Chapter III: Part 3

It was in 1745 that Washington’s school-days came to an end. His share of his father’s property being his mother’s till he was twenty-one, a livelihood had to be found, and so at about fourteen years of age the work of life began. Like a true boy, the lad wanted to go to sea, despite his uncle’s warning “that I think he had better be put apprentice to a tinker; for a common sailor before the mast has by no means the liberty of the subject; for they will press him from a ship where he has fifty shillings a month; and make him take twenty-three, and cut and slash, and use him like a negro, or rather like a dog.” His mother, however, would not consent, and to this was due his becoming a surveyor.

From his “Young Man’s Companion” Washington had already learned the use of Gunter’s rule and how it should be used in surveying, and to complete his knowledge he seems to have taken lessons of the licensed surveyor of Westmoreland County, James Genn, for transcripts of some of the surveys drawn by Genn still exist in the handwriting of his pupil. This implied a distinct and very valuable addition to his knowledge, and a large number of his surveys still extant are marvels of neatness and careful drawing. As a profession it was followed for only four years (1747-1751), but all through life he often used his knowledge in measuring or platting his own property. Far more important is the service it was to him in public life. In 1755 he sent to Braddock’s secretary a map of the “back country,” and to the governor of Virginia plans of two forts. During the Revolution it helped him not merely in the study of maps, but also in the facility it gave him to take in the topographical features of the country. Very largely, too, was the selection of the admirable site for the capital due to his supervising: all the plans for the city were submitted to him, and nowhere do the good sense and balance of the man appear to better advantage than in his correspondence with the Federal city commissioners.

In Washington’s earliest account-book there is an item when he was sixteen years old, “To cash pd ye Musick Master for my Entrance 3/9.” It is commonly said that he played the flute, but this is as great a libel on him as any Tom Paine wrote, and though he often went to concerts, and though fond of hearing his granddaughter Nelly play and sing, he never was himself a performer, and the above entry probably refers to the singing-master whom the boys and girls of that day made the excuse for evening frolics.

Mention is made elsewhere of his taking lessons in the sword exercise from Van Braam in these earlier years, and in 1756 he paid to Sergeant Wood, fencing-master, the sum of £1.1.6. When he received the offer of a position on Braddock’s staff, he acknowledged, in accepting, that “I must be ingenuous enough to confess, that I am not a little biassed by selfish considerations. To explain, Sir, I wish earnestly to attain some knowledge in the military profession, and, believing a more favorable opportunity cannot offer, than to serve under a gentleman of General Braddock’s abilities and experience, it does … not a little contribute to influence my choice.” Hamilton is quoted as saying that Washington “never read any book upon the art of war but Sim’s Military Guide,” and an anonymous author asserted that “he never read a book in the art of war of higher value than Bland’s Exercises.” Certain it is that nearly all the military knowledge he possessed was derived from practice rather than from books, and though, late in life, he purchased a number of works on the subject, it was after his army service was over.

One factor in Washington’s education which must not go unnoticed was his religious belief. When only two months old he was baptized, presumably by the Rev. Lawrence De Butts, the clergyman of Washington parish. The removal from that locality prevented any further religious influence from this clergyman, and it probably first came from the Rev. Charles Green, of Truro parish, who had received his appointment through the friendship of Washington’s father, and who later was on such friendly terms with Washington that he doctored Mrs. Washington in an attack of the measles, and caught and returned two of his parishioner’s runaway slaves. As early as 1724 the clergyman of the parish in which Mount Vernon was situated reported that he catechised the youth of his congregation “in Lent and a great part of the Summer,” and George, as the son of one of his vestrymen, undoubtedly received a due amount of questioning.

From 1748 till 1759 there was little church-going for the young surveyor or soldier, but after his marriage and settling at Mount Vernon he was elected vestryman in the two parishes of Truro and Fairfax, and from that election he was quite active in church affairs. It may be worth noting that in the elections of 1765 the new vestryman stood third in popularity in the Truro church and fifth in that of Fairfax. He drew the plans for a new church in Truro, and subscribed to its building, intending “to lay the foundation of a family pew,” but by a vote of the vestry it was decided that there should be no private pews, and this breach of contract angered Washington so greatly that he withdrew from the church in 1773. Sparks quotes Madison to the effect that “there was a tradition that, when he [Washington] belonged to the vestry of a church in his neighborhood, and several little difficulties grew out of some division of the society, he sometimes spoke with great force, animation, and eloquence on the topics that came before them.” After this withdrawal he bought a pew in Christ Church in Alexandria (Fairfax parish), paying £36.10, which was the largest price paid by any parishioner. To this church he was quite liberal, subscribing several times towards repairs, etc.

The Rev. Lee Massey, who was rector at Pohick (Truro) Church before the Revolution, is quoted by Bishop Meade as saying that

“I never knew so constant an attendant in church as Washington. And his behavior in the house of God was ever so deeply reverential that it produced the happiest effect on my congregation, and greatly assisted me in my pulpit labors. No company ever withheld him from church. I have often been at Mount Vernon on Sabbath morning, when his breakfast table was filled with guests; but to him they furnished no pretext for neglecting his God and losing the satisfaction of setting a good example. For instead of staying at home, out of false complaisance to them, he used constantly to invite them to accompany him.”

