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George Washington

By: History.com Editors

Updated: February 7, 2024 | Original: October 29, 2009

George Washington (1732-99) was commander in chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War (1775-83) and served two terms as the first U.S. president, from 1789 to 1797. The son of a prosperous planter, Washington was raised in colonial Virginia. As a young man, he worked as a surveyor then fought in the French and Indian War (1754-63). 

During the American Revolution, he led the colonial forces to victory over the British and became a national hero. In 1787, he was elected president of the convention that wrote the U.S. Constitution. Two years later, Washington became America’s first president. Realizing that the way he handled the job would impact how future presidents approached the position, he handed down a legacy of strength, integrity and national purpose. Less than three years after leaving office, he died at his Virginia plantation, Mount Vernon, at age 67.

George Washington's Early Years

George Washington was born on February 22, 1732 , at his family’s plantation on Pope’s Creek in Westmoreland County, in the British colony of Virginia , to Augustine Washington (1694-1743) and his second wife, Mary Ball Washington (1708-89). George, the eldest of Augustine and Mary Washington’s six children, spent much of his childhood at Ferry Farm, a plantation near Fredericksburg, Virginia. After Washington’s father died when he was 11, it’s likely he helped his mother manage the plantation.

Did you know? At the time of his death in 1799, George Washington owned some 300 enslaved people. However, before his passing, he had become opposed to slavery, and in his will, he ordered that his enslaved workers be freed after his wife's death.

Few details about Washington’s early education are known, although children of prosperous families like his typically were taught at home by private tutors or attended private schools. It’s believed he finished his formal schooling at around age 15.

As a teenager, Washington, who had shown an aptitude for mathematics, became a successful surveyor. His surveying expeditions into the Virginia wilderness earned him enough money to begin acquiring land of his own.

In 1751, Washington made his only trip outside of America, when he traveled to Barbados with his older half-brother Lawrence Washington (1718-52), who was suffering from tuberculosis and hoped the warm climate would help him recuperate. Shortly after their arrival, George contracted smallpox. He survived, although the illness left him with permanent facial scars. In 1752, Lawrence, who had been educated in England and served as Washington’s mentor, died. Washington eventually inherited Lawrence’s estate, Mount Vernon , on the Potomac River near Alexandria, Virginia.

An Officer and Gentleman Farmer

In December 1752, Washington, who had no previous military experience, was made a commander of the Virginia militia. He saw action in the French and Indian War and was eventually put in charge of all of Virginia’s militia forces. By 1759, Washington had resigned his commission, returned to Mount Vernon and was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses, where he served until 1774. In January 1759, he married Martha Dandridge Custis (1731-1802), a wealthy widow with two children. Washington became a devoted stepfather to her children; he and Martha Washington never had any offspring of their own.

In the ensuing years, Washington expanded Mount Vernon from 2,000 acres into an 8,000-acre property with five farms. He grew a variety of crops, including wheat and corn, bred mules and maintained fruit orchards and a successful fishery. He was deeply interested in farming and continually experimented with new crops and methods of land conservation.

George Washington During the American Revolution

Washington proved to be a better general than military strategist. His strength lay not in his genius on the battlefield but in his ability to keep the struggling colonial army together. His troops were poorly trained and lacked food, ammunition and other supplies (soldiers sometimes even went without shoes in winter). However, Washington was able to give them direction and motivation. His leadership during the winter of 1777-1778 at Valley Forge was a testament to his power to inspire his men to keep going.

By the late 1760s, Washington had experienced firsthand the effects of rising taxes imposed on American colonists by the British and came to believe that it was in the best interests of the colonists to declare independence from England. Washington served as a delegate to the First Continental Congress in 1774 in Philadelphia. By the time the Second Continental Congress convened a year later, the American Revolution had begun in earnest, and Washington was named commander in chief of the Continental Army.

Over the course of the grueling eight-year war, the colonial forces won few battles but consistently held their own against the British. In October 1781, with the aid of the French (who allied themselves with the colonists over their rivals the British), the Continental forces were able to capture British troops under General Charles Cornwallis (1738-1805) in the Battle of Yorktown . This action effectively ended the Revolutionary War and Washington was declared a national hero.

America’s First President

In 1783, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris between Great Britain and the U.S., Washington, believing he had done his duty, gave up his command of the army and returned to Mount Vernon, intent on resuming his life as a gentleman farmer and family man. However, in 1787, he was asked to attend the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and head the committee to draft the new constitution . His impressive leadership there convinced the delegates that he was by far the most qualified man to become the nation’s first president.

At first, Washington balked. He wanted to, at last, return to a quiet life at home and leave governing the new nation to others. But public opinion was so strong that eventually he gave in. The first presidential election was held on January 7, 1789, and Washington won handily. John Adams (1735-1826), who received the second-largest number of votes, became the nation’s first vice president. The 57-year-old Washington was inaugurated on April 30, 1789, in New York City. Because Washington, D.C. , America’s future capital city wasn’t yet built, he lived in New York and Philadelphia. While in office, he signed a bill establishing a future, permanent U.S. capital along the Potomac River—the city later named Washington, D.C., in his honor.

George Washington’s Accomplishments

The United States was a small nation when Washington took office, consisting of 11 states and approximately 4 million people, and there was no precedent for how the new president should conduct domestic or foreign business. Mindful that his actions would likely determine how future presidents were expected to govern, Washington worked hard to set an example of fairness, prudence and integrity. In foreign matters, he supported cordial relations with other countries but also favored a position of neutrality in foreign conflicts. Domestically, he nominated the first chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court , John Jay (1745-1829), signed a bill establishing the first national bank, the Bank of the United States , and set up his own presidential cabinet . 

His two most prominent cabinet appointees were Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804), two men who disagreed strongly on the role of the federal government. Hamilton favored a strong central government and was part of the Federalist Party , while Jefferson favored stronger states’ rights as part of the Democratic-Republican Party, the forerunner to the Democratic Party . Washington believed that divergent views were critical for the health of the new government, but he was distressed at what he saw as an emerging partisanship.

George Washington’s presidency was marked by a series of firsts. He signed the first United States copyright law, protecting the copyrights of authors. He also signed the first Thanksgiving proclamation, making November 26 a national day of Thanksgiving for the end of the war for American independence and the successful ratification of the Constitution.

During Washington’s presidency, Congress passed the first federal revenue law, a tax on distilled spirits. In July 1794, farmers in Western Pennsylvania rebelled over the so-called “whiskey tax.” Washington called in over 12,000 militiamen to Pennsylvania to dissolve the Whiskey Rebellion in one of the first major tests of the authority of the national government.

Under Washington’s leadership, the states ratified the Bill of Rights , and five new states entered the union: North Carolina (1789), Rhode Island (1790), Vermont (1791), Kentucky (1792) and Tennessee (1796).

In his second term, Washington issued the proclamation of neutrality to avoid entering the 1793 war between Great Britain and France. But when French minister to the United States Edmond Charles Genet—known to history as “Citizen Genet”—toured the United States, he boldly flaunted the proclamation, attempting to set up American ports as French military bases and gain support for his cause in the Western United States. His meddling caused a stir between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans, widening the rift between parties and making consensus-building more difficult.

In 1795, Washington signed the “Treaty of Amity Commerce and Navigation, between His Britannic Majesty; and The United States of America,” or Jay’s Treaty , so-named for John Jay , who had negotiated it with the government of King George III . It helped the U.S. avoid war with Great Britain, but also rankled certain members of Congress back home and was fiercely opposed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison . Internationally, it caused a stir among the French, who believed it violated previous treaties between the United States and France.

Washington’s administration signed two other influential international treaties. Pinckney’s Treaty of 1795, also known as the Treaty of San Lorenzo, established friendly relations between the United States and Spain, firming up borders between the U.S. and Spanish territories in North America and opening up the Mississippi to American traders. The Treaty of Tripoli, signed the following year, gave American ships access to Mediterranean shipping lanes in exchange for a yearly tribute to the Pasha of Tripoli.

George Washington’s Retirement to Mount Vernon and Death

In 1796, after two terms as president and declining to serve a third term, Washington finally retired. In Washington’s farewell address , he urged the new nation to maintain the highest standards domestically and to keep involvement with foreign powers to a minimum. The address is still read each February in the U.S. Senate to commemorate Washington’s birthday.

Washington returned to Mount Vernon and devoted his attentions to making the plantation as productive as it had been before he became president. More than four decades of public service had aged him, but he was still a commanding figure. In December 1799, he caught a cold after inspecting his properties in the rain. The cold developed into a throat infection and Washington died on the night of December 14, 1799, at the age of 67. He was entombed at Mount Vernon, which in 1960 was designated a national historic landmark.

Washington left one of the most enduring legacies of any American in history. Known as the “Father of His Country,” his face appears on the U.S. dollar bill and quarter, and dozens of U.S. schools, towns and counties, as well as the state of Washington and the nation’s capital city, are named for him.

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George Washington: Life in Brief

George Washington was born to Mary Ball and Augustine Washington on February 22, 1732. As the third son of a middling planter, George probably should have been relegated to a footnote in a history book. Instead, he became one of the greatest figures in American history.

A series of personal losses changed the course of George’s life. His father, Augustine, died when he was eleven years old, ending any hopes of higher education. Instead, Washington spent many of his formative years under the tutelage of Lawrence, his favorite older brother. He also learned the science of surveying and began a new career with the help of their neighbors, the wealthy and powerful Fairfax family. Lawrence’s death in 1752 again changed George’s plans. He leased Mount Vernon, a plantation in northern Virginia, from Lawrence’s widow and sought a military commission, just as Lawrence had done.

Washington served as the lieutenant colonel of the Virginia regiment and led several missions out west to the Ohio Valley. On his second mission west, he participated in the murder of French forces, including a reported ambassador. In retaliation, the French surrounded Washington’s forces at Fort Necessity and compelled an unequivocal surrender. Washington signed the articles of capitulation, not knowing that he was accepting full blame for an assassination. His mission marked the start of the Seven Years’ War.

Washington then joined General Edward Braddock’s official family as an aide-de-camp. In recognition of Washington’s extraordinary bravery during Braddock’s disastrous defeat at the Battle of the Monongahela in 1755, Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie appointed him as the commander of the Virginia Regiment. He served with distinction until the end of 1758.

In early 1759, George entered a new chapter in his life when he married Martha Custis, a wealthy widow, and won election to the Virginia House of Burgesses. George and Martha moved to Mount Vernon and embarked on an extensive expansion and renovation of the estate. Their life with her children from her previous marriage, John Parke Custis and Martha Parke Custis, was loving and warm.

Washington’s position in the House of Burgesses took on additional importance as relations between the colonies and Great Britain deteriorated after the end of the Seven Years’ War. The British government had incurred enormous debts fighting across the globe and faced high military costs defending the new territories in North America that it had received in the peace settlement. To defray these expenses, the British Parliament passed a series of new taxation measures on its colonies, which were still much lower than those paid by citizens in England. But many colonists protested that they had already contributed once to the war effort and should not be forced to pay again, especially since they had no input in the legislative process.

