which only lasted a Quarter of an Hour, before the enemy was routed.
We killed Mr. de Jumonville, the commander of that Party, as also nine others; we wounded one, and made Twenty-one Prisoners, among whom were M. la Force, M. Drouillon, and two Cadets. The Indians scalped the Dead, and took away the most Part of their Arms.31
Washington repeated this account almost word for word in his official report to Dinwiddie on May 29. In giving this version of the events, however, Washington omitted several key details that brought him dangerously close to rendering a false report. Washington neglected to include the specific details surrounding Ens. Joseph Coulon de Jumonville’s actual death. Jumonville was wounded in the brief exchange of fire, but he remained conscious and tried to explain to Washington that he was on a diplomatic rather than a hostile mission. The problem was that Washington didn’t speak French, and apparently he did not have a capable interpreter with him. As Washington struggled in vain to understand what Jumonville was trying to tell him, Half King stepped forward and drove a hatchet into Jumonville’s skull, splitting it open, and then proceeded to wash his hands in the brains of his victim. At that point the rest of the Indians swooped down on the French wounded, scalping them and stripping them of their arms. The horrified Washington simply stood there, unable to stop the frenzied attack for what must have seemed to him to be an eternity. When he did regain his composure, he ordered his men to take the twenty-one survivors as prisoners — Washington would vehemently insist to Dinwiddie that they were spies — and began the march back to his tiny garrison in the Great Meadows.32
Washington must have been haunted by the atrocity. It was his first real taste of battle, and under his command the attack disintegrated into a murderous bloodbath. In addition he must have been worried about how the French would respond when word reached them. There was also the possibility that others would offer accounts that differed from his. The French survivors insisted that they were a part of a diplomatic mission and that the British force had attacked them without provocation. One of Washington’s men, an illiterate Irish immigrant named John Shaw, provided a sworn statement after the fact that filled in some of the missing details from Washington’s account. Shaw indicated that it was during a cease-fire that the wounded Jumonville spoke to Washington and the real massacre began.33 It is primarily from Shaw’s statement that we can gain the closest understanding of what actually happened in that glen. This incident is telling in a couple of ways. First, Washington had failed to control his men. Also, it was the first, but not the last, time that his “defective” education severely handicapped him. That he could not speak or read French led to confusion and arguably created that critical, tense moment when he was unable to comprehend what Jumonville said and Half King butchered him.
The situation in the Great Meadows rapidly deteriorated for Washington and his men. After the incident in Jumonville’s glen, the Virginians retreated to construct a crude set of defensive works named Fort Necessity. Washington knew to expect a French reprisal once word of Jumonville’s death spread. He must have been relieved to see the remainder of the Virginia Regiment come down the rude road into the meadow, only to be shocked with the news that his commander Col. Joshua Fry was not with them. He had suffered a fatal fall from his horse; therefore, Washington had been promoted again. He was now a full colonel and commander of the entire expedition. A couple of weeks later, a company of British regulars under the command of Capt. James Mackay arrived from South Carolina to reinforce Washington. Mackay behaved politely to Washington but declined to garrison his men with the Virginians. The British made their own camp, much to Washington’s consternation. While he was obsessing over this British affront to his rank, Washington’s Indian allies were about to desert him. It seemed that Half King was losing his will to fight the French. Washington’s best efforts at diplomacy failed. The Indians all left. Washington felt vulnerable, but nevertheless he pushed his men forward into the woods to try and maintain the initiative against the French force he knew would be coming.34
The French were indeed approaching. A vastly superior force under the command of Capt. Louis Coulon de Villiers, Jumonville’s older brother, was bearing down on Washington’s force and hounding the men back to Fort Necessity. When the haggard Virginians returned to the ramshackle fort, it offered little comfort. The supplies were depleted, the tents were ruined, and a heavy rain reduced the ground to a sea of mud. The tiny fort suddenly looked exposed and dangerously weak. That Washington even selected this site for a defensive position reveals his lack of military education. Washington intended the fort to offer protection against a frontal assault; however, he didn’t seem to notice at first that it was surrounded by high ground and that the wood line was within musket range. He also made the mistake of neglecting to clear his sectors of fire. An advancing enemy could simply hide in the woods and easily pick off the defenders. If Washington had been schooled in military science, he would have read the books by British fortifications expert Charles Bisset, including The Theory and Construction of Fortification, as well as Jean-François Bernard’s Remarks on the Modern Fortification. These books on conducting defensive campaigns make clear that fortifications are strongest when they occupy high ground and when the defenders have taken the time to clear anything that obscured the views of the surrounding areas and avenues of approach. Failure to plan according to these guidelines nearly always turned the defensive works into a trap for the defenders.35
When the French and their Indian allies arrived, Washington and Mackay did their best to make a stand, but while the unseasoned Virginians fled behind cover, the French maintained the initiative. Soon “the most tremendous rain that be conceived” came down, and the exposed Virginians could not keep their gunpowder dry. By evening, there were a hundred total casualties, thirty of whom had been killed.36 What saved Washington and the Virginians from total annihilation was that Captain de Villiers did not know whether the British were about to be reinforced; so instead of pressing the attack to completion, he sought Washington’s sword.37
When Villiers sent an emissary to negotiate with Washington’s representatives, the Virginians lost all discipline, broke into the rum supply, and proceeded to get drunk. Washington’s chief negotiator, Jacob Van Braam, went back and forth between Villiers and Washington, finally delivering to the French word that the British were ready to capitulate. Villiers dictated his terms to an aide with poor penmanship, and by the time Van Braam slogged back to Washington’s tent, the document was wet, the ink running all over. In the flickering candlelight, Washington, Mackay, and their officers struggled to read the terms. What further complicated the reading of the waterlogged parchment was that no one present, except Van Braam, could read French with any real degree of proficiency. Relying on his inaccurate translation, which bordered on the dishonest, Washington and Mackay missed some key phrases in the preamble — “venger L’assasin” and “l’assasinat du Sur de Jumonville.”38 In missing these key incriminating phrases, Washington and Mackay agreed that the terms of the surrender seemed generous. The British survivors were allowed to surrender with full military honors, marching out of the fort with their colors flying and drums beating.39 Washington and Mackay failed to understand, however, that the crucial phrases in the preamble referring to the assassination of Jumonville gave the French a legal cause to declare war on Great Britain. The confession that Washington and Mackay unknowingly signed was the French commander’s main object; he had no interest in taking prisoners or flags.40
In the aftermath of the defeat, Washington failed to grasp the full implications of the surrender document. He did, however, have some supporters. None of his officers condemned him in their respective reports. Captain Mackay also notably stood by Washington (probably to salvage his own reputation, for he had cosigned the articles of capitulation). Even Dinwiddie was loyal. When Washington delivered his official report on July 17, 1754, the House of Burgesses passed a resolution thanking him for his efforts and expressing condolences for his losses. However, despite the initial show of support, Dinwiddie, in deciding to wait for further British reinforcements, reorganized the Virginia Regiment back into its constituent companies and offered Washington command of one of them but with a demotion of rank from colonel to captain. Washington, who already felt unappreciated, resigned his commission in humiliation.