This seems to have been written more with an eye to its influence on others than to its strict accuracy. During the time Washington attended at Pohick Church he was by no means a regular church-goer. His daily “where and how my time is spent” enables us to know exactly how often he attended church, and in the year 1760 he went just sixteen times, and in 1768 he went fourteen, these years being fairly typical of the period 1760-1773. During the Presidency a sense of duty made him attend St Paul’s and Christ churches while in New York and Philadelphia, but at Mount Vernon, when the public eye was not upon him, he was no more regular than he had always been, and in the last year of his life he wrote, “Six days do I labor, or, in other words, take exercise and devote my time to various occupations in Husbandry, and about my mansion. On the seventh, now called the first day, for want of a place of Worship (within less than nine miles) such letters as do not require immediate acknowledgment I give answers to…. But it hath so happened, that on the two last Sundays—call them the first or the seventh as you please, I have been unable to perform the latter duty on account of visits from Strangers, with whom I could not use the freedom to leave alone, or recommend to the care of each other, for their amusement.”

What he said here was more or less typical of his whole life. Sunday was always the day on which he wrote his private letters,—even prepared his invoices,—and he wrote to one of his overseers that his letters should be mailed so as to reach him Saturday, as by so doing they could be answered the following day. Nor did he limit himself to this, for he entertained company, closed land purchases, sold wheat, and, while a Virginia planter, went foxhunting, on Sunday. It is to be noted, however, that he considered the scruples of others as to the day. When he went among his western tenants, rent-collecting, he entered in his diary that, it “being Sunday and the People living on my Land _apparently_ very religious, it was thought best to postpone going among them till to-morrow,” and in his journey through New England, because it was “contrary to the law and disagreeable to the People of this State (Connecticut) to travel on the Sabbath day—and my horses, after passing through such intolerable roads, wanting rest, I stayed at Perkins’ tavern (which, by the bye, is not a good one) all day—and a meetinghouse being within a few rods of the door, I attended the morning and evening services, and heard very lame discourses from a Mr. Pond.” It is of this experience that tradition says the President started to travel, but was promptly arrested by a Connecticut tithing-man. The story, however, lacks authentication.

There can be no doubt that religious intolerance was not a part of Washington’s character. In 1775, when the New England troops intended to celebrate Guy Fawkes day, as usual, the General Orders declared that “as the Commander in chief has been apprised of a design, formed for the observance of that ridiculous and childish custom of burning the effigy of the Pope, he cannot help expressing his surprise, that there should be officers and soldiers in this army so void of common sense, as not to see the impropriety of such a step.” When trying to secure some servants, too, he wrote that “if they are good workmen, they may be from Asia, Africa, or Europe; they may be Mahometans, Jews, or Christians of any sect, or they may be Atheists.” When the bill taxing all the people of Virginia to support the Episcopal Church (his own) was under discussion, he threw his weight against it, as far as concerned the taxing of other sectaries, but adding:

“Although no man’s sentiments are more opposed to any kind of restraint upon religious principles than mine are, yet I must confess, that I am not amongst the number of those, who are so much alarmed at the thoughts of making people pay towards the support of that which they profess, if of the denomination, of Christians, or to declare themselves Jews, Mahometans, or otherwise, and thereby obtain proper relief. As the matter now stands, I wish an assessment had never been agitated, and as it has gone so far, that the bill could die an easy death; because I think it will be productive of more quiet to the State, than by enacting it into a law, which in my opinion would be impolitic, admitting there is a decided majority for it, to the disquiet of a respectable minority. In the former case, the matter will soon subside; in the latter, it will rankle and perhaps convulse the State.”

Again in a letter he says,—

“Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes, that the lightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled _Christians_ of every denomination so far, that we should never again see their religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society.”

And to Lafayette, alluding to the proceedings of the Assembly of Notables, he wrote,—

“I am not less ardent in my wish, that you may succeed in your plan of toleration in religious matters. Being no bigot myself, I am disposed to indulge the professors of Christianity in the church with that road to Heaven, which to them shall seem the most direct, plainest, easiest, and least liable to exception.”

What Washington believed has been a source of much dispute. Jefferson states “that Gouverneur Morris, who pretended to be in his secrets, and believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system than he himself did,” and Morris, it is scarcely necessary to state, was an atheist. The same authority quotes Rush, to the effect that “when the clergy addressed General Washington on his departure from the government, it was observed in their consultation, that he had never, on any occasion, said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion, and they thought they should so pen their address, as to force him at length to declare publicly whether he was a Christian or not They did so. But, he observed, the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly except that, which he passed over without notice.”