Washington supported the protest measures in the House of Burgesses, and in 1774, he accepted appointment as a Virginia delegate to the First Continental Congress, where he voted for non-importation measures, such as abstaining from purchasing British goods. The following year, he returned to the Second Continental Congress after British regulars and local militia forces clashed in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. He approved Congress’s decision to create an army in June 1775 and was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army.

For the next eight years, Washington led the army, only leaving headquarters to respond to Congress’s summons. He lost more battles than he won and at times had to hold the army together with sheer will, but ultimately emerged victorious in 1783 when the Treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War.

Washington’s success as a commander derived from three factors. First, he never challenged civilian authority. The new nation deeply distrusted military power, and his intentional self-subordination kept him in command. Second, the soldiers and officers adored him. The soldiers’ devotion to their commander was so apparent that some congressmen rued that it was not the Continental Army, it was George Washington’s army. Finally, Washington understood that if the army survived, so too would the cause for independence. He did not have to beat the British Army, he just had to avoid complete destruction.

At the end of the war, Washington returned his commission to the Confederation Congress and resumed life as a private citizen in Virginia. In an age of dictators and despots, his voluntarily surrender of power rippled around the globe and solidified his legend. Unsurprisingly, when the state leaders began discussing government reform a few years later, they knew Washington’s participation was essential for success.

In 1786, the Virginia legislature nominated a slate of delegates to represent the state at the Constitutional Convention. Washington’s close friend, Governor Edmund Randolph, ensured that George’s name was included. In May 1787, Washington set out for Philadelphia, where he served as the president of the convention. Once the convention agreed to a draft constitution, he then worked behind the scenes to ensure ratification. Washington believed the new constitution would resolve many of the problems that had plagued the Confederation Congress, but he also knew that if the states ratified the constitution, he would once again be dragged back into public service.

On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth and requisite state to ratify the new Constitution of the United States, forcing each state to schedule elections for the new federal offices. Unsurprisingly, Washington was unanimously elected as the first president. He took the oath of office on April 30, 1789.

As the first president, Washington literally crafted the office from scratch, which was an accomplishment that cannot be overstated because every decision was an opportunity for failure. Instead, Washington set a model for restraint, prestige in office, and public service. As president, Washington also oversaw the establishment of the financial system, the restoration of the nation’s credit, the expansion of US territory (often at the expense of Native Americans), the negotiation of economic treaties with European empires, and the defense of executive authority over diplomatic and domestic affairs.

Washington set countless precedents, including the creation of the cabinet, executive privilege, state of the union addresses, and his retirement after two terms. On September 19, 1796, Washington published his Farewell Address announcing his retirement in a Philadelphia newspaper. He warned Americans to come together and reject partisan or foreign attempts to divide them, admonitions that retain their significance into the twenty-first century. He then willingly surrendered power once more.

When Washington left office, his contemporaries referred to him the father of the country. No other person could have held the Continental Army together for eight years, granted legitimacy to the Constitution Convention, or served as the first president. It is impossible to imagine the creation of the United States without him.

Yet, Washington’s life also embodies the complicated founding that shapes our society today. He owned hundreds of enslaved people and benefitted from their forced labor from the moment he was born to the day he died. His wealth, produced by slavery, made possible his decades of public service. Washington’s financial success, and that of the new nation, also depended on the violent seizure of extensive territory from Native American nations along the eastern seaboard to the Mississippi River. Washington’s life and service as the first president represents the irony contained in the nation’s founding. The United States was forged on the idea that “all men are created equal,” yet depended on the subjugation and exploitation of women and people of color.

Lindsay M. Chervinsky

Senior Fellow The Center for Presidential History Southern Methodist University

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George Washington

On February 22, 1732, George was born to Augustine and Mary Ball Washington. He spent most of his childhood at Ferry Farm on the Rappahannock River. All of the homes and plantations where Washington lived were maintained by enslaved labor. When George was eleven, his father died and he became a slave owner. As a result, George did not receive a formal education like his older half-brothers. Instead, he helped his mother on the farm and attended a local school in Fredericksburg. For the rest of his life, Washington supplemented his education with reading and self-guided study. At seventeen-years old, George used his family connections to secure appointment as the surveyor for Culpeper County. This position offered adventure, a steady income, and the opportunity to view and purchase unclaimed land. His surveying experience also instilled in George a firm conviction in the importance of westward expansion to the future of the colonies, and later the United States. In 1753, Lieutenant Governor of Virginia Robert Dinwiddie sent twenty-one-year-old Washington, now a Major in the Virginia Regiment, to deliver a message to the French, demanding they abandon the Ohio Valley. Washington later published his account of the trip, giving him an international reputation. A few months later, Washington again marched out west with 150 men to enforce Virginia’s claim. The mission ended in a humiliating surrender at Fort Necessity, followed by Washington’s resignation of his commission. Two years later, Washington again witnessed fighting in the Ohio Country, this time as an aide-de-camp in British General Edward Braddock’s official family. Braddock’s army suffered an overwhelming defeat near the Monongahela River, but Washington was commended for rallying the survivors in the face of chaos. On January 6, 1758, George married Martha Dandridge Custis, a beautiful and charming widow from Virginia. George acquired significant wealth and a partner for the next four decades through the marriage. Between 1759 and 1775, George served many terms in the Virginia House of Burgesses and devoted himself to improving farming practices at his plantation through the labor of the growing enslaved community. After supporting the colonies’ protests against British tax measures in the 1770s, Washington was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army by Congress in June 1775. For the next eight years, Washington remained with the army, only leaving camp to attend summons by Congress. Under Washington’s command, the Continental Army lost more battles than it won, constantly struggling to obtain the necessary food, supplies, and ammunition. But the army persisted—and the colonies’ fight for independence could not be extinguished. Washington also served a critical role ensuring that military power remained subordinate to civilian government. He never used his authority to challenge Congress and ended potential military coups within the army’s ranks. When the Treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War, Washington resigned his commission to Congress. Washington’s relinquishing of power was nearly unprecedented and made him an international hero. In 1787, Washington was again called to serve when Virginia appointed him as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. The delegates crafted a Constitution that created a government with significantly more authority and centralized power. They hoped the new government would address the economic, diplomatic, and domestic calamities that had besieged the nation for over a decade under the Articles of Confederation. Unsurprisingly, the delegates trusted Washington with the presidency. To this day, he is the only president to be unanimously elected. On April 16, 1789, George Washington left his home at Mount Vernon to travel to New York City to be inaugurated as the first President of the United States. During Washington’s presidency, at least ten enslaved people worked at the president’s houses in New York City and Philadelphia: Ona, Hercules, Moll, Giles, Austin, Richmond, Paris, Joe, Christopher Sheels, and William Lee. They tended the horses and carriages in the stables, escorted Washington and his family when they left the house, cooked in the kitchen, did laundry, cleaned the home, cared for the Washingtons’ grandchildren, helped the Washingtons dress in the morning, greeted guests, and more. Click here to learn more about the enslaved household of President George Washington. During Washington’s presidency, he established countless precedents that guided his successors, including creating the president’s cabinet, asserting executive privilege, and using the veto for the first time. He also expanded executive authority over diplomatic and domestic issues, crafting foreign policy during the Neutrality Crisis in 1793 and subduing the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794. Perhaps most importantly, Washington again relinquished his power when he retired after two terms in office. This precedent was reinforced by Thomas Jefferson and followed by every successive president until Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1951, the states ratified the 22 nd Amendment, which limits presidents to two terms in office. After retiring from public office, Washington returned to Mount Vernon for a few short years. On December 14, 1799, Washington died of a throat infection. His will included a provision to immediately free William Lee, his enslaved valet who served with him during the American Revolution. He also stipulated that the other 122 enslaved people owned by him receive their freedom upon Martha’s passing. While Washington was a slave owner for 56 years, he was the only Founding Father president to free all of the enslaved people he held in bondage.

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President George Washington: Calm, Cool, and Collected Commander in Chief

Patient, modest, and deliberate: George Washington gave the United States the steady hand necessary to guide it through a revolutionary birth and its tumultuous early years.

"First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” That famous description of George Washington by his friend and fellow patriot Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee is probably still the best summation of the man who, over a hard but resolute lifetime, became the savior of a war and the father of a country. Washington’s earliest ambitions, though, aimed more at the prosaic than the glorious. He probably imagined nothing better than following in the footsteps of his father, Augustine, who had been an ambitious Virginia planter and merchant. Augustine was hardly a major player in the hierarchical world of the aristocracy, but he was nonetheless a bona fide member of the gentry. George was the eldest son of Augustine’s second wife, Mary, who was not, and at no point aspired to be gentry.

Washington's War for Independence

When George was just 11, Augustine died, leaving his younger children in the hands of Mary, a domineering, pious, possibly pipe-smoking woman who ran her farm with a firm hand and read daily to her children from Contemplations Moral and Divine . Though George’s two older stepbrothers, then grown, had been sent to the fine schools required of the Virginia gentry, George had no resources for that, and Mary, in any case, had no interest in investing in her eldest son’s education. Indeed the two clashed their entire lives, and some biographers speculate that George modeled himself after everything that his mother was not.

Devoted to the Nation

Feb. 22, 1732 George Washington is born in a modest house at Popes Creek, Westmoreland County, Virginia. His father, Augustine, is a plantation owner who dies when George is 11.

June 15, 1775 Having served with distinction in the French and Indian War, Washington is appointed as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army that was created the day before.

Dec. 23, 1783 Washington resigns his commission as commander-in-chief, having transformed the Continental Army into an effective fighting force and led the troops to victory over the British.

Apr. 30, 1789 Despite not actively seeking the candidacy, Washington is unanimously elected as the first president of the United States under the Constitution. He serves two terms but refuses a third.

Dec. 14, 1799 Washington dies suddenly after contracting an acute infection while touring his estates in the winter. The nation goes into mourning. Foreign governments, including Britain, pay homage.

Apparently determined to better himself from a young age, George found mentors among the gentry and emulated their ways. He also copied by hand the Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation . These 110 rules had been conceived by French Jesuits as a teaching tool almost a century and a half before, dealing with everything from table manners to posture to facial expressions to gossip. Despite their stuffy formality, George seems to have internalized them because they echoed through his behavior for the rest of his life. As a young man, George impressed the colonial power-brokers of British Virginia, who made him a surveyor of western lands and an officer with the British during the French and Indian War. He first saw battle in his very early twenties, and he learned that he liked it. As far away as Britain, the young colonel’s calm and courage under fire was appreciated, with a London gazette running a line from one of his letters: “I have heard the bullets whistle; and believe me, there is something charming in the sound.”

Mount Vernon

But Washington had also experienced other aspects of war—the meddling of politicians and the disdain of the British for the American officers. By 1758 he was tired of it all. Resigning his commission, he enthusiastically took up the life of a Virginia planter.

