Washington's Revolution: The Making of America's First Leader (53 page)

45.
The orderly books from Sept. 21 through Nov. 24, 1758, provide most of the information needed to follow Washington’s part in the advance to Fort Duquesne. They are scattered throughout
PGW: Col. Ser.
, 6.

46.
PGW: Col. Ser.
, 6:98–100; quotation 99. For the letter to Bouquet, Nov. 6, 1758, see 6:115–16.

47.
For the skirmish of Nov. 12, see 6:120–21n1.
The Pennsylvania Gazette
, Nov. 30, 1758, described the incident.

48.
PGW: Col. Ser.
, 6:116 quotation.

3 FROM PLANTER TO PATRIOT

1.
Much about Washington’s relationship with Sally Fairfax has been written, though in fact not much is known about it. Their letters are scattered throughout his papers.

2.
Mount Vernon, the house, is discussed with great insight in Robert Dalzell Jr. and Lee Baldwin Dalzell,
Mount Vernon: At Home in Revolutionary America
(New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). The Dalzells’ book is broadly conceived and offers much on the people who lived on the plantation.

3.
For the Custis estate, see
PGW: Col. Ser.
, 6:201–312.

4.
Information on the work of Washington’s slaves is scattered throughout his diaries and letters. See Donald Jackson, ed.,
The Diaries of George Washington
(Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1976–1979, 6 vols.), vols. 1 and 2.

5.
Ibid., 1:261, 266–67, 275; quotations 261, 267, 275.

6.
Ibid., vol. 1; see note “Grains of Wheat,” 1:267–68 and passim. For fishing and slaves, 1:261, 266 (“Negroes askd the let of the Sein today.”).

7.
Ibid., 1:250, 263, 265. There are excellent studies of tobacco planting in Virginia and Maryland. The process of planting and harvesting can be followed in G. Melvin Herndon,
Tobacco in Colonial Virginia: “The Sovereign Remedy”
(Williamsburg: Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration Corp., 1957). T. H. Breen,
Tobacco Culture: The Mentality of the Great Tidewater Planters on the Eve of the Revolution
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985) discusses its broader implications insightfully.

8.
There are several lists of books owned by Washington or held by him for Martha Washington’s son, John Parke Custis. The inventory made of books held before the Revolution is in
PGW: Col. Ser.
, 7:343–50. This inventory is of books at Mount Vernon.

9.
For the background of these changes in agricultural practices, see John J. McCusker and Russell R. Menard,
The Economy of British America, 1607–1789
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), especially 117–43. Lorena S. Walsh,
Motives of Honor, Pleasure and Profit
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010), on plantation management, provides a broad but deep account of the plantation system in the Chesapeake.

10.
Walsh,
Motives of Honor
provides several examples: 612–14.

11.
See Philip D. Morgan,
Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998) for a superb account of slavery in the plantation system.

12.
This account of the linking of British firms and tobacco planters is based on Washington’s letters and Jacob M. Price, “The Rise of Glasgow in the Chesapeake
Tobacco Trade, 1707–1775,”
William and Mary Quarterly
, 3rd Ser., 11 (April 1954): 179–99.

13.
The relationship with Robert Cary and Company lasted until the Revolution.

14.
PGW: Col. Ser.
, 7:153–55; quotation 154.

15.
Washington’s dealings with Robert Cary and Company in the early years of his raising tobacco may be followed in ibid., 7.

16.
Jonathan Boucher came from England in 1759 as a tutor; he returned to England soon after to be ordained by the Bishop of London.

17.
Washington to Boucher, May 30, 1768, ibid., 8:89–90 (Washington’s appraisal); Boucher to Washington, Aug. 2, 1768, ibid., 8:122, 123.