Whatever his belief, in all public ways Washington threw his influence in favor of religion, and kept what he really believed a secret, and in only one thing did he disclose his real thoughts. It is asserted that before the Revolution he partook of the sacrament, but this is only affirmed by hearsay, and better evidence contradicts it. After that war he did not, it is certain. Nelly Custis states that on “communion Sundays he left the church with me, after the blessing, and returned home, and we sent the carriage back for my grandmother.” And the assistant minister of Christ Church in Philadelphia states that—

“Observing that on Sacrament Sundays, Gen’l Washington, immediately after the Desk and Pulpit services, went out with the greater part of the congregation, always leaving Mrs. Washington with the communicants, she _invariably_ being one, I considered it my duty, in a sermon on Public Worship, to state the unhappy tendency of _example_, particularly those in elevated stations, who invariably turned their backs upon the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. I acknowledge the remark was intended for the President, as such, he received it. A few days after, in conversation with, I believe, a Senator of the U.S. he told me he had dined the day before with the President, who in the course of the conversation at the table, said, that on the preceding Sunday, he had received a very just reproof from the pulpit, for always leaving the church before the administration of the Sacrament; that he honored the preacher for his integrity and candour; that he had never considered the influence of his example; that he would never again give cause for the repetition of the reproof; and that, as he had never been a communicant, were he to become one then, it would be imputed to an ostentatious display of religious zeal arising altogether from his elevated station. Accordingly he afterwards never came on the morning of Sacrament Sunday, tho’ at other times, a constant attendant in the morning.”

Nelly Custis, too, tells us that Washington always “stood during the devotional part of the service,” and Bishop White states that “his behavior was always serious and attentive; but, as your letter seems to intend an inquiry on the point of kneeling during the service, I owe it to the truth to declare, that I never saw him in the said attitude.” Probably his true position is described by Madison, who is quoted as saying that he did “not suppose that Washington had ever attended to the arguments for Christianity, and for the different systems of religion, or in fact that he had formed definite opinions on the subject. But he took these things as he found them existing, and was constant in his observances of worship according to the received forms of the Episcopal Church, in which he was brought up.”

If there was proof needed that it is mind and not education which pushes a man to the front, it is to be found in the case of Washington. Despite his want of education, he had, so Bell states, “an excellent understanding.” Patrick Henry is quoted as saying of the members of the Congress of 1774— the body of which Adams claimed that “every man in it is a great man, an orator, a critic, a statesman”—that “if you speak of solid information and sound judgment Colonel Washington is unquestionably the greatest man on the floor;” while Jefferson asserted that “his mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first order; his penetration strong, though not so acute as that of a Newton, Bacon, or Locke; and as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder. It was slow in operation, being little aided by invention or imagination, but sure in conclusion.”

IV RELATIONS WITH THE FAIR SEX

The book from which Washington derived almost the whole of his education warned its readers,—

“Young Men have ever more a special care That Womanish Allurements prove not a snare;”

but, however carefully the lad studied the rest, this particular admonition took little root in his mind. There can be no doubt that Washington during the whole of his life had a soft heart for women, and especially for good-looking ones, and both in his personal intercourse and in his letters he shows himself very much more at ease with them than in his relations with his own sex. Late in life, when the strong passions of his earlier years were under better control, he was able to write,—

“Love is said to be an involuntary passion, and it is, therefore, contended that it cannot be resisted. This is true in part only, for like all things else, when nourished and supplied plentifully with aliment, it is rapid in its progress; but let these be withdrawn and it may be stifled in its birth or much stinted in its growth. For example, a woman (the same may be said of the other sex) all beautiful and accomplished will, while her hand and heart are undisposed of, turn the heads and set the circle in which she moves on fire. Let her marry, and what is the consequence? The madness _ceases_ and all is quiet again. Why? not because there is any diminution in the charms of the lady, but because there is an end of hope. Hence it follows, that love may and therefore ought to be under the guidance of reason, for although we cannot avoid first impressions, we may assuredly place them under guard.”

To write thus in one’s sixty-sixth year and to practise one’s theory in youth were, however, very different undertakings. Even while discussing love so philosophically, the writer had to acknowledge that “in the composition of the human frame, there is a good deal of inflammable matter,” and few have had better cause to know it. When he saw in the premature engagement of his ward, Jack Custis, the one advantage that it would “in a great measure avoid those little flirtations with other young ladies that may, by dividing the attention, contribute not a little to divide the affection,” it is easy to think of him as looking back to his own boyhood, and remembering, it is to be hoped with a smile, the sufferings he owed to pretty faces and neatly turned ankles.

While still a school-boy, Washington was one day caught “romping with one of the largest girls,” and very quickly more serious likings followed. As early as 1748, when only sixteen years of age, his heart was so engaged that while at Lord Fairfax’s and enjoying the society of Mary Cary he poured out his feelings to his youthful correspondents “Dear Robin” and “Dear John” and “Dear Sally” as follows:

“My place of Residence is at present at His Lordships where I might was my heart disengag’d pass my time very pleasantly as theres a very agreeable Young Lady Lives in the same house (Colo George Fairfax’s Wife’s Sister) but as thats only adding Fuel to fire it makes me the more uneasy for by often and unavoidably being in Company with her revives my former Passion for your Low Land Beauty whereas was I to live more retired from young Women I might in some measure eliviate my sorrows by burying that chast and troublesome Passion in the grave of oblivion or etarnall forgetfulness for as I am very well assured thats the only antidote or remedy that I shall be releivd by or only recess that can administer any cure or help to me as I am well convinced was I ever to attempt any thing I should only get a denial which would be only adding grief to uneasiness.”