Washington, however, was not to remain a civilian for long. When he resigned, he hinted to William Fitzhugh, “I have the consolation itself, of knowing that I have opened the way when the smallness of our numbers exposed us to the attacks of a Superior Enemy; That I have hitherto stood the heat and brunt of the Day, and escaped untouched, in time of extreme danger; and I have the Thanks of my Country, for the Services I have rendered it.” He further remained certain that his “inclinations were strongly bent to arms.”41 Although Washington’s first foray into the reality of combat command had been abysmal, he outwardly lost none of his original thirst for a military life. Furthermore, Washington’s command at Great Meadows underscores the impact that his lack of education and training had on this pivotal historical moment. He couldn’t speak or read French, nor did he think it prudent to ensure that he had a competent translator with him. He made numerous tactical errors in judgment, letting bravado as opposed to reason drive his decision making. Youthful false confidence aside, however, Washington learned some valuable lessons about the art of war on the frontier that would serve him well in the future. As would become his lifelong custom, Washington set out from this point forward to never make the same mistake twice.
Washington jumped at a new opportunity to serve when he heard of the arrival of Gen. Edward Braddock, who was to lead a new expedition to recapture Fort Duquesne. Washington congratulated the general on his safe arrival in the colonies but then wisely allowed his powerful patrons to talk to Braddock on his behalf. Before long Washington was offered a position on the general’s staff. Washington’s status on the staff says a great deal about what Braddock thought about colonial administration; Washington was told to report directly to the general, thereby avoiding a repeat of all the annoying clashes Washington as a provincial officer had with regular officers of inferior rank.42 Braddock seemed to value Washington for his hard-earned situational awareness and welcomed his advice. One of the lessons that Washington learned from his previous forays into the wilderness was to travel light. He advised Braddock to use pack mules as opposed to wagons for logistical support wherever possible. Additionally Washington further recommended that Braddock divide his army and send a lighter, faster force that would be more adept at encountering an enemy in the woods. Despite the notorious contempt that Braddock had for colonials, he liked Washington and promised to help his young protégé find preferment in His Majesty’s regular forces.43
Although Washington still clashed with other officers and didn’t always get his own way with Braddock, his confidence still must have been buoyed when Braddock became his newest benefactor. The comfort was to be short lived. During the campaign of 1755, a combined Franco-Indian force attacked Braddock’s army. Panic spread through the British lines as a near-invisible enemy began cutting men down where they stood in their ranks. Washington urged Braddock to allow him to reorganize the Virginians into an irregular formation and to beat the enemy back, but Braddock refused. The British in their tight formations and scarlet uniforms proved easy targets for the hidden enemy. Braddock soon fell from his saddle, mortally wounded, and his officers fell around him. Washington, however, remained unscathed. Despite having two horses shot from under him and four bullets pierce his clothes, Washington remained calm under fire and brought as much order as possible from the chaos. He organized the retreat and supervised the removal of the dying Braddock from the field. Furthermore, when Braddock succumbed to his wound three days later, Washington presided over his burial in the middle of the road so as to prevent hostile Indians from finding his grave and defiling his body.44 Also buried with Braddock was Washington’s only real chance at a royal commission.
In the aftermath of Braddock’s defeat, the worst in eighteenth-century British history, the blame fell squarely on the dead general. Braddock’s inability to heed Washington’s advice to take cover seemed in arrogant disregard for the lives of the men under his command. Virginia’s ruling class, meanwhile, lavished praise on Washington. Furthermore, word of the young colonel’s deeds spread outside of Virginia’s borders to the greater Anglo-American world. From the Carolinas to England, Washington’s heroic tale was repeated in the press, and the accolades poured in.45
Shortly after Braddock’s defeat, Dinwiddie enlarged the Virginia Regiment and offered Washington the command. He accepted at the end of August 1759 and began building the regiment from the ground up. Here we first catch a glimpse of the commander that Washington would become less than twenty years later. Washington had to do almost everything single-handedly, from designing uniforms to conducting drills based on the latest British drill manuals and punishing disobedient soldiers. With specific regard to training, Washington was responsible for training not only raw recruits but also officers. Washington pushed his officers to study, particularly the latest in British military texts such as Humphrey Bland’s A Treatise of Military Discipline. Washington wrote that “having no opportunity to improve from example, let us read”; for he recognized it was not possible for an ambitious officer to obtain the requisite expertise “without application, nor any merit or applause to be achieved without certain knowledge thereof.”46 Bland’s Treatise was the fundamental textbook for all British officers. Known throughout the army as “the bible,” the 360-page manual spelled out everything a new officer needed to know about how to form and operate a regiment both in garrison and in the field. Bland outlined what an officer’s duties were and what officers could reasonably expect from their subordinates. Bland’s work is a field manual, a practical guide for new officers that dictated in step-by-step fashion everything that should be done on a daily basis in order to keep the army functioning under any circumstances. Bland also included leadership advice, specifically in the sections that discussed battlefield orders. In chapter 9, “General Rules for Battalions of Foot, When They Engage in the Line,” Bland stated: “It being a General Remark, that the Private Soldiers, when they are to go upon Action, form their Notions of the Danger from the outward Appearance of their Officers; and according to their Looks apprehend the Undertaking to be more or less difficult. . . . In order therefore to dissipate their Fears, and fortify their Courage, the Officers should assume a serene and cheerful Air; and in delivering their Orders to, and in their common Discourse with, the Men, they should address themselves to them in an affable and affectionate manner.”47 What is interesting about this particular passage from Bland’s Treatise is that it seems to fit with the lessons Washington learned from the Rules of Civility about the need to maintain self-control. By reading Bland, Washington was able to put into practice in his military life some of the same lessons he had learned to use in his civilian life. These mutually reinforcing guidelines shaped Washington’s conduct and eventually contributed to the growth of his mythology.