18.
For all the quotations in this paragraph, Washington to Boucher, Dec. 16, 1770, ibid., 8:411–12.

19.
Boucher to Washington, Dec. 18, 1770, ibid., 8:414.

20.
Boucher to Washington, May 9, 1770, ibid., 8:332–33. See especially 333n1.

21.
John Parke Custis to Martha Washington, July 5, 1773, ibid., 9:266n2.

22.
For the history of the beginnings of the revolutionary crisis, see Edmund S. and Helen M. Morgan,
The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953) 3–39.

23.
Ibid., quotations, 91.

24.
Washington to Francis Dandridge, Sept. 20, 1765,
PGW: Col. Ser.
, 7:395.

25.
Washington to Robert Cary & Co., Sept. 20, 1765, ibid., 7:398–402, quotation on 401–2.

26.
Morgan and Morgan,
Stamp Act Crisis
, 261–81.

27.
For the Massachusetts Circular Letter to the Colonial Legislatures, Feb. 11, 1768, see Merrill Jensen, ed.,
English Historical Documents: American Colonial Documents to 1776
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), 714–16.

28.
For this paragraph and the two preceding it, see Washington to George Mason, Apr. 15, 1769, and Mason’s reply of the same day,
PGW: Col. Ser.
, 8:177–84 and 180n. For George Mason, see the splendid biography by Jeff Broadwater,
George Mason: Forgotten Founder
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 47–53.

29.
Morgan and Morgan,
Stamp Act Crisis
, 155.

30.
Washington activities listed here are recorded in
PGW: Col. Ser.
, 8.

31.
For the resolutions and Washington’s action, see ibid., 8:187–90; Broadwater,
George Mason
, 51–53.

32.
PGW: Col. Ser.
, 8:353–54, especially note 2.

33.
Merrill Jensen,
The Founding of a Nation
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), 354–72.

34.
For the continuing use of the word “oppression” in reference to the Stamp Act, see Washington’s letter to the British firm Capel and Osgood Hanbury on July 25, 1767,
PGW: Col. Ser.
, 8:14–15.

35.
William Waller Hening,
The Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia from the First Session of the Legislature, in the Year 1619
. Richmond, Va., 1905–1915, 13 vols. The quotation in
PGW: Col. Ser.
, 8:352, is from the records of the House of Burgesses, 8 Hening, 570–79. On George William Fairfax’s trip to England, see ibid., 9:153, 159–60, 298–99 and notes 1 and 2, 386–87. Washington’s report on the land grant of 1754, “To the Officers and Soldiers of the Virginia Regiment of 1754,” is in ibid., 9:143–48. For the trouble over shipping flour to the West Indies, see Washington to Daniel J. Adams, July 20, 1772,
and Jan. 12, 1773; to Robert McMickan, Feb. 12, 1773, ibid., 9:69–72, 157–59, 174–76.

36.
On the death of Patsy Custis, see Washington to Burwell Bassett, June 20, 1773, ibid., 9:243–44. On Jack Custis’s decision to marry, see Washington to Benedict Calvert, Apr. 3, 1773, ibid., 9:209–11.

37.
For the Intolerable Acts, see Jensen, ed.,
English Historical Documents
, 780–85.

38.
PGW: Col. Ser.
, 10:94–101.

39.
Ibid., 10:99n10; Broadwater,
George Mason
, 64–65.

40.
Broadwater,
George Mason
, 65–67;
PGW: Col. Ser.
, 10:119–27, Fairfax County Resolves.

41.
For the quotations in the preceding paragraph, see
PGW: Col. Ser.
, 10:119; resolutions 2 and 3 on 120.

42.
Washington to Bryan Fairfax, July 4, 1774, ibid., 10:109–10; Fairfax to Washington, July 17, 1774, 10:114–18; Washington’s response to Fairfax, July 20, 1774, 10:128–31.

43.
Paul Smith et al., eds.,
Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789
(Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1976–2000, 26 vols.), 1:61–62.