“Was my affections disengaged I might perhaps form some pleasure in the conversation of an agreeable Young Lady as theres one now Lives in the same house with me but as that is only nourishment to my former affecn for by often seeing her brings the other into my remembrance whereas perhaps was she not often & (unavoidably) presenting herself to my view I might in some measure aliviate my sorrows by burying the other in the grave of Oblivion I am well convinced my heart stands in defiance of all others but only she thats given it cause enough to dread a second assault and from a different Quarter tho’ I well know let it have as many attacks as it will from others they cant be more fierce than it has been.”

“I Pass the time of[f] much more agreeabler than what I imagined I should as there’s a very agrewable Young Lady lives in the same house where I reside (Colo George Fairfax’s Wife’s Sister) that in a great Measure cheats my thoughts altogether from your Parts I could wish to be with you down there with all my heart but as it is a thing almost Impractakable shall rest myself where I am with hopes of shortly having some Minutes of your transactions in your Parts which will be very welcomely receiv’d.”

Who this “Low Land Beauty” was has been the source of much speculation, but the question is still unsolved, every suggested damsel—Lucy Grymes, Mary Bland, Betsy Fauntleroy, _et al._—being either impossible or the evidence wholly inadequate. But in the same journal which contains the draughts of these letters is a motto poem—

“Twas Perfect Love before But Now I do adore”—

followed by the words “Young M.A. his W[ife?],” and as it was a fashion of the time to couple the initials of one’s well-beloved with such sentiments, a slight clue is possibly furnished. Nor was this the only rhyme that his emotions led to his inscribing in his journal: and he confided to it the following:

“Oh Ye Gods why should my Poor Resistless Heart
Stand to oppose thy might and Power
At Last surrender to cupids feather’d Dart
And now lays Bleeding every Hour
For her that’s Pityless of my grief and Woes
And will not on me Pity take
He sleep amongst my most inveterate Foes
And with gladness never wish to wake
In deluding sleepings let my Eyelids close
That in an enraptured Dream I may
In a soft lulling sleep and gentle repose
Possess those joys denied by Day.”

However woe-begone the young lover was, he does not seem to have been wholly lost to others of the sex, and at this same time he was able to indite an acrostic to another charmer, which, if incomplete, nevertheless proves that there was a “midland” beauty as well, the lady being presumptively some member of the family of Alexanders, who had a plantation near Mount Vernon.

“From your bright sparkling Eyes I was undone; Rays, you have; more transperent than the Sun. Amidst its glory in the rising Day None can you equal in your bright array; Constant in your calm and unspotted Mind; Equal to all, but will to none Prove kind, So knowing, seldom one so Young, you’l Find.

Ah! woe’s me, that I should Love and conceal Long have I wish’d, but never dare reveal, Even though severely Loves Pains I feel; Xerxes that great, was’t free from Cupids Dart, And all the greatest Heroes, felt the smart.”

When visiting Barbadoes, in 1751, Washington noted in his journal his meeting a Miss Roberts, “an agreeable young lady,” and later he went with her to see some fireworks on Guy Fawkes day. Apparently, however, the ladies of that island made little impression on him, for he further noted, “The Ladys Generally are very agreeable but by ill custom or w[ha]t effect the Negro style.” This sudden insensibility is explained by a letter he wrote to William Fauntleroy a few weeks after his return to Virginia:

“Sir: I should have been down long before this, but my business in Frederick detained me somewhat longer than I expected, and immediately upon my return from thence I was taken with a violent Pleurise, but purpose as soon as I recover my strength, to wait on Miss Betsy, in hopes of a revocation of the former cruel sentence, and see if I can meet with any alteration in my favor. I have enclosed a letter to her, which should be much obliged to you for the delivery of it. I have nothing to add but my best respects to your good lady and family, and that I am, Sir, Your most ob’t humble serv’t.”

Because of this letter it has been positively asserted that Betsy Fauntleroy was the Low-Land Beauty of the earlier time; but as Washington wrote of his love for the latter in 1748, when Betsy was only eleven, the absurdity of the claim is obvious.

In 1753, while on his mission to deliver the governor’s letter to the French, one duty which fell to the young soldier was a visit to royalty, in the person of Queen Aliquippa, an Indian majesty who had “expressed great Concern” that she had formerly been slighted. Washington records that “I made her a Present of a Match-coat and a Bottle of Rum; which latter was thought much the best Present of the Two,” and thus (externally and internally) restored warmth to her majesty’s feelings.

When returned from his first campaign, and resting at Mount Vernon, the time seems to have been beguiled by some charmer, for one of Washington’s officers and intimates writes from Williamsburg, “I imagine you By this time plung’d in the midst of delight heaven can afford & enchanted By Charmes even Stranger to the Ciprian Dame,” and a footnote by the same hand only excites further curiosity concerning this latter personage by indefinitely naming her as “Mrs. Neil.”