Colonel Washington’s immersion into the study of the military arts is the first significant example we have of his pursuing a specifically designed course of study to help gain the requisite knowledge to handle the station he occupied at that moment. Furthermore, in these early years of Washington’s career in the Virginia Regiment, when he was in relentless pursuit of a regular commission, that he made a considerable effort to study military theory in concert with the trends emerging from the British military enlightenment speaks to Washington’s sense of his own Britishness.
Throughout the eighteenth century, Britain underwent a military renaissance. As stated earlier, books were central to preparing officers to serve, particularly in the combat arms such as the artillery and engineers, and to teaching them the tactics to lead an army both on the battlefield and in peacetime. British officials used books to set standards for the army, including defining service obligations for those receiving commissions. Eighteenth-century officers increasingly consulted books to expand their knowledge of the military arts through reading about the latest developments on war and encouraged their fellow officers to become professional students of warfare. Those officers who aspired to high commands tended to read and recommend to others a wide array of books on the art of war or what would later become known as grand strategy. One such example is the Duke of Albemarle’s Observations upon Military and Political Affairs. The Duke of Albemarle fought in the English Civil Wars and was one of the principle advocates for the restoration of Charles II. His book opines on civil-military relations at the highest level and therefore appealed to readers who actively sought high-level leadership positions.48 Another example is Niccolò Machiavelli’s Libro della Arte della Guerra, which is a study of the usefulness of war to a state and what a state’s war aims should be in theoretical terms.49 A third example is Vicomte de Turenne’s Military Memoirs and Maxims of Marshal Turenne. Although Turenne’s work was largely autobiographical, he offered many strategic-level insights about how to effectively wage a war; thus the book really falls more under the heading of the military arts than a memoir. He was considered one of the foremost military minds of the age, and British officers regarded him among their favorite authorities.50 Histories, biographies, and memoirs of famous commanders were all particularly popular, as well as the latest texts on artillery and engineering, works on classical Greece and Rome, and Continental European books on the art of war.51 Several examples of the field or technical manuals that were the most popular included Guillaume Le Blond’s A Treatise of Artillery, or of the Arms and Machines Used in War, Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban’s The New Method of Fortification, as Practiced by Monsieur de Vauban . . . to Which Is Now Added a Treatise of Military Orders, and the Art of Gunnery, and John Cruso’s Militarie Instructions for the Cavallrie.52 Some of the favored biographical subjects included Oliver Cromwell, Louis XIV, the Duke of Marlborough, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Charles VII of Sweden, and Gustavus Adolphus.53 Given the British officers’ overwhelming interest in reading and discussing military books, it is reasonable to assume that Washington became aware of this trend during the course of his service. With this in mind, the ambitious colonel Washington’s military reading and his advice to his subordinate officers make perfect sense. Unfortunately Washington would have little opportunity to read anything beyond Bland’s Treatise given his situation in command of the Virginia Regiment on the frontier.
This experience would provide him with lessons that he would need twenty years later; however, in the near term, Washington’s miraculous work to turn a ragged handful of recruits into a respectable regiment of obedient soldiers did not merit the attention of those in the British military establishment who had the ability to grant preferment for royal commissions. The rest of Washington’s career with the Virginia Regiment was undistinguished in terms of battlefield glory. In 1758 he led two regiments in Brig. Gen. John Forbes’s final expedition against Fort Duquesne, but he did not directly contribute to the fort’s ultimate recapture.54
While Washington clearly demonstrated some of the qualities that are now so synonymous with his later career in the War for Independence, in 1755 nothing about his words or deeds indicated that he could be the future leader of a revolution. Washington, like the majority of his colonial contemporaries, was proud to be British. He tried to build a pedigree worthy of that British identity so that he might achieve fame and glory in the scarlet tunic of His Majesty’s regulars. Indeed, a close reading of Washington’s correspondence from his career in the Virginia Regiment is almost painful. This young, ambitious Washington comes across as an artless office seeker with little to actually recommend him beyond a couple of narrow escapes. At times when he should have been more preoccupied with his soldiers’ welfare, he instead petulantly whined to those in power about the officers’ pay inequity. Although Washington had a certain capacity for flattery, especially when it came to dealing with his superiors, he also had no problem with bluntly blaming them for his every failure. Such acts of tactless insubordination did little to ingratiate him with the likes of Dinwiddie, Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts, and Brigadier General Forbes. Furthermore, he relentlessly pestered his superiors in Virginia for leave to seek out those in the British establishment who had the ability to grant his wish for preferment. Each time Washington appealed to the great and powerful in the British civil-military administration, however, he was denied.
The most significant of these repeated British rejections is Washington’s interview with the recently appointed commander in chief for North America, John Campbell, Earl of Loudoun. In the period leading up to Washington’s meeting with Loudoun, he had grown increasingly frustrated with the string of rebuffs from various British officials. Over time Washington became convinced that Dinwiddie was the root cause of the problem. In Washington’s mind, Dinwiddie consistently refused to listen to his strategic advice and instead made contradictory decisions, repeatedly fell short with supply requests, and would not heed Washington’s frequent calls for equal pay for the officers. Washington’s supporters in Williamsburg went further and convinced him that Dinwiddie was maneuvering against him and hoping to replace him with one of Dinwiddie’s Scottish cronies.55 Although Dinwiddie was actually patient with his ambitious commander, Washington did not recognize it and instead persistently requested leave to meet with those in the British establishment in North America who had more authority than Dinwiddie could boast. Having previously met with only partial success while dealing with Governor Shirley on a matter of rank, Washington shifted his attention to winning over Lord Loudoun.