Washington had been renting a family farm in Northern Virginia from the widow of his older half-brother Lawrence, who died in 1752. Following the death of his sister-in-law, Washington officially inherited Mount Vernon in 1761. Situated on the broad Potomac, Mount Vernon was one of the great loves of Washington’s life.

As he began ambitious improvements to the plantation, he became involved with a wealthy young widow, Martha Dandridge Custis. The two were soon married. Washington had been infatuated before, but Martha proved a perfect life partner and comfort to the reserved, driven, and often overburdened Washington.

Along with the wealth and social standing that Martha brought to the marriage, she also came with two young children, who Washington cherished as his own. He settled easily into the life of a respected planter and enjoyed days spent with his family, improving the farm, fishing, hunting (particularly fox hunting), riding, feasting, dancing, and generally reveling in the style of the Virginia aristocracy. He no doubt assumed he would end his days at Mount Vernon as a British citizen.

The Coming Revolution

That, of course, was not to be. Like his fellow Virginians in the House of Burgesses, Washington became increasingly disillusioned with George III and his colonial minions. At this time British America was composed of 13 disparate colonies ruled by 13 legislatures, each committed to its own culture, economy, and often religion.“Fire and water are not more heterogeneous than the different colonies of North America,” one British traveler had pronounced. Together, they were home to a million and a half people, the population doubling roughly every 20 years. They were Britons at heart, but of many varieties: long-established colonial families, recent immigrants, and indentured servants. Enslaved African-Americans lived throughout the colonies with large concentrations in the Chesapeake region and the South, where an aristocracy evolved because of their labor. Washington frankly aspired to become part of the elite and had speculated on wild land to the west. He saw his investment fade with the royal Proclamation of 1763, which banned westward migration in an attempt to fend off more Indian wars and control the cost of America to the Crown.

British War Debt

Washington fought in the French and Indian war which was part of the larger Seven Years’ War that raged across Europe from 1756-1763. Britain emerged from it with an empire greater than any the West had known since Rome. Its holdings in the New World, shown above, had more than doubled, but managing them proved an expensive business. To try and cover the costs, the British began to levy a series of taxes on the colonists that only added to the distress caused by a post-war bust in the economy. As the decade progressed, the loyal Britons of America, Washington among them, began to question their commitment to the motherland.

Yet through the 1760s, as he supported protests against British taxes, Washington also dined with the royal governor and assumed, as did most of his landed countrymen, that the British would be reasonable. By 1774 he had changed his mind.“The measures which [the British] administration hath for sometime been, and now are, most violently pursuing are repugnant to every principle of natural justice,” he wrote to a friend. In the course of a decade, Washington had become a full-throated patriot and one of Virginia’s seven elected delegates to the First Continental Congress. In August 1774, he left Mount Vernon for Philadelphia with fellow delegates Patrick Henry and Edmund Pendleton. Martha saw them off. “I hope you will stand firm,” she told Henry and Pendleton, adding, “I know George will.”

The six-foot-two-inch Washington had a way of affecting other men simply by his bearing, and the other delegates to Congress were duly impressed, seeing in him the reassuring promise of a true military commander. And that was clearly what Washington wanted them to see. He was not a fiery or inspired speaker nor was he an intellect, but he was confident that he could command men.

He got his chance a year later, when the Second Continental Congress appointed him commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. John Adams championed him for the position, and Abigail Adams described him in this way: “Dignity with ease and complacency—the gentleman and soldier look agreeably blended in him. Modesty marks every line and feature of his face.”

Pen Inspires the Sword

Thomas Paine was an admirer of Washington and spent the desperate autumn of 1776 as an aide-de-camp in the field. Though brave, Paine was no soldier. But his brief time with the army and Washington no doubt inspired him as he wrote the opening to his American Crisis—“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country.” In late December 1776, with the revolution on the verge of collapse, enlistments about to expire, and “summer soldiers” waiting to depart, Washington ordered Paine’s essay read to his men. Two days later, their surprise attack on Trenton, New Jersey, revived the American taste for war and the commitment to fight on.

Certainly, Washington exuded modesty when he addressed Congress with what sounded like a protestation at his appointment, “I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room, that I this day declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with.” He may have been overwhelmed by the appointment, but he had also wanted it. And now, for better or worse, he had it.

Washington at War

In early July he arrived in Cambridge to meet his “army,” finding an obstreperous, disorganized gaggle of New England militiamen, most hardscrabble farmers and small-time merchants, holding the British army at bay in Boston. Washington was determined to impose the discipline of a true army on these “exceedingly dirty and nasty people.” He also sought to protect them from themselves, putting in place hygiene practices to ward against the diseases that plagued military camps. Despite his initial private disdain, he moved tirelessly and confidently among them, understanding, even if they did not, how precarious the American military was.

If that summer tested Washington, it was only a small taste of what was to come. By 1776 he and his men were in a struggle for survival, yielding battle after battle to the British in New York. By year’s end, Washington had lost more than half of what had been, at best, an army cobbled together. Congress had essentially turned its back on him, and his closest confidantes and officers had intrigued against him, complaining of his inability to lead.

In fact, he had been indecisive and overly deferential, and now his army was in danger of collapse, as enlistment periods ended and desertion grew. “No man, I believe, ever had a greater choice of difficulties and less means to extricate himself from them,” he wrote to his brother Jack in late autumn. Yet, in spite of his own despondency, Washington rallied, understanding that if he did not turn the tide somehow, the Revolution would be a short-lived disaster. And so on a bitter cold Christmas night, Washington famously led his broken, barefoot army from their winter camp at Valley Forge, crossing the Delaware River to attack Trenton, New Jersey. The American victory there was small but profound, reinvigorating Washington, his forces, and the patriotic cause—at least for a few months.

For the next four years, Washington battled on, carping at Congress to feed and supply his men, fending off attacks on his own leadership, and all the while keeping an eye firmly on the enemy. Gradually, he learned to fight the British more strategically, using local militia to harass them and avoiding “a general action” that would “put anything at Risque [sic].”

His men came to revere him for his courage, calm, determination, and, above all, for being at their side battle after battle, march after march, year after grueling year. The Philadelphia patriot Benjamin Rush once declared that Washington had “so much martial dignity in his deportment that you would distinguish him to be a general and a soldier from among 10,000 people. There is not a king in Europe that would not look like a valet de chambre by his side.”

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Peace at last.

By 1781 Washington’s resolve had triumphed over the British, and two years later America could officially claim her hard-won independence. By then Washington was more icon than man to most of the world. One Dutch merchant who caught sight of him as he rode through Philadelphia with a contingent of light cavalry, wrote to his wife, “I saw the greatest man who has ever appeared on the surface of this earth... I don’t know if, in our delight at seeing the hero, we were more surprised by his simple but grand air or by the kindness of the greatest and best of heroes.”

But the war had taken its toll. At 51 Washington was no longer the vigorous athletic man he had been. He wore crude, ill-fitting dentures of human teeth and ivory that hooked onto his one remaining tooth and made his gums ache. His great consolation was that he could at last settle down at Mount Vernon with his family and live out his days with his “mind... unbent,” gliding “down the stream of life till I come to that abyss from whence no traveler is permitted to return.”

And for just a few years Washington was indeed allowed the life of an unbent mind, reveling in his daily routine as a planter, coming up with strategies to improve the operations and production of Mount Vernon and his other nearby farms, neglected over the nine years of his absence. He and Martha also entertained an endless stream of visitors, many of them strangers who came to pay homage to America’s hero.

Washington and the Constitution

Having led the colonies to independence, Washington found himself again on the battlefront as the new nation began to form itself. It became obvious in the post-war years that the Articles of Confederation were no more than a toothless agreement between the states as conflicts erupted over trade, territory, waterways, and mutual protection. Washington tried to resolve one such dispute himself—over navigation rights to the Potomac. His talks, held at Mount Vernon in 1785, were a success and encouraged further cooperation among states. Four years later, Washington became the steadfast anchor around which endless arguments swirled about the nature and need for a new constitution (above). Though a Federalist with an eye to industry and infrastructure for a united country, Washington sat sphinxlike during the Philadelphia talks. These resulted in a constitution and a new role for Washington—not king, but president of the still fractious and embryonic United States.

Return to the Limelight

But Washington’s destiny was entwined with the new nation’s too completely to allow him escape. He watched its growing pains with the cautious eye of a concerned parent and, at the same time, he unobtrusively tended his own image, guarding it for posterity and holding himself in abeyance, in case he should be needed again. By 1787 he was back on the public stage and again on his way to Philadelphia, as he had been 40 years before, this time as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. He was quickly elected its president and within two years president of the new nation. He expected “that at a convenient and an early period my services might be dispensed with and that I might be permitted once more to retire.” But the “early period” dragged into eight years, as the former patriots argued and debated among themselves over America’s character and future.

Finally, in 1796, Washington refused to continue into a third term. This granted him barely three years of his own happiness at Mount Vernon. In mid-December 1799, after spending a cold, wet day touring his farms on horseback, he began to suffer a sore throat but he kept to his routines. Two days later he was gone. In his farewell address to the nation, he had assured his fellow citizens that “I shall carry... with me to my grave... unceasing vows that heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete.”

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Early Military Career

Early Political Career

American Revolution

George Washington was born on February 22, 1732 on his father's plantation on Pope's Creek  in Virginia's Westmoreland County. George’s father Augustine, a third-generation English colonist firmly established in the middle ranks of the Virginia gentry, was twice married. In 1731 Augustine married Mary Ball , and George was born a year later. Five other children followed. The Washington family moved from Westmoreland County to Augustine, Sr.'s plantation on Little Hunting Creek around 1735, and lived there until they moved to a farm on the Rappahannock River  opposite Fredericksburg in 1738.

In 1743, when George Washington was only eleven years old, Augustine Washington passed away and left the bulk of his estate to George's half-brothers, Lawrence and Augustine, Jr. Lawrence inherited Little Hunting Creek plantation (which he later renamed Mount Vernon  in honor of Admiral Edward Vernon under whom he had served in the War of Jenkins' Ear), and Augustine Jr., inherited the Westmoreland County plantation where George was born. 

George Washington inherited the more modest Rappahannock River plantation where he lived with his mother and siblings, but this was not enough to maintain his middling status in the Virginia gentry. His half-brother Lawrence suggested that George enter the British navy, but Mary Ball Washington rejected the proposal. Instead, Washington was trained as a land surveyor , a profession of considerable importance in colonial Virginia.

Washington gained familiarity with the colony's backcountry while developing frontier survival skills. Not only did Washington receive substantial fees for surveying, but he also discovered firsthand how to successfully land speculate. By 1751 George Washington had accumulated almost as many acres of fertile soil in the Shenandoah as his half-brother Lawrence had at Mount Vernon.