With whatever heart-affairs the winter was passed, with the spring the young man’s fancy turned not to love, but again to war, and only when the defeat of Braddock brought Washington back to Mount Vernon to recover from the fatigues of that campaign was his intercourse with the gentler sex resumed. Now, however, he was not merely a good-looking young fellow, but was a hero who had had horses shot from under him and had stood firm when scarlet-coated men had run away. No longer did he have to sue for the favor of the fair ones, and Fairfax wrote him that “if a Satterday Nights Rest cannot be sufficient to enable your coming hither to-morrow, the Lady’s will try to get Horses to equip our Chair or attempt their strength on Foot to Salute you, so desirous are they with loving Speed to have an occular Demonstration of your being the same Identical Gent—that lately departed to defend his Country’s Cause.” Furthermore, to this letter was appended the following:

“DEAR SIR,—After thanking Heaven for your safe return I must accuse you of great unkindness in refusing us the pleasure of seeing you this night. I do assure you nothing but our being satisfied that our company would be disagreeable should prevent us from trying if our Legs would not carry us to Mount Vernon this night, but if you will not come to us to-morrow morning very early we shall be at Mount Vernon.

“S[ALLY] FAIRFAX, “ANN SPEARING. “ELIZ’TH DENT.”

Nor is this the only feminine postscript of this time, for in the postscript of a letter from Archibald Cary, a leading Virginian, he is told that “Mrs. Cary & Miss Randolph joyn in wishing you that sort of Glory which will most Indear you to the Fair Sex.”

In 1756 Washington had occasion to journey on military business to Boston, and both in coming and in going he tarried in New York, passing ten days in his first visit and about a week on his return. This time was spent with a Virginian friend, Beverly Robinson, who had had the good luck to marry Susannah Philipse, a daughter of Frederick Philipse, one of the largest landed proprietors of the colony of New York. Here he met the sister, Mary Philipse, then a girl of twenty-five, and, short as was the time, it was sufficient to engage his heart. To this interest no doubt are due the entries in his accounts of sundry pounds spent “for treating Ladies,” and for the large tailors’ bills then incurred. But neither treats nor clothes won the lady, who declined his proposals, and gave her heart two years later to Lieutenant-Colonel Roger Morris. A curious sequel to this disappointment was the accident that made the Roger Morris house Washington’s head-quarters in 1776, both Morris and his wife being fugitive Tories. Again Washington was a chance visitor in 1790, when, as part of a picnic, he “dined on a dinner provided by Mr. Marriner at the House lately Colo. Roger Morris, but confiscated and in the occupation of a common Farmer.”

It has been asserted that Washington loved the wife of his friend George William Fairfax, but the evidence has not been produced. On the contrary, though the two corresponded, it was in a purely platonic fashion, very different from the strain of lovers, and that the correspondence implied nothing is to be found in the fact that he and Sally Carlyle (another Fairfax daughter) also wrote each other quite as frequently and on the same friendly footing; indeed, Washington evidently classed them in the same category, when he stated that “I have wrote to my two female correspondents.” Thus the claim seems due, like many another of Washington’s mythical love-affairs, rather to the desire of descendants to link their family “to a star” than to more substantial basis. Washington did, indeed, write to Sally Fairfax from the frontier, “I should think our time more agreeably spent, believe me, in playing a part in Cato, with the company you mention, and myself doubly happy in being the Juba to such a Marcia, as you must make,” but private theatricals then no more than now implied “passionate love.” What is more, Mrs. Fairfax was at this very time teasing him about another woman, and to her hints Washington replied,—

“If you allow that any honor can be derived from my opposition … you destroy the merit of it entirely in me by attributing my anxiety to the animating prospect of possessing Mrs. Custis, when—I need not tell you, guess yourself. Should not my own Honor and country’s welfare be the excitement? ’Tis true I profess myself a votary of love. I acknowledge that a lady is in the case, and further I confess that this lady is known to you. Yes, Madame, as well as she is to one who is too sensible of her charms to deny the Power whose influence he feels and must ever submit to. I feel the force of her amiable beauties in the recollection of a thousand tender passages that I could wish to obliterate, till I am bid to revive them. But experience, alas! sadly reminds me how impossible this is, and evinces an opinion which I have long entertained that there is a Destiny which has the control of our actions, not to be resisted by the strongest efforts of Human Nature. You have drawn me, dear Madame, or rather I have drawn myself, into an honest confession of a simple Fact. Misconstrue not my meaning; doubt it not, nor expose it. The world has no business to know the object of my Love, declared in this manner to you, when I want to conceal it. One thing above all things in this world I wish to know, and only one person of your acquaintance can solve me that, or guess my meaning.”