As leverage for dealing with Loudoun, Washington did have from Governor Shirley an endorsement recommending him as second in command for any future offensive into the Ohio Country. He also had another endorsement from Dinwiddie, recommending him for a royal commission. They gave Washington the confidence to send a petition signed by the members of the regiment to Loudoun asking for patronage. This petition apparently fell on yet another deaf ear. Loudoun announced no new offensive into the Ohio, nor did he pay any heed to the idea that the Virginia Regiment warranted regular commissions. Instead, Loudoun announced the recruitment of more American soldiers who would be led by imported British officers. Upon hearing these latest pieces of bad news, Washington became ever more convinced that the British harbored irrational biases against the colonials. From this point forward, Washington’s relationships with those in political power increasingly soured. He clashed with Dinwiddie repeatedly over frontier defensive strategies. Washington and his allies collaborated in order to defeat the governor’s measures that they believed ran contrary to the colony’s interests. Their actions would prove to be the opening salvos in the long struggle for colonial control between provincial leaders and members of the British administration.56
In the face of mounting frustration and challenges to his command and his reputation, Washington decided that he needed to make his case to Loudoun directly. Dinwiddie, acting on instructions from Loudoun, ordered Washington to abandon his frontier forts in favor of reinforcing Fort Cumberland in Maryland. Although Washington obeyed the order, he made sure everyone knew that it was contrary to his advice. Again it represented another example of British imperial authorities going against the expert opinions offered by the colony’s rightful leaders.57 By December 1756 Washington began writing a series of letters requesting, indeed almost begging, for leave in order to travel to Loudoun’s location and plead his case. After nearly two months of requests, the now exasperated Dinwiddie relented, adding, “I cannot conceive what Service You can be of in going there . . . however, as You seem so earnest to go I now give you Leave.”58
As Dinwiddie hinted, Washington was in for yet another disappointment. The dissatisfaction Washington felt at this juncture was tinged with a new level of bitterness, for he had taken pains to ensure that Loudoun knew he was not just any provincial office seeker. Washington prepared a lengthy report on Virginia’s military situation that laid out the multitude of problems that existed with supply, discipline, and desertion. Furthermore, he recommended an all-out assault on Fort Duquesne as the only way to mitigate the threat on the frontier.59 Washington had a dual intent in compiling this rather frank assessment — to convince Loudoun that taking Fort Duquesne should remain the British strategic objective and to show off his expertise, thereby lending credence to his request for preferment for not only his officers but more important for himself. This personal and overwhelming desire for a British commission is apparent in his somewhat artlessly included appeal for Loudoun’s patronage: “Altho’ I have not had the honor to be known to Your Lordship: Yet, Your Lordship’s Name was familiar to my Ear, on account of the Important Services performed to his Majesty in other parts of the World — don’t think My Lord I am going to flatter. I have exalted the Sentiments of Your Lordships Character, and revere Your Rank. . . . [M]y nature is honest and Free from Guile.” Further down, he came more to his personal objective: “In regard to myself, I must beg leave to say, Had His Excellency General Braddock survived his unfortunate Defeat, I should have met with preferment equal to my Wishes: I had His Promise to that purpose, and I believe that Gentleman was too sincere and generous to make unmeaning offers, where none were ask’d. General Shirley was not unkind in His Promises — but — He is gone to England.”60 Loudoun apparently received the report, but he had other ideas about Great Britain’s future on the North American front.
Washington arrived in Philadelphia to meet Loudoun on February 21, 1757; however, Loudoun did not arrive until March 14. Washington had to wait. As he had demonstrated before, though, patience was not one of his virtues. Already suspicious that a significant amount of anticolonial bias was inherent among the great and powerful in Britain’s civil-military administration, Washington’s opinion rapidly hardened during his wait for Loudoun. Outraged, he wrote to Dinwiddie that “we cant conceive, that being Americans should deprive us of the benefits of British subjects; nor lessen our claim to preferment: and that we are very certain, that no Body of regular Troops ever before Servd 3 Bloody Campaigns without attracting Royal Notice.” Rebuffing the British claim that the Virginians were only defending their own property, Washington asserted, “We are defending the Kings Dominions, and altho the Inhabitants of G[rea]t Britain are removed from (this) Danger, they are yet, equally with Us, concernd and Interested in the Fate of the Country, and there can be no Sufficient reason why we, who spend our blood and Treasure in Defence of the Country are not entitled to equal prefermt.”61
When Washington finally met Loudoun, his hopes of impressing the commander in chief were dashed, for Loudoun received him with the cold civility of an aristocrat to a social inferior. He was not the least bit interested in hearing Washington’s strategic overview, nor could Washington convince him to pay any attention to the list of grievances that he had previously outlined on the regiment’s behalf. Washington seemed to have traveled all the way to Philadelphia to receive orders and nothing more. Loudoun only made one concession to Washington’s position and agreed that Maryland, not Virginia, should have to garrison Fort Cumberland. He neither called for an expedition against Fort Duquesne in 1757 nor mentioned royal commissions. Washington was thus treated as an incompetent provincial capable only of executing orders rather than commanding in his own right.62 All of Washington’s youthful dreams of wearing the scarlet tunic were reduced to ashes once and for all.
Washington returned to his regiment, and in anger, he resumed clashing with other officers over strategy for 1758. He drew rebukes from General Forbes and other regular officers, but in Virginia, he was still held in high regard. He did manage to achieve a brevet rank of brigadier general on the final expedition to Fort Duquesne, but by the time General Forbes’s British force arrived, the French had abandoned and burned the fort. Washington was never able to exact revenge for the stinging loss of Fort Necessity. Moreover, his career in the Virginia Regiment was over.63
Washington’s encounter with Loudoun signified an important moment in his life: he realized his dreams of becoming a British officer would never come to pass. All of his hard-earned, valuable experience could not earn him a place in the British army, whose officer corps was demarcated by bloodlines. He saw that the British administration, which his half-brother and the Fairfaxes for so long had taught him to admire, had serious flaws.