Although Lawrence possessed desirable qualities for a rising Virginia gentlemen—an inherited estate and impressive marriage connections—George enjoyed an impressive physique and the blessings of good health. Washington survived a case of smallpox while in the West Indies , thus acquiring immunity to the disease that claimed the lives of many colonial Americans. However, his brother succumbed to disease in 1752. Lawrence's infant daughter, to whom he originally bequeathed Mount Vernon, died before reaching adulthood. In 1754 George Washington leased the Mount Vernon estate from Lawrence’s widow, Ann Fairfax Washington, who held a life title.

In October 1753, Washington volunteered to investigate reports  of French encroachments on Virginia's western frontier that threatened the interests of the colony’s great land speculators. Upon the return to Williamsburg of his small party from the shores of Lake Erie in January 1754, Washington received popular recognition through the publication of his detailed journal  of the rugged four-month-long expedition.

That May, the twenty-year Washington became commander of the Virginia Regiment, raised to oppose the French in the Ohio Valley. French retaliation for the attack on a small party across the Alleghenies provided Washington's first military defeat with the surrender of the hastily-constructed Fort Necessity in July 1754. The skirmishes led to the French and Indian War , the colonial phase of the Seven Years War between the French and British, each aligned with their respective colonists and native American allies. Washington learned much while serving under British generals Edward Braddock  and John Forbes , earning a military reputation not only for courage under fire but also as an efficient administrator and commander of forces. He also developed a resentment of the British officials who denied him the regular army commission that he desired, and the respect for the contributions made by provincial troops during the war.

After the war, Washington returned to private life as a bachelor, with his prestige enhanced by military experiences and the potential of his land holdings increasing from bounties granted to officers and men of the Virginia Regiment. On January 6, 1759 the twenty-six year-old Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis , the widow of Daniel Parke Custis, who had left her and their two children a significant fortune. Washington was named the childrens' legal guardian two years later and devoted much time and energy over the next sixteen years managing the Custis estate. During this time Washington also became the outright owner of Mount Vernon as his brother’s residual heir upon the death of Lawrence's widow.

Immediately, through his marriage to Martha and the death of Lawrence's widow, Washington controlled one of the wealthiest combined estates in Virginia.  The next decade and a half of Washington's life at Mount Vernon were probably his happiest. Although he and Martha had no children of their own, the couple raised Martha's children, and later two of her grandchildren, Eleanor  and George Washington Parke Custis .

Washington was first elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses  in 1758 as a representative of Frederick County. He was later elected by Fairfax County landholders and served a total of sixteen years in the colonial assembly. In the imperial crisis of the 1760s and 1770s, he became an early advocate of the patriot cause. After Governor Dunmore dissolved the Assembly in 1774, Washington met with other disgruntled Burgesses at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg and adopted a nonimportation agreement. That same year Washington was elected by the first Virginia Convention as a delegate to the First Continental Congress, which adopted Virginia’s program of economic coercion against the mother country.

Washington’s first challenge as a general was to mold an inexperienced and undisciplined group of patriotic volunteers into a professional army , and he did so by instituting efficient administrative procedures, setting high standards of personal conduct, and emphasizing discipline, cleanliness, and colonial unity. Washington also concentrated on instilling a professional ethic in the officers who remained in the Continental service.

Washington's greatest achievement during the Revolution, however, was to hold his little army together in the face of public apathy, marginal state support, inadequate Congressional assistance, and a series of logistical and military frustrations. Only the successful diplomatic efforts of Benjamin Franklin , in enlisting the assistance of the French army and navy, enabled the revolutionaries to secure final independence. At Yorktown  in 1781 Franco-American forces completed a successful siege operation in the traditional European style and captured Lord Cornwallis' entire army. Washington bid farewell to his comrades in arms in 1783, resigned his Continental commission, and retired to private life.

Washington's return to Mount Vernon, however, was not permanent. According to a 1783 circular letter to the states , Washington felt that a respectable national existence required an indissoluble union of the states under one federal head, a sacred regard for public justice, the establishment of proper national defense and the suppression of local prejudices.

During his presidency, Washington supported treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton 's fiscal program of federal assumption of state war debts and the creation of a national. Even before the end of Washington's first administration, opposition coalesced  around secretary of state Thomas Jefferson  and his friend congressman James Madison . The two favored a states' rights view of strict interpretation of the Constitution, domestic policies favoring the landed interests, and a foreign policy aligned more closely to France than Britain.

Although Washington was unanimously elected to a second term  as President, the nation was anything but united behind him. The small and ill-supplied United States Army suffered two disastrous defeats against Northwestern Native-American nations. America found itself caught between warring European powers as the French Revolution reached an international phase. At home, the president called out the militia to put down an uprising  in western Pennsylvania against Hamilton's new excise tax on distilled spirits. Democratic-Republican criticisms that Washington had become the head of a party instead of the nation boiled over in reaction to the treaty  that John Jay  had signed with the British and the Senate ratified in 1795. In the face of growing newspaper attacks against him, which he tended to take personally, Washington handed the reins of government over to his successor, John Adams , in the spring of 1797.

Only once more was the General called from his beloved plantation to serve the country. As war with France appeared imminent in 1798, President Adams appointed Washington as commander-in-chief of a new army, but the crisis passed before it was organized and raised. He had only a short time left to enjoy life at Mount Vernon. His end came suddenly on December 14, 1799 and the outpouring of grief over his death was widespread and sincere throughout the new nation.

Bibliography: Chernow, Ron. Washington: A Life. New York : Penguin Press, 2010. Dalzell, Robert F., Jr. and Lee Baldwin Dalzell. George Washington's Mount Vernon: At Home in Revolutionary America . New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Ellis, Joseph J. His Excellency: George Washington . New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. Henriques, Peter R. Realistic Visionary: A Portrait of George Washington . Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006. Higginbotham, Don. George Washington and the American Military Tradition . Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1985. Lengel, Edward G. General George Washington: A Military Life . New York: Random House, 2005. Longmore, Paul K. The Invention of George Washington . Berkeley; Los Angeles, 1988. Smith, Richard Norton. Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation . Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993. 

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George Washington

The 1st President of the United States

The biography for President Washington and past presidents is courtesy of the White House Historical Association.

On April 30, 1789, George Washington, standing on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York, took his oath of office as the first President of the United States. “As the first of every thing, in our situation will serve to establish a Precedent,” he wrote James Madison, “it is devoutly wished on my part, that these precedents may be fixed on true principles.”

Born in 1732 into a Virginia planter family, he learned the morals, manners, and body of knowledge requisite for an 18th century Virginia gentleman.

He pursued two intertwined interests: military arts and western expansion. At 16 he helped survey Shenandoah lands for Thomas, Lord Fairfax. Commissioned a lieutenant colonel in 1754, he fought the first skirmishes of what grew into the French and Indian War. The next year, as an aide to Gen. Edward Braddock, he escaped injury although four bullets ripped his coat and two horses were shot from under him.

From 1759 to the outbreak of the American Revolution, Washington managed his lands around Mount Vernon and served in the Virginia House of Burgesses. Married to a widow, Martha Dandridge Custis, he devoted himself to a busy and happy life. But like his fellow planters, Washington felt himself exploited by British merchants and hampered by British regulations. As the quarrel with the mother country grew acute, he moderately but firmly voiced his resistance to the restrictions.

When the Second Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia in May 1775, Washington, one of the Virginia delegates, was elected Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. On July 3, 1775, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, he took command of his ill-trained troops and embarked upon a war that was to last six grueling years.

He realized early that the best strategy was to harass the British. He reported to Congress, “we should on all Occasions avoid a general Action, or put anything to the Risque, unless compelled by a necessity, into which we ought never to be drawn.” Ensuing battles saw him fall back slowly, then strike unexpectedly. Finally in 1781 with the aid of French allies–he forced the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown.

Washington longed to retire to his fields at Mount Vernon. But he soon realized that the Nation under its Articles of Confederation was not functioning well, so he became a prime mover in the steps leading to the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia in 1787. When the new Constitution was ratified, the Electoral College unanimously elected Washington President.

He did not infringe upon the policy making powers that he felt the Constitution gave Congress. But the determination of foreign policy became preponderantly a Presidential concern. When the French Revolution led to a major war between France and England, Washington refused to accept entirely the recommendations of either his Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who was pro-French, or his Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, who was pro-British. Rather, he insisted upon a neutral course until the United States could grow stronger.

To his disappointment, two parties were developing by the end of his first term. Wearied of politics, feeling old, he retired at the end of his second. In his Farewell Address, he urged his countrymen to forswear excessive party spirit and geographical distinctions. In foreign affairs, he warned against long-term alliances.

Washington enjoyed less than three years of retirement at Mount Vernon, for he died of a throat infection December 14, 1799. For months the Nation mourned him.

Learn more about George Washington’s spouse, Martha Dandridge Custis Washington.

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Biography of George Washington, First President of the United States

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George Washington (February 22, 1732–December 14, 1799) was America's first president. He served as commander-in-chief of the Colonial Army during the American Revolution , leading the Patriot forces to victory over the British. In 1787 he presided at the  Constitutional Convention , which determined the structure of the new government of the United States, and in 1789 he was elected its president.

Fast Facts: George Washington

• Known For : Revolutionary War hero and America's first president
• Also Known As : The Father of His Country
• Born : February 22, 1732 in Westmoreland County, Virginia
• Parents : Augustine Washington, Mary Ball
• Died : December 14, 1799 in Mount Vernon, Virginia
• Spouse : Martha Dandridge Custis
• Notable Quote : "To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace."

George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, in Westmoreland County, Virginia to Augustine Washington and Mary Ball. The couple had six children—George was the oldest—to go with three from Augustine's first marriage. During George's youth his father, a prosperous planter who owned more than 10,000 acres of land, moved the family among three properties he owned in Virginia. He died when George was 11. His half-brother Lawrence stepped in as a father figure for George and the other children.

Mary Washington was a protective and demanding mother, keeping George from joining the British Navy as Lawrence had wanted. Lawrence owned the Little Hunting Creek plantation—later renamed Mount Vernon—and George lived with him from the age of 16. He was schooled entirely in Colonial Virginia, mostly at home, and didn't go to college. He was good at math, which suited his chosen profession of surveying, and he also studied geography, Latin, and English classics. He learned what he really needed from backwoodsmen and the plantation foreman.

In 1748 when he was 16, Washington traveled with a surveying party plotting land in Virginia’s western territory. The following year, aided by Lord Fairfax—a relative of Lawrence's wife—Washington was appointed official surveyor of Culpeper County, Virginia. Lawrence died of tuberculosis in 1752, leaving Washington with Mount Vernon, one of Virginia's most prominent estates, among other family properties.

Early Career

The same year his half-brother died, Washington joined the Virginia militia. He showed signs of being a natural leader, and Virginia Lt. Gov. Robert Dinwiddie appointed Washington adjutant and made him a major.