44.
Ibid., 302.

4 BOSTON

1.
PGW: Rev. War Ser.
, 1:27–28n, 56n3; Freeman, 3:460–82, for an account of his travel to Boston. For a fine introduction to the city, see Jacqueline Barbara Carr,
After the Siege: A Social History of Boston, 1775–1800
(Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2005).

2.
Address from the New York Provincial Congress,
PGW: Rev. War Ser.
, 1:40.

3.
The estimates of American strength varied in these early days of his command; those of the British in Boston varied even more. See ibid., 1:79–80. On July 10, 1775, Washington wrote Richard Henry Lee that he had an army of sixteen thousand “effective men” but only fourteen thousand fit for duty, 1:98–100.

4.
Washington to John Hancock, July 10 and 11, 1775, ibid., 1:85, and passim.

5.
Washington’s impressions of the soldiers he found surrounding Boston are scattered throughout his letters written in his first months as commander. See ibid., 1:85–92, 113, 336; for the Callendar case, 71, 74n1.

6.
Ibid., 1:318, 325, 338n8, 375n3.

7.
Cases noted under General Orders, ibid., vols. 1 and 2.

8.
George Washington to Lund Washington, Aug. 20, 1775, ibid., 1:335–36.

9.
Nathanael Greene to Washington, Sept. 10, 1775, ibid., 1:445–46; quotation 445.

10.
Ibid., 1:446n1. The fine the men paid was reported in General Orders, Cambridge, in ibid., 1:454–55.

11.
Washington to John Hancock, Sept. 21, 1775, ibid., 2:29 quotations.

12.
Ibid., 2:5, 16–17, 50, 279–84. See also Robert K. Wright Jr.,
The Continental Army
(Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1983), chap. 1 and passim.

13.
James Warren and Joseph Hawley to Washington, July 4, 1775,
PGW: Rev. War Ser.
, 1:61–62n1.

14.
E. Wayne Carp’s
To Starve the Army at Pleasure
(Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1984) provides an excellent opening for the
study of administration and supply of the army. Every volume of
PGW: Rev. War Ser
. contains letters on the problems of supplying the army.

15.
Washington to John Hancock, Aug. 4–5, 1775,
PGW: Rev. War Ser.
, 1:227. The full letter is valuable: 1:223–30.

16.
Washington to Hancock, July 10, 14, 21, 27, 1775, ibid., 1:83–92, 115–18, 136–44, 180–81.

17.
Wright,
Continental Army
, 45–56.

18.
Washington to Hancock, July 21, 1775,
PGW: Rev. War Ser.
, 1:139–40 quotations.

19.
The growth of American resistance is traced in many studies. See, for example, Edmund S. and Helen M. Morgan,
The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953).

20.
Washington to Hancock, July 10, 1775,
PGW: Rev. War Ser.
, 1:73 quotations; 1:85–86 (“riding the lines”).

21.
On Gage, see John Shy, “Thomas Gage: Weak Link of Empire,” in George Anthan Billias, ed.,
George Washington’s Generals and Opponents: Their Exploits and Leadership
(New York: De Capo Press, 1994, 2 vols.), 2:3–38; on William Howe, see Ira D. Gruber,
The Howe Brothers and the American Revolution
(New York: Atheneum, 1972), a superb book.

22.
Generals Gage and Howe were often puzzled; their superiors in England sometimes gave in to panic.

23.
On Benjamin Church, see Carl Van Doren,
Secret History of the American Revolution
(New York: Viking Press, 1951), 19–23.

24.
Of Washington’s most helpful observers, Joseph Leach, who reported through Lieutenant Colonel Loammi Baldwin, stands out. See
PGW: Rev. War Ser.
, 1:157–58 and passim.

25.
Questions of this sort were most commonly raised in the councils of war, held with general officers.

26.
For this paragraph and the one preceding it, see
PGW: Rev. War Ser.
, 1:432–34; quotations 433.

27.
Ibid., 1:450–51. This was the generals’ reply to his proposal.