That Washington did not immediately resign his commission after the ill-fated meeting with Loudoun underscores that his transformation into an American was not yet complete. He simply accepted that it was better to be a Virginian in the British Empire than any other alternative. He therefore turned his attention to doing his duty to his country, Virginia, and shifted his focus to becoming a leader in that provincial society, which did actually appreciate his achievements.
That said, Washington abandoned his study of the military arts that he had begun some four years earlier, for that reading no longer served a practical purpose for him. He instead devoted his energies in the coming years to increasing his wealth and status in Virginia society. Even before he left the Virginia Regiment, Washington was elected to the House of Burgesses and became active in politics while still serving in the militia. In 1758 Francis Fauquier replaced Dinwiddie, and Washington wasted no time in attempting to curry favor with the new lieutenant governor, writing that he was “anxious to earn the honor of kissing your [Fauquier’s] hand.”64 Although by that time Washington had earned the respect of his fellow Virginians for his military service and he was getting better at diplomacy, he could not rely on those attributes alone to sustain himself in high society.
To successfully mix in the best social circles, Washington had to learn more about the science of agriculture, history, politics, and religion, for he had to balance being a planter, a member of the House of Burgesses, and a parish vestryman. After he returned to Mount Vernon and began assembling a library, those subjects that had the practical purpose of advancing his social stature dominated his burgeoning collection.
That Washington’s transformation into an American was gradual points to the nature of his decision-making process. Thomas Jefferson would later write that Washington’s mind was “slow in operation, being aided little by invention or imagination, but sure in conclusion.”65 The question is, why did Washington develop such a slow, deliberate decision-making process? His early military career indicated his propensity for rashness, so why did he have such a gradual shift in mentalities? Part of the transformation can be ascribed to maturity; as he aged, he lost some of that youthful impetuosity. Maturity, however, can only account for part of Washington’s mental shift. To fully understand Washington’s mental world, it is necessary to place him in context with other future revolutionaries.
Washington came of age in a colonial society dominated by intense royalists. Virginians and indeed nearly all colonists in British America considered themselves fortunate to be ruled by Protestant kings and queens who stood for liberty in the face of their oppressive Catholic enemies. Colonists looked to British history to cultivate this extreme degree of approbation for the empire they were a part of.66 Washington was no doubt similarly schooled over the years in how best to appreciate the British constitution, the legacy of the Glorious Revolution, and the monarchy itself by his teachers and mentors during his formative years.67 In fact, the evidence to support this argument is embedded in Washington’s angry letter to Dinwiddie after his interview with Loudoun; it recorded Washington’s outrage at the realization that colonists were not afforded the same rights as British subjects. Washington, as were all his future revolutionary compatriots, was raised to believe that he shared the same British identity as those raised in England. It was therefore a harsh moment when the colonists realized that their long-cherished assumption was wrong, as Washington’s example illustrates. A majority of colonists in the 1750s and 1760s, however, still argued that it was better to be a British subject than any other sort. Caught up in the increasing Anglicization of Virginia politics and the celebratory atmosphere following Britain’s final triumph over the French in 1763, the development of Washington’s American identity slowed.68
Still Washington began to think differently than his colonial contemporaries. By the mid-eighteenth century, many of Virginia’s planter elite expanded their reading interests as they increased the size of their private libraries. This practice was in stark contrast to that of their seventeenth-century forebearers, who maintained smaller, utilitarian libraries that consisted of mostly religious, historical, agricultural, and medical books, with perhaps a few volumes on English common law.69 Less than a hundred years later, when the members of Virginia’s ruling class were secure on their plantations and were no longer preoccupied with mere survival in an infant colony, they had the time and the means to broaden their reading to include more languages and subjects. Over time privileged boys were taught to read in Latin, Greek, French, and Hebrew. Libraries began to include more works of literature, natural philosophy, and mathematics along with the staples on religion, history, law, and medicine.70 Additionally Williamsburg eventually developed a small academic world with the faculty and students of the College of William and Mary and a growing population of lawyers who had to travel to the town to apply for admission to the bar and try their cases. Furthermore, the arrival of Francis Fauquier as lieutenant governor provided an opportunity for members of the gentry who were not trained scholars or attorneys to participate in intellectual conversations on a range of topics. Fauquier fashioned himself as the quintessential enlightened aristocrat. He epitomized everything that young, wealthy Virginians such as Washington and Jefferson aspired to be: classically educated, carefully trained in cultivated social graces, and interested in broadening his understanding of scientific curiosities. Fauquier was a fellow of the Royal Society, and he regularly reported to England on the latest scientific experiments conducted in his colony. He also enjoyed music, genteel company, and intellectual conversations. He quickly recognized Jefferson’s intellectual gifts when they met while Jefferson was still a student at the College of William and Mary. Fauquier included Jefferson along with Jefferson’s law tutor, the eminent legal practitioner George Wythe, in his inner circle. Jefferson later remarked that during his numerous dinners with Fauquier, he “heard more good sense, more rational and philosophical conversation, than in all my life besides.”71
Interestingly despite Washington’s eagerness to kiss hands and curry favor with the new lieutenant governor, he apparently did not attempt to increase his learning in order to ingratiate himself with Fauquier. Whereas Jefferson had the benefit of a college education, legal training, and exceptional intellectual gifts and the Fairfax men had the advantages of blood ties to the English aristocracy and had been educated in England, Washington’s military fame, continued dedication to public service in the House of Burgesses and the parish, and his dancing skills enabled him to effectively associate with the new governor. That said, at this stage in Washington’s emerging political career, trying to acquire even a rudimentary classical education by reading everything he could as quickly as possible would probably not have gained him any additional political favor. Instead, Washington chose to focus his reading on agriculture, politics, and religion, the three subjects that were necessary to enhance both his fortune and his political career.
The significance of Washington’s change in mentality resonates more when he is placed in context with that of another founding father, Benjamin Franklin. Although not a Virginian, Franklin offers an interesting contrast to Washington as his formal education came to an early end and he had to make his own fortune and reputation without the benefit of an inheritance. Like Washington, Franklin’s initial transformation into an American can be traced to a single moment of humiliation at the hands of a British official. Unlike Washington, however, Franklin did not abandon the pursuit of cultivating a European mind upon embracing his Americanness.