On Oct. 31, 1753, Dinwiddie sent Washington to Fort LeBoeuf, later the site of Waterford, Pennsylvania, to warn the French to leave land claimed by Britain. When the French refused, Washington had to retreat hastily. Dinwiddie sent him back with troops and Washington's small force attacked a French post, killing 10 and taking the rest prisoner. The battle marked the start of the French and Indian War, part of the worldwide conflict known as the Seven Years War between Britain and France.

Washington was given the honorary rank of colonel and fought a number of other battles, winning some and losing others, until he was made commander of all Virginia troops. He was only 23. Later, he was sent home briefly with dysentery and finally, after being turned down for a commission with the British Army, he retired from his Virginia command and returned to Mount Vernon. He was frustrated by poor support from the Colonial legislature, poorly trained recruits, and slow decision-making by his superiors.

On January 6, 1759, a month after he had left the army, Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis, a widow with two children. They had no children together. With the land he had inherited, property his wife brought with her to the marriage, and land granted him for his military service, he was one of the wealthiest landowners in Virginia. After his retirement he managed his property, often pitching in alongside the workers. He also entered politics and was elected to Virginia's House of Burgesses in 1758.

Revolutionary Fever

Washington opposed British actions against the Colonies such as the British Proclamation Act of 1763 and the Stamp Act of 1765, but he continued to resist moves to declare independence from Britain. In 1769, Washington introduced a resolution to the House of Burgesses calling for Virginia to boycott British goods until the Acts were repealed. He began to take a leading role in Colonial resistance against the British following of the Townshend Acts in 1767.

in 1774, Washington chaired a meeting that called for convening a Continental Congress, to which he became a delegate, and for using armed resistance as a last resort. After the battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the political dispute became an armed conflict.

Commander-in-Chief

On June 15, Washington was named commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. On paper, Washington and his army were no match for the mighty British forces. But although Washington had little experience in high-level military command, he had prestige, charisma, courage, intelligence, and some battlefield experience. He also represented Virginia, the largest British colony. He led his forces to retake Boston and win huge victories at Trenton and Princeton, but he suffered major defeats, including the loss of New York City.

After the harrowing winter at Valley Forge in 1777, the French recognized American Independence, contributing a large French Army and a navy fleet. More American victories followed, leading to the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781. Washington formally said farewell to his troops and on December 23, 1783, he resigned his commission as commander-in-chief, returning to Mount Vernon.

New Constitution

After four years of living the life of a plantation owner, Washington and other leaders concluded that the Articles of Confederation that had governed the young country left too much power to the states and failed to unify the nation. In 1786, Congress approved the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to amend the Articles of Confederation. Washington was unanimously chosen as convention president.

He and other leaders, such as  James Madison  and  Alexander Hamilton , concluded that instead of amendments, a new constitution was needed. Though many leading American figures, such as  Patrick Henry  and  Sam Adams , opposed the proposed constitution, calling it a power grab, the document was approved.

Washington was elected unanimously by the Electoral College in 1789 as the nation's first president. ​Runner-up John Adams became vice president. In 1792 another unanimous vote by the Electoral College gave Washington a second term. In 1794, he stopped the first major challenge to federal authority, the Whiskey Rebellion, in which Pennsylvania farmers refused to pay federal tax on distilled spirits, by sending in troops to ensure compliance.

Washington did not run for a third term and retired to Mount Vernon. He was again asked to be the American commander if the U.S. went to war with France over the XYZ affair , but fighting never broke out. He died on December 14, 1799, possibly from a streptococcal infection of his throat made worse when he was bled four times.

Washington's impact on American history was massive. He led the Continental Army to victory over the British. He served as the nation's first president. He believed in a strong federal government, which was accomplished through the Constitutional Convention that he led. He promoted and worked on the principle of merit. He cautioned against foreign entanglements, a warning that was heeded by future presidents. He declined a third term, setting a precedent for a two-term limit that was codified in the 22nd Amendment.

In foreign affairs, Washington supported neutrality, declaring in the Proclamation of Neutrality in 1793 that the U.S. would be impartial toward belligerent powers in a war. He reiterated his opposition to foreign entanglements in his farewell address in 1796.

George Washington is considered one of the most important and influential U.S. presidents whose legacy has survived for centuries.

• " George Washington Biography ." Biography.com.
• " George Washington: President of the United States ." Encyclopedia Brittanica.
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Biography Online

George Washington Biography

“The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation.”

– George Washington

George Washington was born in 1732 in Virginia. His family were wealthy and they owned many slaves who worked on the plantations. As a planter, he felt constrained by British regulations and taxes and this proved one factor in encouraging him to fight the British in the later Wars of Independence. As well as working as a planter, Washington was interested in military matters and exploring the Western territories. In May 1775, his military experiences were used as delegates voted Washington to be head of the US Continental Army.

“Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a Freeman, contending for liberty on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.”

– General Orders, Headquarters, New York (2 July 1776).

The War of Independence was to last six years. Especially in the beginning, Washington had to deal with ill-trained and poorly equipped soldiers. In the early days of the war, he adopted a strategy of harassing the British but avoiding them in full-scale war. It was not until 1781 when, with the help of French forces, Washington was able to defeat the British at Yorktown.

After victory had been finalised in 1783, Washington resigned as Commander in Chief. He wanted to make the point that he would not become the  de facto military ruler. Washington wanted the new American constitution and democratic system to be used. To Washington, the new constitution and Declaration of Independence were a chance to institute a new type of government and society based on human rights.

“The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epoch when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period.”  – Washington Circular to the States, 8 June 1783 .

As a successful military leader, Washington retained widespread support and, given the difficulties faced by the emerging republic, Washington stood for public office and the Presidency. By a large majority, Washington was elected the first President of America and he served from April 1789 to March 1797. As President, Washington skillfully kept the United States out of conflicts with Great Britain and France. This period of peace enabled the new country to improve its national finances and gain an important period of stability.

“In politics as in philosophy, my tenets are few and simple. The leading one of which, and indeed that which embraces most others, is to be honest and just ourselves and to exact it from others, meddling as little as possible in their affairs where our own are not involved. If this maxim was generally adopted, wars would cease and our swords would soon be converted into reap hooks and our harvests be more peaceful, abundant, and happy.”

In 1791, Washington imposed an excise duty on spirits. The Federal government needed to raise tax revenue for debts incurred by the war. The so-called ‘Whiskey Tax’ was deeply unpopular and many rebelled against tax officials who tried to collect the tax. Washington himself rode out to Western Pennsylvania to negotiate with the rebels. Although the tax was hard to collect, Washington avoided an escalation of the rebellion and helped to establish the principle of federal taxes.

Washington’s presidency helped to establish many protocols and traditions that are still in use today. This included the creation of a cabinet system, the inaugural address and title of Mr President. His Republican values had a lasting impact on American society and government. Despite being a popular president, he had to be persuaded to stand for a second term.  Both Thomas Jefferson (of Democrat-Republicans) and Alexander Hamilton (Federalist Party) put aside their policy difference to encourage Washington to stand for a second term. They believed Washington was the only one who could hold the new country together.

Washington agreed, but towards the end of his second term he grew weary of politics, in particular, he didn’t like the factionalization of politics into different parties. He refused to join the Federalists, despite mostly agreeing with their policies. In some respects, Washington preferred the idea of strong central government. Although he fought the British, he appreciated the strength of a unified political body. However, Washington was keen to avoid the pomp and ceremony associated with Monarchs.

In 1796, he published a Farewell Address which offered his thoughts on civic virtue and political governance. It expressed Washington’s belief in the virtue of the union of states, seeking a peaceful foreign policy and adherence to the constitution and democracy.

“The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize.”( Farewell address )

George Washington was widely considered to be an able administrator and person of exemplary character. Washington is considered to embody qualities of integrity, self-discipline, courage, honesty, resolve,  and respect for others.

“Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to appellation.”

George Washington died aged 67, on 14 December 1799, three years after his retirement, at his home of Mount Vernon. He succombed to a mystery illness where he felt cold and feverish. Doctors were summonded and they bled up to 40% of his blood – in a vain attempt to reverse the illness. His last words were

“’I am just going! Have me decently buried; and do not let my body be put into the vault less than three days after I am dead. Do you understand me? . . . Tis well!’”

Views on slavery

Washington rarely spoke against slavery in public. He knew how divisive the issue was and feared it could split the emerging union. Washington rarely addressed the issue during his presidency, but he did pass the Slave Trade Act of 1794, which limited America’s involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. On a personal note, he did inherit slaves from his father’s plantations. As a young man he purchased another 8 slaves. During his life, he became more concerned about the issue, and aware of the human cost of the practise.

“The unfortunate condition of the persons, whose labour in part I employed, has been the only unavoidable subject of regret. To make the Adults among them as easy & as comfortable in their circumstances as their actual state of ignorance & improvidence would admit; & to lay a foundation to prepare the rising generation for a destiny different from that in which they were born; afforded some satisfaction to my mind, & could not I hoped be displeasing to the justice of the Creator.” – Comment by George Washington, recorded by David Humphries

He left provisions in his will to free his slaves after his death.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “Biography of George Washington”, Oxford, www.biographyonline.net. Updated: 8th February 2017. Last updated 13 November 2019.

Washington – A Life

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U.S. Presidents

George washington.

First president of the United States

The son of a landowner and planter, George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, in the British-ruled colony of Virginia . His father died when he was 11, and his older brother, Lawrence, helped raise him. Washington was educated in basic subjects including reading, writing, and mathematics, but he didn’t attend college. Not much else is known about his childhood. Stories about his virtues—such as his confession of chopping down his father’s cherry tree—were actually invented by an admiring writer soon after Washington’s death.

During his 20s, he fought as a soldier in the French and Indian War, Great Britain’s fight with France over the Ohio River Valley territory. After the war, Washington returned to Virginia to work as a farmer.

Virginians elected Washington to their colonial legislature, or government, when he was 26. Soon after, he married Martha Dandridge Custis, a wealthy widow with two young children. They settled at Mount Vernon, a family home Washington had inherited.

REVOLUTIONARY WAR HERO

As a government official, Washington spoke out against unfair laws, such as high taxes, during Great Britain’s rule. In 1774 and 1775, he was one of Virginia’s representatives at the First and Second Continental Congresses, a group of representatives from the 13 colonies that would eventually become the United States. The Second Congress helped future third president, Thomas Jefferson , write the Declaration of Independence in July 1776, proclaiming that the 13 colonies were now independent states, no longer under British rule. An army was formed to oppose the British, and Washington was selected to lead it.

For five years, Washington served as the head of the army as the Revolutionary War against the British raged. The British finally surrendered in 1781 at Yorktown, Virginia. Washington was now a hero, seen as an important person who helped the colonies finally gain independence from Great Britain . After the war, Washington retired from the army and returned to private life.

PATH TO PRESIDENCY

After the end of the war, the former colonies operated under the Articles of Confederation, a document that placed most power with the states. For example, each state printed its own money. There was no national leader. The individual states were not supporting each other as one country, and the new nation seemed to be in trouble.

