Although George Washington has been dead for 218 years, I spent much of the last year with him.
Our relationship commenced when I responded to an Amazon deal offering me the digital version of Ron Chernow’s 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Washington for only $5.
Although I’ve read biographies of Alexander Hamilton (also by Chernow) and John Adams (by David McCullough), I didn’t come away with any lasting impression of Washington. It was time to get to know George.
Probably because of my job, where I must read other writers’ work painstakingly and for details, long ago I developed a “skim” style for leisure reading – really fast, but not for great comprehension or retention.
I decided to try something different with “Washington: A Life,” to read the book as though I might be tested on the content. If I caught myself glossing over a section, I’d go back and reread.
Consequently, it took months to finish the book, tucking it into my limited leisure time, but I ended up feeling like I really knew the man. I read the account of Washington’s death at age 67 – set in motion by his bravado in making an ill-advised horseback tour of his property in terrible weather – several times, because by then, he felt like a friend.
Chernow skillfully presented a nuanced portrait of a man who was no saint, but was the right man in the right place to do the right thing at the right time. Washington was an American hero with enough tarnish to make him interesting.
So, though I’m going to tell you some nuggets gleaned from the book, I urge you to read it for yourself. You’ll come away with a greater appreciation for how our country was founded and formed, and for our messy but miraculous political system.
Fun fact: Washington is considered the father of the American mule. He was an experimenter by nature and thus, he bred donkeys given to him by the king of Spain and France’s Lafayette and then bred that offspring with a horse to start a line of mules. By the time he died, Mount Vernon had 57 mules and those prototypes’ exemplary qualities caused other farmers to follow Washington’s lead.
Surprising fact: Washington was no military mastermind. He showed some skill at subterfuge and gathering intelligence, but was largely a failure at military strategy. He strongly opposed engaging the British in the battle of Yorktown, Va., wanting instead to take the fight to New York. Thankfully, he eventually gave in, and the British surrender at Yorktown won the war for the Colonials.
Curious fact: Although the widow Martha Custis bore four children before marrying George, he wrote a letter pinning their lack of children on her. Historians obviously don’t really know, but theorize that George’s serious case of smallpox in his youth might have rendered him sterile.
Insightful fact: Washington’s leadership style, both in his military and governmental careers, was to surround himself with brilliant minds of varying opinions, ask for counsel and weigh the arguments. He was insecure about his lack of formal education and disparaged his own intelligence, but he was confident in his ability to choose the right course after weighing the evidence.
Spicy fact: Back to George and Martha. I always thought Martha was far older than George and assumed they had a largely platonic relationship. In truth, she was just eight months older, and right after the couple married, he ordered a trendy aphrodisiac from London (prepared from dried beetles). Although George flirted with young women his whole life (he would often record in his journal the number of beautiful women he had met at parties), he was never known to have strayed.
Disappointing fact: Washington owned slaves and although he made it a point to keep slave families together, a humane choice in those days, he was obtuse about the essential evil in humans owning other humans.
He and Martha were shocked and dismayed when two of their “family member” slaves ran off from Philadelphia rather than return to Mount Vernon when Washington’s second term as president ended. The couple searched doggedly for their “property” and also tried to reclaim slaves who fled with the British at the end of the Revolutionary War.
Important fact: Washington deserves the title as Father of our Country for so many reasons. He was fearless in battle and courageous throughout his days, including his last, when he said, “Tis well,” and took his own pulse to assess that death had arrived.
Washington was a complex man whose life was filled with contradiction. He was ambitious but avoided attention; he was insecure at times but able to make decisions with confidence; he was famously self-controlled but capable of blistering anger.
But above all, he inspired devotion far and wide. At a time when America would have accepted a king, he made sure he did not become one.
Today is George Washington’s 286th birthday.
May his example serve to inspire today’s leaders to do as right by our country as he did.
Pssst: Really, read the book.