Twenty-six years Washington’s senior, Franklin was born in Boston in 1706, the fifteenth of seventeen children of Josiah Franklin, a tallow chandler. Although Franklin’s father decided early on that Benjamin was destined for the clergy, the cost of the requisite education was too expensive, and he pulled the boy from Boston Latin and sent him to a less expensive school that taught basic writing and arithmetic. At the age of ten, almost the same age at which Washington’s formal education ended, Franklin was pulled from school altogether in order to learn a trade. He was apprenticed to his older brother James, a printer, and learned the business rapidly. Working in the printing business afforded him access to those in the book trade. Franklin fostered an appetite for learning by maintaining good relationships with Boston’s bookshop owners, who let him borrow books. Franklin used his natural talents to capitalize on the kindness extended to him in order to establish and build his reputation. He used his brother’s newspaper to publish his first writings, and later when he struck out on his own and moved to Philadelphia, his abilities and ambition caught the attention of wealthier printers who were influential in getting him established on his own. The teenage Franklin’s ability to win over influential men to serve as patrons is somewhat akin to what Washington did as a young surveyor. Washington used his natural gifts for mathematics and his father’s surveying instruments to learn a trade that not only would allow him to earn wages but also would introduce him to influential men. Franklin used his intellect, wit, and writing ability, as well as the skills he learned in his brother’s printing shop, to attract the support of men who could help him advance.72
Despite Franklin’s humble origins and the fact that he was building his fortune as a tradesman rather than through a rich inheritance, he did let it not stop him from pursuing more gentlemanly, intellectual activities. He continued reading as much and as often as he could, broadening his reading to include works in French, Spanish, Latin, and Italian. Together with other ambitious tradesmen and professional men in Philadelphia, he founded the Junto and a subscription library. As a city-dwelling tradesman, establishing an intellectual club like the Junto and gaining entry into other somewhat exclusive members-only societies such as the Freemasons were the best ways for Franklin to transcend his middling social status. Furthermore, he worked through these organizations and used his newspapers to suggest civic improvements for Philadelphia. Franklin’s efforts to foster cultural and public works improvements in his city went a long way toward improving his social standing as he likewise increased his fortunes through his businesses. However, in order to become a gentleman and a leader of Philadelphia society, Franklin needed to leave the shop floor and devote himself entirely toward intellectual pursuits. He was able to do so by the 1740s after building his printing business into a successful media empire. Franklin’s social rise differs from Washington’s. In the planter-dominated South, land ownership, tobacco profits, and military glory could pave an ambitious man’s way into the most exclusive social circles. In Philadelphia, the bustling, up-and-coming cultural center of British America, a gentleman was demarcated by different characteristics. Fortunately for Franklin, he was perfectly suited to join in the growing colonial fascination with the Enlightenment that was already flourishing throughout the upper classes of both Britain and France.73 Although he tried to continue fostering his folksy image as a hardworking, leather apron man long after his retirement, Franklin aspired to more worldly occupations.
In 1744 while building on the Junto, Franklin launched the American Philosophical Society. He conducted scientific experiments, most notably with electricity. This work was all possible because Franklin was confident enough in his talents to explore beyond the confines of the profession in which he was trained. His lack of an extensive formal education up through the university level did not hinder him in the same way that it did the less self-assured Washington. Franklin was indeed comfortable at the vanguard of American scientific exploration.74
That Franklin and wealthy colonists throughout British America strived to broaden their intellectual interests demonstrates how much they were in touch with the latest fashionable trends in the English aristocracy, for in England a parallel movement of increasing intellectual curiosity was taking place.75 Again that these twin developments occurred on both sides of the Atlantic is a testament to the colonists’ belief that they shared an identity with their English brethren. Both Lieutenant Governor Fauquier in Virginia and Franklin in Philadelphia actively worked to establish a scientific dialogue across the Atlantic. Through Peter Collinson, the Library Company of Philadelphia’s agent in London, Franklin was able to obtain new instruments for scientific experiments, and Collinson made sure that Franklin’s theories on electricity were presented to the Royal Society in 1750. Excerpts from Franklin’s theories were then printed in London in The Gentleman’s Magazine and subsequently translated into French, and they caused a sensation in the court of Louis XV. Additionally the Royal Society awarded Franklin gold medals and made him a member in honor of his achievements, rare accolades for an American colonial with no official pedigree, either hereditary or academic, to recommend him. At home Harvard and Yale awarded him honorary master’s degrees.76 Franklin had become internationally acclaimed, all without the aid of actual university study.
Science may have opened the path to Europe for Franklin; however, his Anglicization reached its zenith when he was appointed the colonial agent for Pennsylvania. He traveled to London in 1757, where he remained for years with only a brief sojourn to the colonies in his official capacity as postmaster general in 1763. In 1762 he was awarded an honorary doctor of laws from both Oxford and Edinburgh and was hereafter known to the world as Doctor Franklin. In 1766 he visited Göttingen University and was presented at the French court. Six years later Franklin was elected Associé étranger of the French Academy.77
During his long residence in London, Franklin was as ardent a royalist as any other Englishman. He campaigned vigorously for a royal charter for Pennsylvania and sought out men in the British administration with the power to grant him preferment and was somewhat successful. For a time he was the trusted source on all things American for a ministry struggling with how to reform its imperial administration under the weight of a staggering debt from the Seven Years’ War. In fact, Franklin’s testimony before the House of Commons was instrumental in getting the Stamp Act repealed. Franklin did an excellent job of presenting the American case to Parliament on February 13, 1766. He patiently answered the 174 questions leveled at him by members of Lord Rockingham’s ministry, striking down all the arguments for virtual representation. He only made one mistake that would come back to haunt him: Franklin stated flatly that the American colonists recognized Parliament’s right to levy external taxes, such as tariffs and export duties. His testimony, the longest public oration he would ever give, had the desired effect both in Britain, which repealed the act, and in America, where Franklin’s reputation soared. He was made commissioner for Georgia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.78 The printer and self-taught scientist had become a statesman.