In 1787 state representatives gathered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania , at the Constitutional Convention to fix these problems. There, the delegates wrote the Constitution of the United States. This document created a strong federal government: two chambers of legislators (also called lawmakers), a federal court system, and a president. The Constitution still serves as the foundation for the United States government today.

Based on the Constitution’s directions, states chose representatives to elect a president. Washington won the vote, making him the first-ever president of the United States. John Adams received the second most votes and became vice president.

SETTING TRADITIONS

As the nation’s first president, Washington set the example for other presidents. He worked out how the nation would negotiate treaties with other countries. He decided how the president would select and get advice from cabinet members. He also established the practice of giving a regular State of the Union speech, a yearly update on how the country is doing. He appointed federal judges and established basic government services such as banks. As president, he also worked hard to keep the new country out of wars with Native Americans and European nations.

During Washington’s time as president, New York City was the nation’s temporary capital; then Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although Washington helped plan a permanent national capital, his presidency ended before the federal government moved to the city later named in his honor: Washington, D.C.

LASTING LEGACY

After serving two back-to-back terms as president, Washington retired to Mount Vernon in 1797. He died two years later on December 14, 1799. Washington, who kept one of the largest populations of enslaved people in the country, arranged in his will for them to be freed by the time of his wife’s death. After his death, he was praised as being "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."

• Washington is the only president to have a state named for him. • The first president was so worried about being buried alive, he insisted mourners wait at least three days before burying him. Just in case. • The first president is the only president not to live in the White House.

From the Nat Geo Kids books Our Country's Presidents by Ann Bausum and Weird But True Know-It-All: U.S. Presidents by Brianna Dumont, revised for digital by Avery Hurt

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How George Washington’s Personal and Physical Characteristics Helped Him Win the Presidency

Although he didn't campaign and didn't want to leave the quiet life of his plantation, Washington was hardly surprised by the news. After all, he was a national hero for engineering the Continental Army's surprising victory in the American Revolution, and he had the full respect and admiration of his fellow statesmen. As Henry Lee later put it, Washington had become "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."

Still, there was a man behind the myth, and it was the combination of his characteristics, some innate and others carefully developed, that made Washington the obvious choice to take charge at this stage of the nascent country's history.

Washington had a strong moral character

While the story of young Washington admitting to felling a cherry tree was invented by a biographer, the fable underscores the degree to which he was held as a person of impeccable character.

Learning to control his ambitions and temper as a young man, he impressed colleagues with an even-keeled demeanor and adherence to strong moral values. Observed Abigail Adams , wife of Washington's vice president, John Adams : "He is polite with dignity, affable without formality, distant without haughtiness, grave without austerity; modest, wise and good."

Washington's lofty reputation was upheld by his actions. He refused to be paid for commanding the Continental Army, only requesting to be reimbursed for expenses, and he resigned his military commission after his popularity surged at the close of the Revolution, putting his allegiance to the republic ahead of a desire for personal gain.

He was easy to talk to

Although he was born into the Virginia gentry, Washington did not travel abroad for the private education that was provided to his older half-brothers. So he was acutely aware of his perceived shortcomings and took pains to mold himself into a dignified gentleman.

This involved the memorization of The Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation , a guide written by Jesuit priests 150 years earlier, as well as the study of the noblemen in his life and acquired proficiency in activities like dancing, fencing and horsemanship.

Washington's mastery of social interaction naturally translated to the political arena. For all his authority, he came across as agreeable in conversation and sought to find areas of common ground. His political skill went a long way toward bridging the quarreling sides at the 1787 Constitutional Convention and ratifying the document now held sacred in American law.

Washington was large in stature and presence

As befitting a military hero, Washington cut a formidable presence. A contemporary in the 1750s described him as "measuring six feet two inches in his stockings and weighing 175 pounds. ... His frame is padded with well-developed muscles, indicating great strength." The admirer also praised Washington's "commanding countenance," as well as his "graceful" and "majestic" movements.

By the time he became president, the 57-year-old Washington was certainly less agile but even more imposing at upward of 200 pounds. By then he had survived an array of life-threatening situations, from contracting smallpox as a teenager and baptism by fire in the battlefields of the French and Indian War to the harsh winter of Valley Forge, rendering him a larger-than-life figure.

He dressed fashionably

Washington learned the value of sharp attire while studying the Virginia nobility he so admired, eventually noting that "nothing adds more to the appearance of a man than dress." This produced his devotion to a suitable wardrobe after establishing himself as a surveyor and a landowner, ordering garments from a London tailor to accommodate his height and long limbs.

Washington also understood the symbolic value of clothing: He arrived in full military uniform at the Second Continental Congress in 1775, signaling that he was ready to battle the British, and insisted that his servicemen also dress in a professional manner. As president, he dismissed the idea of appearing in the garish robes of European monarchs for portraits, preferring to be depicted in conservative American-made suits.

Washington studied hard so he could command with ease

While not regarded in the same vein as Thomas Jefferson , Alexander Hamilton and other heralded scholars of the era, Washington was no slouch in matters of intellect. From his early setbacks as a young officer, he studied military books to improve his understanding of battlefield strategies, gaining insights that shaped his directions during the crucial moments of the American Revolution.

Afterward, he became fully versed in principles of government and formed his own strong convictions as to what the burgeoning democracy should become. As a result, when it came time to move forward with the presidency, Washington was prepared to follow the guidance of his Jefferson-Hamilton cabinet and he was ready to lead with his own sense of direction, as he had done while commanding the charge for independence on the battlefield.

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Martha Washington

George Washington

On December 14, 1799, George Washington, the first President of the United States, died at his home in Mount Vernon, Virginia. Congress commissioned  Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee  a fellow Virginian, army veteran, and friend to pen an appropriate eulogy. In 3,500 words, Lee attempted to encapsulate one of the most influential Founding Fathers. He wrote that Washington was the:  

“First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” 

Before he was this influential leader, Washington was the son of a wealthy Virginian land speculator. He was born on February 22, 1732, and received little formal education in his youth. After his father’s death in 1743, he inherited a large farm, with ten slaves to work the property, and became a land surveyor. In 1750, he resigned his position to devote himself to farming and acquiring new farmland.  

Two years later, inspired by his recently deceased brother Lawrence’s military service, Washington joined the Virginian Militia. He was given the rank of major and appointed to command one of the four militia districts in Virginia. His enlistment occurred as tensions between France and England ignited. British officials ordered Washington to force the French army off “British" land and Washington impressed his superiors by making a treacherous winter round-trip 77-day trek to the French Fort Le Boeuf to inform France of these commands. When France refused to comply, Washington was given the honor to force their hand. Unfortunately, he attacked the French during the  Battle of Jumonville Glen , also known as the Jumonville affair, and the French commander Joseph Coulon de Jumonville died. A month later, South Carolinian militia joined Washington and the militia again tried to attack French fortifications but were unsuccessful. This incident led to the French and Indian War , also known as the Seven Years’ War. In response, Washington surrendered his troops and resigned his commission with essential military knowledge that proved vital later in his career.  

After leaving the militia, Washington married the wealthy widow Martha Dandridge Custis  on January 6, 1759. This marriage gave Washington land, wealth, and status as he transitioned into a gentleman farmer in the Virginian countryside. In addition, he became active in local politics during the preceding decades. When the “shot heard round the world” was fired in the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, Washington set off to join other delegates in Philadelphia to attend the Continental Congress.  

Several months later, when the Continental Army was officially formed to combat the British, Washington was unanimously elected as its commander. For the next eight years, Washington fought the British. Throughout this time, he only spent ten days at his Virginia home and suffered along with his men in the chilly New England winters and warm Southern summers. Only after General Charles Cornwallis surrendered after the Siege of Yorktown  in October 1781 and the Treaty of Paris was signed in September 1783, did Washington resign his command and return to his home in Mount Vernon. Once there, he hoped to resume his life as a Virginia gentleman farmer.  

However, the Articles of Confederation that were established after the Revolutionary War were weak in ruling the newly established United States of America. With a lack of central government, the country struggled to pay veterans, levy taxes, or make any changes in the political landscape. The Continental Congress met again to revise the plans and asked George Washington to be in attendance. When a new constitution was established, the need for a “president” of the United States was evident. George Washington, the former military commander, and public figure, was the perfect candidate and he accepted. For the next eight years, Washington served tirelessly as the first president of the United States. Then, in an unprecedented move at a time when political leaders usually served for life, Washington retired. With this last act, he helped the blooming democracy to move on and form a new nation.  

Lee was apt when he described Washington: he was the “first in war,” when he served as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army; “first in peace,” when he lead his country through its turbulent first years as President of the United States; and “first in the hearts of his countrymen,” when he helped the country become the democracy it is today.  

Johann Ewald

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President George Washington

• He was the only president unanimously elected. Meaning all of the state representatives voted for him.
• He never served as president in Washington D.C., the capital that was named for him. In his first year the capital was in New York City, then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• He was six feet tall, which was very tall for the 1700s.
• The story of George Washington chopping down his father's cherry tree is considered fiction and likely never happened.
• George Washington did not have wooden teeth, but did wear dentures made from ivory.
• Washington gave freedom to his slaves in his will.
• Listen to a recorded reading of this page:

If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

- George Washington

George Washington - The Founding Father

George Washington, fondly referred to as the "father of his country," was the first President of the United States of America, the Commander in Chief of the Continental Army during the American War for Independence, and one of the U.S. Founding Fathers. His life began in the countryside of Westmoreland County, Virginia on February 22, 1732. Born to Augustine and Mary Ball Washington, middle class farmers and plantation owners, George learned about farming at a young age after the early death of his father. Also, the untimely death of his father prevented young George from advancing past an elementary level education. Looking to advance himself vocationally and develop independence from his mother, George Washington became a surveyor for Culpeper County at the age of seventeen. This well-paying job was awarded to George mainly as a result of his connections with the wealthy and influential Fairfax family, a connection that George possessed because of his older brother Lawrence's involvement in both the Ohio Company (a land company funded largely by the Fairfax family) and the Virginia militia. Following a trip to Barbados with Lawrence, George contracted smallpox. He survived, but Lawrence died soon after the trip as a result of tuberculosis. The death of Lawrence opened up leadership positions in the Virginia milia; one of these open positions was given to George. Washington was now the the district adjutant militia leader for the Virginia militia.

Shortly after Washington received his new military position, conflict arose between France and Great Britain over the claim to western lands in North America, specifically, land in the Ohio Country. The British investing company known as the Ohio Company had laid claim to much land in the Ohio Valley. Because of the personal interests of several Ohio Company investors in Virginia and on orders from the government of Great Britain, the governor of the colony of Virginia, Robert Dinwiddie, sent a militia group to the Ohio lands to request the leave of French forces that had gathered there. George Washington graciously received the invitation to lead this expedition. After delivering the notice of claimed British lands to the French forces, Washington returned to Virginia. However, Governor Dinwiddie soon sent him back to the Ohio territory to oversee the building of a British military fort. While on his second expedition, Washington decided to attack a French militia unit under the command of Joseph de Jumonville. With the help of an Indian ally named Tanacharison, Washington's men secured a hasty victory. Either during the battle or afterwards in the taking of prisoners, Jumonville was killed. A retaliation by the French led to the capture of Washington and much of his militia at Fort Necessity; however, he was set free to return to Virginia soon afterwards. There was conjecture that Washington himself murdered the French commander or that he died at the hands of Tanacharison. Regardless, this incident was crucial in beginning the French and Indian War between France and Great Britain in North America in 1756.