The love-affair thus alluded to had begun in March, 1758, when ill health had taken Washington to Williamsburg to consult physicians, thinking, indeed, of himself as a doomed man. In this trip he met Mrs. Martha (Dandridge) Custis, widow of Daniel Parke Custis, one of the wealthiest planters of the colony. She was at this time twenty-six years of age, or Washington’s senior by nine months, and had been a widow but seven, yet in spite of this fact, and of his own expected “decay,” he pressed his love-making with an impetuosity akin to that with which he had urged his suit of Miss Philipse, and (widows being proverbial) with better success. The invalid had left Mount Vernon on March 5, and by April 1 he was back at Fort Loudon, an engaged man, having as well so far recovered his health as to be able to join his command. Early in May he ordered a ring from Philadelphia, at a cost of £2.16.0; soon after receiving it he found that army affairs once more called him down to Williamsburg, and, as love-making is generally considered a military duty, the excuse was sufficient. But sterner duties on the frontier were awaiting him, and very quickly he was back there and writing to his _fiancée_,—

“We have begun our march for the Ohio. A courier is starting for Williamsburg, and I embrace the opportunity to send a few words to one whose life is now inseparable from mine. Since that happy hour when we made our pledges to each other, my thoughts have been continually going to you as another Self. That an all-powerful Providence may keep us both in safety is the prayer of your ever faithful and affectionate friend.”

Five months after this letter was written, Washington was able to date another from Fort Duquesne, and, the fall of that post putting an end to his military service, only four weeks later he was back in Williamsburg, and on January 6, 1759, he was married.

Very little is really known of his wife, beyond the facts that she was petite, over-fond, hot-tempered, obstinate, and a poor speller. In 1778 she was described as “a sociable, pretty kind of woman,” and she seems to have been but little more. One who knew her well described her as “not possessing much sense, though a perfect lady and remarkably well calculated for her position,” and confirmatory of this is the opinion of an English traveller that “there was nothing remarkable in the person of the lady of the President; she was matronly and kind, with perfect good breeding.” None the less she satisfied Washington; even after the proverbial six months were over he refused to wander from Mount Vernon, writing that “I am now, I believe, fixed at this seat with an agreeable Consort for life,” and in 1783 he spoke of her as the “partner of all my Domestic enjoyments.”

John Adams, in one of his recurrent moods of bitterness and jealousy towards Washington, demanded, “Would Washington have ever been commander of the revolutionary army or president of the United States if he had not married the rich widow of Mr. Custis?” To ask such a question is to overlook the fact that Washington’s colonial military fame was entirely achieved before his marriage. It is not to be denied that the match was a good one from a worldly point of view, Mrs. Washington’s third of the Custis property equalling “fifteen thousand acres of land, a good part of it adjoining the city of Williamsburg; several lots in the said city; between two and three hundred negroes; and about eight or ten thousand pounds upon bond,” estimated at the time as about twenty thousand pounds in all, which was further increased on the death of Patsy Custis in 1773 by a half of her fortune, which added ten thousand pounds to the sum. Nevertheless the advantage was fairly equal, for Mrs. Custis’s lawyer had written before her marriage of the impossibility of her managing the property, advising that she “employ a trusty steward, and as the estate is large and very extensive, it is Mr. Wallers and my own opinion, that you had better not engage any but a very able man, though he should require large wages.” Of the management of this property, to which, indeed, she was unequal, Washington entirely relieved her, taking charge also of her children’s share and acting for their interests with the same care with which he managed the part he was more directly concerned in.

He further saved her much of the detail of ordering her own clothing, and we find him sending for “A Salmon-colored Tabby of the enclosed pattern, with satin flowers, to be made in a sack,” “1 Cap, Handkerchief, Tucker and Ruffles, to be made of Brussels lace or point, proper to wear with the above negligee, to cost £20,” “1 pair black, and 1 pair white Satin Shoes, of the smallest,” and “1 black mask.” Again he writes his London agent, “Mrs. Washington sends home a green sack to get cleaned, or fresh dyed of the same color; made up into a handsome sack again, would be her choice; but if the cloth won’t afford that, then to be thrown into a genteel Night Gown.” At another time he wants a pair of clogs, and when the wrong kind are sent he writes that “she intended to have leathern Gloshoes.” When she was asked to present a pair of colors to a company, he attended to every detail of obtaining the flag, and when “Mrs. Washington … perceived the Tomb of her Father … to be much out of Sorts” he wrote to get a workman to repair it. The care of the Mount Vernon household proving beyond his wife’s ability, a housekeeper was very quickly engaged, and when one who filled this position was on the point of leaving, Washington wrote his agent to find another without the least delay, for the vacancy would “throw a great additional weight on Mrs. Washington;” again, writing in another domestic difficulty, “Your aunt’s distresses for want of a good housekeeper are such as to render the wages demanded by Mrs. Forbes (though unusually high) of no consideration.” Her letters of form, which required better orthography than she was mistress of, he draughted for her, pen-weary though he was.