As an office seeker, Franklin in the early 1760s acted not altogether differently from Washington in the 1750s. Both ambitious men eagerly sought preferment from within the British imperial administration, and in their eagerness each overlooked or excused the flaws they saw both in the system and in the individual bureaucrats they encountered. Additionally just as Washington’s evolving Americanness was a drawn-out process that accelerated only in the wake of repeated failures and crystallized at the supreme moment of rejection in his encounter with Loudon, Franklin’s own transformation into an American was protracted and somewhat reluctant. Throughout the 1760s even as Franklin clashed with Lord Hillsborough and was denied much of the advancement that he sought, he was still slow to catch up with the anti-British sentiment that many of his fellow Americans had developed. Even after the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770, Franklin’s loyalty to the crown did not yet waver; instead, he advocated a new relationship with stronger ties between the king and the colonies without any subservience to Parliament. For Franklin to transform his national identity, he also had to experience an Americanizing moment. That point would occur during his spectacularly public humiliation at the hands of Solicitor General Alexander Wedderburn in the Cockpit.
By 1772 Franklin’s British nemesis, Lord Hillsborough, had resigned as head of the American Department and was replaced with Lord Dartmouth, one of Franklin’s close associates and a known American sympathizer. Franklin was as optimistic about the future as he had ever been, boasting that Dartmouth had “express’d some personal Regard for me.”79 Indeed, it seemed that it would be easier from this point for Franklin to both transact imperial business on behalf of the colonies that he was representing and to further his personal ambitions as well. During this year Franklin took the opportunity to try to diffuse the tensions between Britain and the colonies once and for all. He wanted to make it clear to his Massachusetts associates who had borne the brunt of British occupation that it was not the British ministry that was to blame for rising tensions; rather a few cunning colonial officials — namely, Governor Thomas Hutchinson — were the source of their countrymen’s miseries. Franklin did so by sending some radical leaders in Massachusetts a packet containing letters written by Hutchinson to a small group of influential men, including a British undersecretary named Thomas Whately. In these letters Hutchinson, then lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, made it clear that he believed that firm measures, including “an abridgment of what are called English liberties,” were needed in America to maintain its colonial dependence on Great Britain. Otherwise, he continued, “it is all over with us. The friends . . . of anarchy will be afraid of nothing be it ever so extravagant.”80 When Franklin sent the letters to Massachusetts, he included a cover letter in which he argued they were proof that the native colonial officials had traded “away the Liberties of their native Country for Posts” and had therefore betrayed not only the interests of their own colony but also of the crown and “the whole English Empire.” These designing men, he wrote, “laid the Foundation of most if not all our present Grievances” and were responsible for instigating the “Enmities between the different Countries of which the Empire consists.”81 Franklin was so convinced he was right that he went so far as to make the outlandish argument that given the extent of the responsibility borne by Hutchinson and his lieutenant governor, Andrew Oliver, they should willingly be the scapegoats and sacrifice their reputations to avert the further disintegration of Anglo-American relations.82
That Franklin thought he could engineer reconciliation between Great Britain and the colonies by leaking the private letters between colonial and British officials was absurd in hindsight. On Franklin’s part this incident represents a spectacular miscalculation of his own influence and a critical misreading of how the British officials, on whose side Franklin was trying so hard to remain, would perceive the leak. Just as Washington as a young officer was often guilty of dramatically overstating his own abilities in hopes of currying British favor, Franklin made similar mistakes with the Hutchinson letters.
Despite Franklin’s stipulation that the letters were to be circulated only among a few men of worth, they were compiled into a pamphlet, printed, and circulated throughout Massachusetts in 1773. The publication sent the colony into an uproar and had the exact opposite effect than what Franklin had hoped. The colonists read the letters as proof of a conspiracy against them instead of seeing them as what Franklin argued — that is, as the isolated opinions of a few powerful men. As a result the Massachusetts radicals began to look for another opportunity to reinvigorate the struggle. That opportunity came in December 16, 1773, after the passage of the Tea Act, when the radicals dumped £10,000 worth of recently arrived tea into Boston’s harbor. Almost at the same time, the uproar in Britain over the letters’ publication reached fever pitch, and Franklin finally felt he could no longer keep silent. He publicly confessed to being responsible for leaking the letters to the Massachusetts rebels. The confession transformed Franklin into a symbol of colonial treachery. On January 20, 1774, news of the Boston Tea Party reached London, and the meeting of the Privy Council, which was supposed to decide on the Massachusetts petition to remove Hutchinson from office, instead became a full indictment of Franklin. On January 29 the Privy Council summoned Franklin to appear in the Cockpit, a gallery that was packed with many members of the king’s court and London high society. Solicitor General Wedderburn berated Franklin for nearly an hour, hurling abuses that had never been heard before in polite English society. Indeed, much of it was too harsh for the newspapers to print. Wedderburn called Franklin “the true incendiary” and the “first mover and prime conductor” behind all the troubles in Massachusetts. He asserted Franklin furthermore had “forfeited all the respect of societies and of men, for he was not a gentleman; he was in fact nothing less than a thief.”83 Franklin stood stock still throughout Wedderburn’s entire tirade despite the cheers and jeers from the crowd. His plan having completely backfired, Franklin’s humiliation was complete. His hope for being the great reconciler was shattered, as too were his dreams of holding political office or at least of wielding political influence in London. This episode was Franklin’s Americanizing moment. He could no longer harbor any delusions of having an English identity.84
Although Washington’s transformation into an American occurred nearly a decade before Franklin’s, and America and Great Britain were not yet on a full-fledged road to war, some striking dissimilarities between the two future founders underscore their respective political growth. Franklin’s Americanization happened later than Washington’s both in terms of chronology and his age at the time. Having become wealthy and having established an international reputation on the strength of his natural intellectual abilities, Franklin attracted the attention of powerful men in Great Britain first through the Anglo-American academic channels, and they in turn introduced him to the world of British imperial politics. Also his natural abilities gave him a healthy dose of self-confidence, which caused him to clash with those who failed to afford him as an Englishman of letters with due regard. Furthermore, his self-confidence combined with his inexperience in diplomacy led him to seriously miscalculate the degree of increasing hostility between Great Britain and the colonies. Even though Great Britain’s intellectual elite feted him and bestowed honorary degrees on him, Franklin was ultimately unable to similarly charm England’s political elite into granting him the real preferment that he sought and into treating him with the respect he thought he deserved. From an intellectual standpoint, when Franklin became an American it did not stop him from cultivating a European mind. On the contrary, Franklin was able to use his intellectual gifts and honorary academic pedigree to his advantage during his diplomatic career in France. In contrast to his often-awkward performance in England, Franklin had honed his diplomatic act by the time he arrived in France. Moreover, to his delight the French embraced him in ways that the English never did.