During the French and Indian War, Washington saw action in battle at the Battle of the Monongahela. Serving as the chief American aide to the British General Edward Braddock, Washington rallied the British troops after an ambush by French and Indian forces left many of the British officers dead or wounded and the troops in a state of disarray. His bravery and the fact that he narrowly escaped the battle unharmed himself (he was shot four times through his coat and lost two horses from underneath him) helped to bolster Washington's reputation as a war hero. This resulted in Governor Dinwiddie appointing George Washington to Commander in Chief of the Virginia militia. He spent most of his efforts as commander defending the Virginia frontier from hostile Indian attacks. Although he lost many men as a result of these expeditions, he did succeed in making the Virginia frontier one of the safest among the colonies for settlers. Additionally, Washington served alongside the British army as the French and Indian conflict waged on. He was hardly successful in this, blundering his role in the Forbes Expedition to capture the western French Fort Duquesne. He unwittingly led his troops to open fire on a British unit, leading to casualties from friendly fire. George Washington resigned from the Virginia militia after this mistake, but still learned much from his early experiences in war, particularly the tactics of the British military with their strengths and weaknesses. Additionally, many of Washington's later political views were first birthed during this time in his life: he recognized the need for a strong central government that had the ability to act quickly and definitively. Based on this belief, he would later come to espouse the political views of the Federalist Party.

Following his service in the French and Indian War, Washington returned to civilian life with his marriage to Martha Dandridge Custis, a wealthy widow. Not only did George Washington increase his wealth and the size of his estate with this marriage, but also he became a father to Mary's children John Parke Custis and Martha Parke Custis. George and Martha never had any children of their own. Washington acquired even more land because of his service in the French and Indian War; Governor Dinwiddie awarded over 20,000 acres of land in the Ohio territory to George Washington. With this significant increase in land and wealth, Washington rose in Virginian society to the level of an aristocrat and became involved in local politics as a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1758.

Washington's involvement in politics, however, soon landed him back on the battlefield. After actively opposing the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts, Washington drew up a proposal to boycott British goods until the repeal of these unfair taxes on the American colonies. Soon, the fighting with Great Britain became more than political. During the summer of 1775, Washington was appointed the Commander in Chief of the Continental Army by the American colonies' legislative body, the Continental Congress. As Commander in Chief, Washington was responsible for leading the Continental army, training the army, and serving as the public face of the American Revolution.

The American War for Independence began with the two skirmishes at Lexington and Concord. Washington was not directly involved in these preliminary battles, as he became Commander in Chief directly afterwards. Washington's time as the commander of the colonial forces was full of both victories and significant defeats. At the beginning of the war, George Washington drove the British out of the major city of Boston, but then lost the great city of New York shortly after. Following this great defeat, Washington gave life back to the colonial efforts by winning small battles at both Trenton and Princeton, New Jersey in December 1776. The next year, the British, under the command of General Howe, defeated Washington's army at Philadelphia and captured the city that served as the rebel forces political capital. This significant loss prompted several members of the Continental Congress to question Washington's competency as the leader of the Continental Army. Despite the doubts about Washington, enough support remained among the army and the political leaders of the colony for the commander to keep his title. The winter of 1777 saw the colonial army encamped at Valley Forge, where they suffered massive casualties, mainly from disease. Following this bitter winter, Washington followed the British army as they evacuated the recently captured city of Philadelphia to retreat to their stronghold at New York. Washington attempted to attack them at the Battle of Monmouth, but this proved to end in a stalemate. The winter of 1779-1780 was another difficult season for Washington and his men. Supplies ran scarce once again, and the treason committed by Benedict Arnold became public. However, the next summer proved to be more successful. Aided by their ally France with both ground troops and a naval force, George Washington delivered a decisive victory over the British in the Battle of Yorktown. A formal peace treaty was not signed until September 1783, the Treaty of Paris. Shortly thereafter, Washington retired to his estate in Mount Vernon, Virginia to attend to his lands and farms.

George Washington's retirement was brief, as he was called to the Constitutional Convention to assist in crafting a government for the newly independent colonies. Serving as the president of the Convention, he strongly disapproved of the proposed Articles of Confederation, claiming that they would establish a weak central government for the new nation. Following the ratification of the Constitution (the replacement for the Articles of Confederation), George Washington was unanimously elected as the first President of the United States of America in 1789. He reluctantly was elected to a second term in 1792. As the first U.S. President, George Washington set many precedents: he opted to serve only two terms, he removed all royal "flair" from the office of President, he initiated public addresses to Congress, and he formed a cabinet of personal advisers to assist him in making leadership decisions. Additionally, he tended to favor and promote the actions of a strong central federal government. For example, in 1794, Washington sent state militias to suppress what became known as the Whiskey Rebellion, a protest to an excise tax on distilled spirits that had been implemented by Congress three years earlier. Both his show of force and his support of taxation by the central government proved George Washington's support of the Federalist principles of strong federal government. In foreign affairs, Washington adopted a policy of diplomacy and neutrality throughout his presidency. After the end of his second presidential term, Washington penned his Farewell Address, in which he urged the young nation to practice national unity, abide by the Constitution, uphold morality, and adopt international independence in foreign affairs.

George Washington retired to his Mount Vernon home once again in 1797 upon the completion of his presidency and political career. He devoted most of his time to caring for and expanding his estate. However, he did accept a military leadership position the following year as the senior officer of the United States Army as tensions with France heightened. On December 13, 1799, Washington came down with a severe sore throat and other cold-like symptoms. His symptoms rapidly progressed, and doctors were called to his aide at his home. A believer in the ineffective medical practice of bloodletting, in which a sick patient is bled in order to rid the body of disease, Washington allowed the three physicians attending to him to bleed almost half of his body's blood supply. When he died around 10:00 pm on December 14, it was most likely due to shock. George Washington's death was publicly mourned not only in the United States but also in several European nations. The legacy of George Washington is one that will not be soon removed from both the iconic and factual history of the U.S.A. From his title as the "father of his country" to his portrait on the American dollar to a monument constructed to his honor in America's capital city, George Washington was indeed "first in war-first in peace-and first in the hearts of his countrymen." Today, George Washington is recognized as the most admired U.S. president in history, along with Abraham Lincoln .

Biography of George Washington

By Mark Mastromarino

Surveying the Land: An Early Career for Young Washington

George Washington became the “Father of his country” despite having lost his own father at an early age. In 1743, when George was eleven years old, Augustine Washington died and left the bulk of his estate to George’s half-brothers. Lawrence inherited Little Hunting Creek plantation (which he later renamed Mount Vernon in honor of Admiral Edward Vernon under whom he had served in the War of Jenkins’ Ear), and Augustine, Jr., inherited the Westmoreland County plantation where George was born. George himself inherited the more modest Rappahannock River plantation where he lived with his mother and siblings, but this was not enough to maintain his middling status in the Virginia gentry. His half-brother Lawrence suggested that George enter on a career in the British navy, but George’s mother rejected the proposal. Instead, he was trained as a land surveyor, a profession of considerable importance in Virginia, where colonial settlement was pushing rapidly into the Shenandoah Valley and other parts of western Virginia.

Building a Record in the Military

Although Lawrence at that time possessed two of the great prerequisites of rising Virginia gentlemen-an inherited estate and impressive marriage connections-George enjoyed something more important in the long run: an impressive physique and the blessing of good health. Washington survived a case of smallpox while in the West Indies, thus acquiring immunity to the disease that claimed the lives of many colonial Americans, but his brother died in 1752 after returning from the Caribbean, probably of tuberculosis. Lawrence’s infant daughter, to whom he originally bequeathed Mount Vernon, died before reaching her majority, and in 1754 Washington leased the estate from Lawrence’s widow, Ann Fairfax Washington, who held a life title to it.

Washington’s burning ambition for personal distinction did not permit him to remain long content as a tobacco planter but compelled him to seek out honor on the battlefield. He persuaded the Virginia governor to appoint him to his deceased brother’s adjutancy in 1752, which came with a commission as major and an annual salary of 100 pounds. He later transferred to the adjutancy of Virginia’s Northern Neck and Eastern Shore with the responsibility of training the Northern District’s militiamen.

In October 1753 Washington volunteered to investigate reports of French encroachments on Virginia’s western frontier that threatened the interests of the colony’s great land speculators. Upon the return to Williamsburg of his small party from the shores of Lake Erie in January 1754, Washington received popular recognition through the publication of his detailed journal of the rugged four-month-long expedition. That May the tweenty-one-year-old became commander of the Virginia Regiment, raised to oppose the French in the Ohio Valley, and French retaliation for the attack on a small party across the Alleghenies provided his first defeat-the surrender of the hastily-constructed Fort Necessity in July 1754. Thus commenced the French and Indian War, the colonial phase of the Great War for Empire between the French in Canada and the British along the Atlantic seaboard and their respective colonists and native American allies. Washington learned much from the professionalism of British generals Edward Braddock and John Forbes under whom he served and earned a military reputation not only for courage and coolness under fire but also as an efficient administrator and a fair and able commander of men. He also developed a resentment of the British officials who denied him the regular army commission to which he aspired and proper respect for the contributions made by provincial troops in general and his Virginia Regiment in particular.

Love & Marriage

With his prestige enhanced by his military experiences and the potential of his land holdings vastly increased by bounties granted to officers and men of the Virginia Regiment (he owned 45,000 acres west of the mountains at his death), Washington returned to private life as a very eligible bachelor. On 6 January 1759 the twenty-six-year-old married Martha Dandridge Custis (1731-1802), the widow of Daniel Parke Custis, who had left her and their two children, John Parke and Martha Parke Custis, one of the greatest fortunes in Virginia. Washington was named their legal guardian two years later and devoted much time and energy over the next sixteen years managing the Custis estate. Also in 1761 he became the outright owner of Mount Vernon (which he expanded to about 7,300 acres by 1799) as his brother’s residual heir upon the death of Lawrence’s widow.

The master of Mount Vernon thus became one of the wealthiest planters in Virginia, and the next decade and a half of Washington’s life were probably his happiest years. Although he and Martha had no children of their own, the couple raised Martha’s children, and later two of her grandchildren, Eleanor and George Washington Parke Custis.