It has already been shown how he fathered her “little progeny,” as he once called them. Mrs. Washington was a worrying mother, as is shown by a letter to her sister, speaking of a visit in which “I carried my little patt with me and left Jacky at home for a trial to see how well I could stay without him though we were gon but wone fortnight I was quite impatient to get home. If I at aney time heard the doggs barke or a noise out, I thought thair was a person sent for me. I often fancied he was sick or some accident had happened to him so that I think it is impossible for me to leave him as long as Mr. Washington must stay when he comes down.” To spare her anxiety, therefore, when the time came for “Jacky” to be inoculated, Washington “withheld from her the information … & purpose, if possible, to keep her in total ignorance … till I hear of his return, or perfect recovery;… she having often wished that Jack wou’d take & go through the disorder without her knowing of it, that she might escape those Tortures which suspense wd throw her into.” And on the death of Patsy he wrote, “This sudden and unexpected blow, I scarce need add has almost reduced my poor Wife to the lowest ebb of Misery; which is encreas’d by the absence of her son.”

When Washington left Mount Vernon, in May, 1775, to attend the Continental Congress, he did not foresee his appointment as commander-in-chief, and as soon as it occurred he wrote his wife,—

“I am now set down to write to you on a subject, which fills me with inexpressible concern, and this concern is greatly aggravated and increased, when I reflect upon the uneasiness I know it will give you. It has been determined in Congress, that the whole army raised for the defence of the American cause shall be put under my care, and that it is necessary for me to proceed immediately to Boston to take upon me the command of it.

“You may believe me, my dear Patsey, when I assure you, in the most solemn manner, that, so far from seeking this appointment, I have used every endeavor in my power to avoid it, not only from my unwillingness to part with you and the family, but from a consciousness of its being a trust too great for my capacity, and that I should enjoy more real happiness in one month with you at home, than I have the most distant prospect of finding abroad, if my stay were to be seven times seven years…. I shall feel no pain from the toil or danger of the campaign; my unhappiness will flow from the uneasiness I know you will feel from being left alone.”

To prevent this loneliness as far as possible, he wrote at the same time to different members of the two families as follows:

“My great concern upon this occasion is, the thought of leaving your mother under the uneasiness which I fear this affair will throw her into; I therefore hope, expect, and indeed have no doubt, of your using every means in your power to keep up her spirits, by doing everything in your power to promote her quiet. I have, I must confess, very uneasy feelings on her account, but as it has been a kind of unavoidable necessity which has led me into this appointment, I shall more readily hope that success will attend it and crown our meetings with happiness.”

“I entreat you and Mrs. Bassett if possible to visit at Mt. Vernon, as also my wife’s other friends. I could wish you to take her down, as I have no expectation of returning till winter & feel great uneasiness at her lonesome situation.”

“I shall hope that my friends will visit and endeavor to keep up the spirits of my wife, as much as they can, as my departure will, I know, be a cutting stroke upon her; and on this account alone I have many very disagreeable sensations. I hope you and my sister, (although the distance is great), will find as much leisure this summer as to spend a little time at Mount Vernon.”

When, six months later, the war at Boston settled into a mere siege, Washington wrote that “seeing no prospect of returning to my family and friends this winter, I have sent an invitation to Mrs. Washington to come to me,” adding, “I have laid a state of difficulties, however, which must attend the journey before her, and left it to her own choice.” His wife replied in the affirmative, and one of Washington’s aides presently wrote concerning some prize goods to the effect that “There are limes, lemons and oranges on board, which, being perishable, you must sell immediately. The General will want some of each, as well of the sweetmeats and pickles that are on board, as his lady will be here to-day or to-morrow. You will please to pick up such things on board as you think will be acceptable to her, and send them as soon as possible; he does not mean to receive anything without payment.”

Lodged at head-quarters, then the Craigie house in Cambridge, the discomforts of war were reduced to a minimum, but none the less it was a trying time to Mrs. Washington, who complained that she could not get used to the distant cannonading, and she marvelled that those about her paid so little heed to it. With the opening of the campaign in the following summer she returned to Mount Vernon, but when the army was safely in winter quarters at Valley Forge she once more journeyed northward, a trip alluded to by Washington in a letter to Jack, as follows: “Your Mamma is not yet arrived, but … expected every hour. [My aide] Meade set off yesterday (as soon as I got notice of her intention) to meet her. We are in a dreary kind of place, and uncomfortably provided.” And of this reunion Mrs. Washington wrote, “I came to this place, some time about the first of February where I found the General very well,… in camp in what is called the great valley on the Banks of the Schuylkill. Officers and men are chiefly in Hutts, which they say is tolerably comfortable; the army are as healthy as can be well expected in general. The General’s apartment is very small; he has had a log cabin built to dine in, which has made our quarters much more tolerable than they were at first”

Such “winterings” became the regular custom, and brief references in various letters serve to illustrate them. Thus, in 1779, Washington informed a friend that “Mrs. Washington, according to custom marched home when the campaign was about to open;” in July, 1782, he noted that his wife “sets out this day for Mount Vernon,” and later in the same year he wrote, “as I despair of seeing my home this Winter, I have sent for Mrs. Washington;” and finally, in a letter he draughted for his wife, he made her describe herself as “a kind of perambulator, during eight or nine years of the war.”