As discussed earlier, during Franklin’s residence in London, he made several trips to France, where he received a great deal of attention from the royal family and from the country’s intellectual elite. When he returned to France in 1776 on his diplomatic mission for the Second Continental Congress, Franklin found that interest in his scientific achievements had not waned. He also discovered that many at the forefront of the French Enlightenment, including Voltaire, were struggling to reform the ancien régime, and they increasingly came to regard America as the symbol of everything that France lacked.85 Franklin’s intellectual gifts, his international renown, and his reputation as one of the American Revolution’s most eloquent champions helped him mix with these reform-minded French intellectuals. Wearing his trademark fur cap in the carefully orchestrated guise of an American rustic, Franklin used his advantages to become a darling of the French Enlightenment. In other words, Franklin’s final acceptance of an American identity coupled with his embrace of emerging European intellectual trends helped make him the successful diplomat that history remembers him as being. His efforts to secure a Franco-American alliance were instrumental to the ultimate success of the Revolution. Undoubtedly, Franklin’s tenure in France would have been much more difficult if he had not been able to move so readily in France’s intellectual salons. Because Doctor Franklin had made his fortune and his reputation on the basis of his academic talents, it makes perfect sense that his legacy as an American revolutionary leader hinged on his ability to circulate in the highest intellectual circles. His continued embrace of the European mind in concert with his Americanness made Franklin’s reputation; however, the absolute opposite is true for Washington.
It is worth noting that Franklin and Washington made similar mistakes in their attempts to prove their Englishness. Franklin’s self-assurance, which stemmed from his natural academic ability and positive reception in British intellectual circles, caused him to be overconfident in dealing with political officials, but they did not share the same regard that the intelligentsia had for the American colonial agent with no international political experience. Washington’s overestimation of his own abilities arose from his confidence in his physical prowess. He expected that having proved his worth to some of Virginia’s most influential men, he would thus enjoy preferment from the British military elite despite his total lack of military experience. Washington’s comparative youth made his self-assuredness appear more striking than that of Franklin.
In contrast to Franklin, however, Washington’s earlier evolution caused him to reject his contemporaries’ interest in cultivating a European-style persona. Instead, he devoted himself to practical subjects that would make his plantations more profitable, thereby enhancing his wealth to such a degree that he would stay at the top of the social ladder that he labored so long to climb. His acceptance of the fact that no amount of battlefield experience or laurels would make him English despite his Virginia birth thus allowed Washington to develop intellectual interests that were more akin to those of his seventeenth-century colonial forebearers than to those of his eighteenth-century contemporaries.86 Having made his mental break with his Englishness after Lord Loudon harshly dealt him a very personal affront, Washington in that key moment was forced to confront his academic shortcomings. This realization, when coupled with his extreme sensitivity to criticism, drove Washington intellectually inward and toward the subjects that he felt most comfortable with and that, more important, could meet his immediate needs at the time. He was fortunate to have already made his public reputation in Virginia based on his natural propensities for physical bravery and on his leadership experience. Learning to read Latin or becoming an amateur scientist would not sustain that hard-earned reputation in the planter-dominated high society; earning money and being a dedicated public servant would. Consequently Washington focused his reading and intellectual pursuits accordingly, and reading remained an intensely private activity. For example, when in residence at Mount Vernon, he spent on average two hours in the morning and all afternoon alone in his library.87 Ironically the insecurities that discouraged Washington from ever trying to develop his intellect in the way Franklin had made him a better American revolutionary. Washington’s lack of self-confidence in intellectual matters kept him humble enough to realize that he might not be up to the task ahead of him, and he was willing to listen to his advisers’ informed opinions in order to make decisions. He learned powerful lessons from his early errors in judgment, a feat that might have been impossible if he had not grasped what his weaknesses were. He may not have had an extensive European education in the military arts, but he had hard-earned American experience in how to form and lead armies of his fellow countrymen. Franklin’s Americanness was based on a conscious rejection of Englishness while he still embraced European ideas. Washington’s Americanness was based on his conscious rejection of English ideas. In so doing, both men developed identities that they were entirely comfortable with.
Washington filled his library with books to help him confront the challenges that he faced both in his public life and in running his plantations. His library’s catalog therefore looks very different from those of fellow Virginians Thomas Jefferson, William Byrd II of Westover, John Mercer of Marlborough, and Councillor Robert Carter of Nomini Hall. Notably, these four contemporaries of Washington’s all enjoyed the advantage of university and legal educations. Their great libraries therefore reflect that as readers, they had the training required to facilitate reading across a broader spectrum of genres and languages.88 Washington’s reading also stands in stark contrast to the similarly educationally deprived Franklin, who taught himself to read in several languages and was interested in a variety of subjects. Nevertheless, Washington assembled an extensive library at Mount Vernon. Historians and biographers alike hitherto have not appreciated the library’s quality as it reflects the unique intellectual development of the man who, more than any of his fellow founders, epitomizes what it is to be an American.
Chapters 2 through 4 explore the library’s contents in the context of the public roles that Washington played over the course of his lifetime. It is interesting that Washington would always be placed in situations that charged him with leading men who were far more intellectually and/or academically qualified than he for his post. Moreover, he was never comfortable with political power. His choice of reading material therefore reflects one of the ways that he met challenges head-on. Deprived of the benefits of a university education, he compensated with a program of self-education to the best extent possible. This chapter examines the development of Washington’s early intellect and sense of self and thus the reasons why he engaged in a certain type of reading. Now the stage is set to better understand what he read and how he used the knowledge he gained.