Bruce Chadwick - The General and Mrs. Washington, The Untold Story of a Marriage and a Revolution (2006).pdf - American Studies - Scarlatti

GENERAL

The Untold Story of

A Marriage & A Revolution

Bruce Chadwick

the

Portrait of George Washington (1732-99) after a painting by Gilbert

Stuart (1755-1828) (oil on canvas) by Durand, Asher Brown (1796-1886)

The Marriage of Washington (1732-99) 1849 (oil on canvas) by Stearns,

Junius Brutus (1810-85)

Museum Purchase 1966

Internal photos used by permission as noted in captions

Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case

of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing

from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Published by Sourcebooks, Inc.

P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

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Originally published in hardcover by Sourcebooks, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Chadwick, Bruce.

The general and Mrs. Washington : the untold story of a marriage and a revolution /

Bruce Chadwick.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Washington, George, 1732-1799--Marriage. 2. Washington, Martha,

1731-1802--Marriage. 3. Married people--United States--Biography. 4.

Generals--United States--Biography. 5. Generals' spouses--United

States--Biography. 6. United States--History--Revolution, 1775-1783.

I. Title.

E312.19.C47 2006

973.4'10922--dc22

[B]

2006006324

Printed and bound in the United States of America

VP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

Author to Reader

Just before she died in 1802, Martha Washington burned the hun-

dreds of letters that she had exchanged with her husband George

during the Revolutionary War. No one knew why. Were the letters

too private? Was George, so careful in his public statements,

overly critical of others in that correspondence? We’ll never know.

The destruction of those private letters, which must have revealed

much about the Washingtons’ personal relationship, was a great

loss to historians and to the country. The letters surely would have

provided a more complete look at the way the mind of George

Washington worked during the Revolution and, just as important,

his concerns for his wife and family.

Washington, as the commander in chief of the Continental Army

and later as the first president of the United States, wrote thousands

of letters during his life and kept most of them. Just about all have

been published somewhere. The letters, in war and peace, helped

historians to construct a comprehensive portrait of him.

Martha did not write many letters. However, a lengthy study

of the letters written by her and to her, and about her by others,

enabled me to write a rather full description of the first First Lady.

(The term did not come about until 1849. Martha was called the

President’s Lady, or Lady Washington, but I use First Lady

because Americans are so familiar with it.) These descriptions of

her, and assessments of her inner strength and mercurial person-

ality, came from farflung sources—important figures such as

Thomas Jefferson, Abigail Adams, and an assortment of public

officials, newspaper editors, and foreign diplomats. But they were

also jotted down by unknown people—men who rode past her on

roads, little girls who rode in carriages with her, merchants, farm-

ers, and the many soldiers who met her during the Revolution.

Using all of these sources, I tried to write a biography of the Wash-

ingtons that not only established their place in history but also cap-

tured their personalities and the deep love they had for each other. I

tried to explain, too, what at first seemed unfathomable—the

iv The General and Mrs. Washington

extraordinary love of the American people for the country’s First

Couple. That is rather easy in George’s case because he was the

conquering war hero. Understanding the respect for his wife, who

led no charges and fired no guns, was much harder. In the end,

though, I think I did so by explaining the brand-new Americans of

the Revolutionary era. Americans were then, and remain today, a

people who admire men and women of great character and

integrity, men and women who risk all for freedom.

Such a couple was George and Martha Washington.

Bruce Chadwick - The General and Mrs. Washington, The Untold Story of a Marriage and a Revolution (2006).pdf

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