Washington’s domestic life was a full one. Virginia plantation lords not only supervised agricultural operations and marketed a staple commodity (Washington began to shift the Mount Vernon farms over from the traditional tobacco crop to wheat, for which he built his own gristmill), managed an enslaved labor force (in Washington’s case, of about 274 blacks), and provided sustenance, health care, and leadership for the entire plantation community. The deference that glued Virginia society together required gentlemen like Washington to manifest their social status by maintaining a lavish lifestyle modeled after that of the British landed gentry and aristocracy. Washington especially enjoyed the displays this entailed, such as renovating his mansion in the latest style and filling it with the finest furnishings, stocking his cellars with vintage Madeira, acquiring the best-blooded horses for his stables, keeping a deer park and riding to the hounds, conducting agricultural experiments, extending expansive hospitality to neighbors and strangers, and sacrificing some of his leisure time to serve in public office.

Politics & War

Washington was first elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1758 as a representative of Frederick County, and he was later elected by Fairfax County landholders, serving a total of sixteen years in the colonial assembly. From 1760 to 1774 he also sat as a justice of the Fairfax County court at Alexandria. In the imperial crisis of the 1760s and 1770s, he became an early advocate of the patriot cause. After Governor Dunmore dissolved the Assembly in 1774, Washington met with other disgruntled Burgesses at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg and adopted a nonimportation agreement. That same year he was elected by the first Virginia Convention as a delegate to the First Continental Congress, which adopted Virginia’s program of economic coercion against the mother country. In May 1775, less than a month after a shooting war commenced at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, Washington again traveled to Philadelphia to take his seat in the Second Continental Congress. When it adopted the New England militia army that was besieging the British Army in Boston in June 1775, Congress recognized Washington’s military experience and political trustworthiness by unanimously electing him its commander-in-chief. Washington arrived at Cambridge headquarters on 2 July 1775 and did not see Mount Vernon again for another six years, although Martha traveled to Cambridge that December and shared in her husband’s difficulties throughout much of the war.

Well-aware of military geography, Washington directly marched his army to New York City, correctly guessing it would be the enemy’s next target, and he also sent detachments to Canada in an unsuccessful attempt to secure the other end of the vital Hudson-Champlain corridor by which the British could effectively isolate New England from the other rebellious colonies. He learned from his errors in the New York campaign, in which his only success was to save the army from total annihilation, and brilliantly counter-attacked at Trenton and Princeton, New Jersey, in the winter of 1776-1777. Washington’s greatest achievement, however, was to hold his little army together over the next two years in the face of public apathy, marginal state support, inadequate Congressional assistance, and a series of logistical and military frustrations at Valley Force and during the subsequent Philadelphia campaign. Only successful diplomatic efforts enlisting the assistance of the French army and navy enabled Washington to mount a strategic offensive. At Yorktown in 1781 he completed a successful siege operation in the traditional European style and captured Lord Cornwallis’s entire army; he later celebrated in typical understatement by naming one of his favorite greyhounds after the earl. Like the Roman hero Cincinnatus, Washington bid farewell to his comrades in arms in 1783, resigned his Continental commission, and retired to private life.

First President of a New Country

Washington’s return to Mount Vernon was not permanent, however, for he soon realized that the mission he had set himself in 1775 was only half completed. America had won independence from Great Britain, but did not achieve effective self-governance. According to a 1783 circular letter to the states, Washington felt that a respectable national existence required an indissoluble union of the states under one federal head, a sacred regard for public justice, the establishment of proper national defense, and the suppression of local prejudices. During the Revolution, the government under the Articles of Confederation was barely able to provide for the common defense, and after the war it failed to ensure domestic tranquility, especially in rural New England, where armed insurgents closed the Massachusetts courts. Washington lent the great military and political prestige he had gained as commander-in-chief to the cause of forming a more perfect union that would secure the blessings of liberty for which he had fought and so many had died.

The meeting of joint commissioners for Virginia and Maryland at Mount Vernon to work out a code for use of the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River (Washington had long been a proponent of canalizing the latter to create a water route to the interior), led to the Annapolis Convention of 1786, called to discuss regulation of interstate commerce. In 1787 Washington was chosen as a Virginia delegate to the Philadelphia Convention that was to revise the Articles of Confederation. Against his wishes Washington was elected presiding officer. The resulting Federal constitution that was adopted in September 1787 did not bear much of his handiwork, but it breathed the spirit of his strong nationalism, and his reputation was tied to its success. Not very surprisingly, Washington was elected president after it was ratified and became the first executive officer to serve under the new government. The same rigorous sense of duty that saw him through the Revolutionary War compelled the fifty-seven-year-old Washington to take the presidential oath of office on 30 April 1789 in the new federal capital of New York City. Dignity, common sense, political acumen gained from twenty years experience, and a keen judgment of men’s characters and abilities were his chief assets in dealing with the new Senate and House of Representatives, establishing general precedent, and making appointments. He had a difficult time in finding qualified individuals to serve in the new federal judiciary, but the heads of the executive departments of war, state, and the Treasury, were men of talent, integrity, and even brilliance. The president supported Treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton’s fiscal program of federal assumption of state war debts and the creation of a national bank, both of which chiefly benefited the monied classes, as the only viable way for the United States to restore its national credit and assume its proper rank among the nations. Even before the end of Washington’s first administration, opposition coalesced around secretary of state Thomas Jefferson and his friend congressman James Madison. These Virginia gentlemen favored a states’ rights view of strict interpretation of the Constitution, domestic policies favoring the landed interests, and a foreign policy aligned more closely to France than Britain.

With growing polarization between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans, Washington’s sense of duty prevented him from retiring after a single term. One final time he postponed retirement and again put his personal prestige on the line for the sake of the nation. Although he was unanimously elected to a second term as president, the nation was anything but united behind him. The small and ill-supplied United States Army suffered two disastrous defeats against Northwestern Indian nations. America found itself caught between warring European powers as the French Revolution reached an international phase. At home, the president called out the militia to put down an uprising in western Pennsylvania against Hamilton’s new excise tax on distilled spirits. Democratic-Republican criticisms that he had become the head of a party instead of the nation boiled over in reaction to the treaty that John Jay had signed with the British and the Senate ratified in 1795. Although Washington himself was not satisfied with its terms, he was realistic enough to understand that it was the best that could then be negotiated and it did remove some major irritants from Anglo-American relations. In the face of growing newspaper attacks against him, which he tended to take personally, the president handed the reins of government over to his successor, John Adams, in the spring of 1797. Washington knew that his leadership was no longer indispensable to the survival of the nation, and he left as his political testament to the American people his Farewell Address, which was widely printed in newspapers and broadsides.

The Final Chapter

Only once more was the General called from his beloved plantation to serve the country. As war with France appeared imminent in 1798, President Adams appointed Washington as commander-in-chief of a new army, but the crisis passed before it was organized and raised. He had only a short time left to enjoy life at Mount Vernon, and Washington died with the eighteenth century. His end came suddenly on 14 December 1799 and the outpouring of grief over his death was widespread and sincere. By providing in his will for the freedom of his own slaves after Martha’s death, the master of Mount Vernon added one final private statement to his long and valuable public career. The nation would have to wrestle with the challenge of slavery, as well as all its other great challenges of the new century, without his guiding hand.

© The Mount Vernon Ladies Association

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Police fire 96 shots in 41 seconds, killing Black man during traffic stop

Dexter Reed’s mother remembers the last time she saw her son alive. “Mom, I’m going for a ride,” he told her, before heading out in the car that he had purchased just three days earlier.

Reed, 26, was killed that same day, when tactical-unit police officers fired 96 bullets at him within 41 seconds, according to Chicago’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability, or COPA, which investigates allegations of police misconduct and police shootings. “He was just riding around in his car,” Dexter’s mother, Nicole Banks, told Fox 32 Chicago on Tuesday, as she broke down in tears. “They killed him.”

COPA released video footage of the shooting Tuesday and said its investigation of the “officers’ use of deadly force” on March 21 remains ongoing, and that its review of the footage and initial reports “appear to confirm that Mr. Reed fired first,” hitting one officer while four others returned fire.

The Chicago Police Department told CNN that it was cooperating with COPA’s investigation and that it “cannot make a determination on this shooting until all the facts are known and this investigation has concluded.” The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post.

According to COPA, police stopped Reed “for purportedly not wearing a seatbelt.” In several body-cam videos, multiple officers can be seen exiting an unmarked vehicle and surrounding Reed’s car, which had tinted windows. The officers demand that he unlock and open the door, and not roll up the window.

“Upon stopping Mr. Reed, multiple officers surrounded his vehicle while giving verbal commands. When Mr. Reed did not comply with these commands, officers pointed their firearms at Mr. Reed,” COPA said.

Officers can be seen retreating as they ask Reed to exit the vehicle. Then, shots can be heard.

Reed can be seen staggering out of the vehicle before collapsing onto the road. As officers approach his motionless body, they can be heard telling Reed not to move. A pool of blood can be seen on the ground next to Reed as officers place him in handcuffs.

“Ultimately there was an exchange of gunfire which left Mr. Reed dead and an officer shot in the forearm,” COPA said, adding that a gun was recovered from the front passenger seat of Reed’s car.

Andrew M. Stroth, the family’s attorney, said Tuesday that the plainclothes officers “did not announce they were police officers.” The footage shows many officers in plainclothes, with some wearing vests with the word “police” on them.

According to COPA, police continued to shoot at Reed after he left his car and fell to the ground. The agency noted that Reed was “struck by gunfire multiple times and was transported to the hospital and later pronounced deceased.”

Stroth described Reed as a star athlete who “enjoyed playing hoops,” and loved to cook and spend time with his family. He called on Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson to “disband these tactical units that have been terrorizing communities.”

Johnson said Tuesday that he was aware that the footage was “extremely painful and traumatic” and that the officers involved in the fatal shooting have been placed on a 30-day administrative leave.

“As mayor and as a father raising a family, including two Black boys on the west side of Chicago, I am personally devastated to see yet another young Black man lose his life during an interaction with the police,” Johnson said.

Johnson said that he had spoken with Reed’s family over the weekend and that he was committed to a “transparent” investigation.

Stroth called on Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx to “move swiftly to get justice” for the Reed family and said “the people of Chicago deserve to have awareness and full knowledge of police shootings.”

In a statement Tuesday, Foxx said “it is imperative that we let the investigation take its course.” “Be assured, our commitment to finding justice for everyone involved is unwavering,” she said.

“If you didn’t stop my nephew, he will be alive today,” Reed’s uncle told CNN on Tuesday.

Reed’s death has once again reignited debate and anger over police brutality and excessive use of force in the United States, prompting protests outside a Chicago police station this week, with activists, residents and family members calling for justice.

There have been at least 9,497 fatal police shootings in the United States since 2015, according to The Post’s database . In the past 12 months, at least 1,116 people have been shot and killed by police.

Police killings of Black Americans including Tyre Nichols , Breonna Taylor and George Floyd have prompted protests and a racial reckoning that translated into hundreds of bills aimed at curtailing law enforcement powers and reshaping policing.

“How many more young Black and Brown men need to die before this city will change?” Stroth said.