Another pleasant glimpse during these stormy years is the couple, during a brief stay in Philadelphia, being entertained almost to death, described as follows by Franklin’s daughter in a letter to her father: “I have lately been several times abroad with the General and Mrs. Washington. He always inquires after you in the most affectionate manner, and speaks of you highly. We danced at Mrs. Powell’s your birthday, or night I should say, in company together, and he told me it was the anniversary of his marriage; it was just twenty years that night” Again there was junketing in Philadelphia after the surrender at Yorktown, and one bit of this is shadowed in a line from Washington to Robert Morris, telling the latter that “Mrs. Washington, myself and family, will have the honor of dining with you in the way proposed, to-morrow, being Christmas day.”

With the retirement to Mount Vernon at the close of the war, little more companionship was obtained, for, as already stated, Washington could only describe his home henceforth as a “well resorted tavern,” and two years after his return he entered in his diary, “Dined with only Mrs. Washington which I believe is the first instance of it since my retirement from public life.”

Even this was only a furlough, for in six years they were both in public life again. Mrs. Washington was inclined to sulk over the necessary restraints of official life, writing to a friend, “Mrs. Sins will give you a better account of the fashions than I can—I live a very dull life hear and know nothing that passes in the town—I never goe to any public place—indeed I think I am more like a State prisoner than anything else; there is certain bounds set for me which I must not depart from—and as I cannot doe as I like, I am obstinate and stay at home a great deal.”

None the less she did her duties well, and in these “Lady Washington” was more at home, for, according to Thacher, she combined “in an uncommon degree, great dignity of manner with most pleasing affability,” though possessing “no striking marks of beauty,” and there is no doubt that she lightened Washington’s shoulders of social demands materially. At the receptions of Mrs. Washington, which were held every Friday evening, so a contemporary states, “the President did not consider himself as visited. On these occasions he appeared as a private gentleman, with neither hat nor sword, conversing without restraint.”

From other formal society Mrs. Washington also saved her husband, for a visitor on New Year’s tells of her setting “‘the General’ (by which title she always designated her husband)” at liberty: “Mrs. Washington had stood by his side as the visitors arrived and were presented, and when the clock in the hall was heard striking nine, she advanced and with a complacent smile said, ‘The General always retires at nine, and I usually precede him,’ upon which all arose, made their parting salutations, and withdrew.” Nor was it only from the fatigues of formal entertaining that the wife saved her husband, Washington writing in 1793, “We remain in Philadelphia until the 10th instant. It was my wish to have continued there longer; but as Mrs. Washington was unwilling to leave me surrounded by the malignant fever which prevailed, I could not think of hazarding her, and the Children any longer by _my_ continuance in the City, the house in which we live being in a manner blockaded by the disorder, and was becoming every day more and more fatal; I therefore came off with them.”

Finally from these “scenes more busy, tho’ not more happy, than the tranquil enjoyment of rural life,” they returned to Mount Vernon, hoping that in the latter their “days will close.” Not quite three years of this life brought an end to their forty years of married life. On the night that Washington’s illness first became serious his secretary narrates that “Between 2 and 3 o’clk on Saturday morning he [Washington] awoke Mrs. Washington & told her he was very unwell, and had had an ague. She … would have got up to call a servant; but he would not permit her lest she should take cold.” As a consequence of this care for her, her husband lay for nearly four hours in a chill in a cold bedroom before receiving any attention, or before even a fire was lighted. When death came, she said, “Tis well—All is now over—I have no more trials to pass through—I shall soon follow him.” In his will he left “to my dearly beloved wife” the use of his whole property, and named her an executrix.

As a man’s views of matrimony are more or less colored by his personal experience, what Washington had to say on the institution is of interest. As concerned himself he wrote to his nephew, “If Mrs. Washington should survive me, there is a moral certainty of my dying without issue: and should I be the longest liver, the matter in my opinion, is hardly less certain; for while I retain the faculty of reasoning, I shall never marry a girl; and it is not probable that I should have children by a woman of an age suitable to my own, should I be disposed to enter into a second marriage.” And in a less personal sense he wrote to Chastellux,—

“In reading your very friendly and acceptable letter,… I was, as you may well suppose, not less delighted than surprised to meet the plain American words, ‘my wife.’ A wife! Well, my dear Marquis, I can hardly refrain from smiling to find you are caught at last. I saw, by the eulogium you often made on the happiness of domestic life in America, that you had swallowed the bait, and that you would as surely be taken, one day or another, as that you were a philosopher and a soldier. So your day has at length come. I am glad of it, with all my heart and soul. It is quite good enough for you. Now you are well served for coming to fight in favor of the American rebels, all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, by catching that terrible contagion—domestic felicity—which same, like the small pox or the plague, a man can have only once in his life; because it commonly lasts him (at least with us in America—I don’t know how you manage these matters in France) for his whole life time. And yet after all the maledictions you so richly merit on the subject, the worst wish which I can find in my heart to make against Madame de Chastellux and yourself is, that you may neither of you ever get the better of this same domestic felicity during the entire course of your mortal existence.”