The Wonderful Story of Washington Part 1

The Wonderful Story of Washington.

by Charles M. Stevens.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS

I. AMERICAN PATRIOTISM AND THE MEANING OF AMERICA

"America for Americans" is a patriotic appeal that has arisen in many a political crisis, and then gone to pieces in the confusions of what we mean by "Americans" and "America." American Liberty has been a G.o.ddess of worship from the beginning, and yet we find ourselves in an endless turmoil concerning what we mean by "American liberty."

Washington and his a.s.sociate patriots wrote a great definition in history and established that definition in the Declaration of Independence and the Const.i.tution of the United States, but human meaning, like the skies, seems hard to get clear and to keep clear. To know clearly what the definition of freedom means and to promote it in the right-minded way, is the patriotism that identifies anyone anywhere as being American. The makers of America loved the right-minded way, and their primary test of justice unfailingly required, as a basis, the personal liberty that has been described to us by all as freedom to do the right that wrongs no one. To these "rights of man," they gave "the last full measure of devotion," as Lincoln defined patriotism, for "the birth of a new freedom under G.o.d."

The public-school youth, who is not in one way or another familiar with the Americanism of Washington and Lincoln, is not yet prepared either for college or for life, and, still more clearly, is not prepared to be an American. The number of un-Americans in America may, in some crisis, become appalling, if, in fact, they do not succeed in Europeanizing America. Against that possibility there is nothing to save us, if we do not save ourselves as our hereditary task of American patriotism.

Washington and Lincoln are the two incomparable constructive ideals of American liberty and manhood. The two lives together complete the meaning of America. Washington began his life with a super-abundance of everything aristocratic in his age. Lincoln began his life in worldly nothingness that had indeed nothing for him but the democratic wilderness till he became a man. And yet both became the same great soul in the same great cause, the maker and preserver of American civilization, as the moral law of man and G.o.d.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Birthplace of George Washington--Bridges Creek, Westmoreland Co., Virginia.]

American life and its ideal humanity cannot be understood by American youth until the wonderful character and struggle of these two supremely typical Americans are understood as the expression of the meaning of America, and even no less as a meaning for the world.

The Great Teacher said, "Greater love hath no man than this, that he will lay down his life for a friend," and no man on earth has a greater friend than the America of Washington and Lincoln.

II. WASHINGTON'S EARLY SURROUNDINGS

We cannot think with a true vision, in estimating the meaning of colonial and revolutionary days, if we allow the glamor of fame and the idolatry of colonial patriotism to obscure our view of those times. There were heroes immortal with what we know as "the spirit of '76," but, grading from them were the good, bad and indifferent, that often seemed overwhelming in numbers.

George Washington is known chiefly through the rather stilted style of writing that then prevailed, and the puritanic expressions that were used in describing commendable conduct. Even Washington's writings were edited so as not to offend sensitive ears, and so as not to give an impression to the reader different from the idealized orthodox character of that severe pioneer civilization. The people were free in everything but social expression. That was sternly required to conform to a rigid puritanic or cavalier standard.

Washington, more than any other great man, seems to have composed his early life from what some well-meaning reformers have termed "copy-book morality;" that is, proverbial morality or personal rules of conduct. Washington in his boyhood wrote out many moral sentences as reminders for his own guidance. He was a persistent searcher after the right way toward the right life.

Washington's mother is described as being stern in business and moral discipline, even as having a violent temper and being capable of very severe measures to accomplish needed results. It seems that Washington, seeing this method in both father and mother, reinforced, as it were, by the military bearing of his much-admired elder half-brother, took that form of life as his earliest ideal. He was as tireless in perfecting models of business and life as Lincoln was in mastering the unconventional meaning of human beings. Washington at the ages of eleven and twelve delighted to copy various book-keeping forms and mercantile doc.u.ments. His school books at that age are still preserved and they are models of accuracy and neatness. Besides that, he loved to discipline himself. He was always subjecting himself, either mentally or physically, to some kind of orderly training.

For one who was destined to have such a leading part in framing a new nation for a new world, such a making of mind seems to have been just the thing for that great task.

He enjoyed a great local reputation as the boy who could ride any horse in that county, and who could throw a stone across the Rappahannock. He was a leader in every group of boys to which he came.

He drilled them in military parades and umpired them in their disputes and games. Students of the mind-making process have much to consider in the comparison and a.n.a.logy of a boy being first military chieftain to his playmates, and then step by step, the legislator, judge and chief executive in their political affairs, with the generalship of a revolution for national independence, and the statesmanship of a new empire built in the cause of humanity.

CHAPTER II

THE BOY WITH A WILL AND A WAY

I. EARLY CIRc.u.mSTANCES OF THE FIRST AMERICAN HERO 1732

George Washington has his place in American history, not only as being the great commander-in-chief of the American revolutionary army, but as being no less influential and powerful as a political leader and constructive American statesman. He was born February 22, 1732, in one of the wealthiest and most cultured homes in America. From the front door of his father's house, on the estate that was a few years later named Mount Vernon, could be seen many miles of the Potomac River, and a wide sweep of the sh.o.r.es of Maryland. All that can enter into making life delightful flourished abundantly about the cradle of this child, and contributed toward his preparation and development for leadership, that was to produce a new power in the cause of human freedom for the world. There are easily seen many contributing interests that seemed to be carefully engaged in fitting him for the consequential task of taking the divine right from kings and giving it back to the people who alone have the right to the freedom of the earth.

Very soon after the birth of this child, the family moved to an estate owned by the father on the sh.o.r.es of the Rappahannock, across from Fredericksburg.

All traditions agree that the boy's father was exceedingly careful that his son should have his mind built up in the most gentlemanly honesty.

Somehow, as we trace the early lives of great men, that word honesty is always intruding as of first importance. In an age when so many men seem to arrive at riches and power through intrigue and the unscrupulous manipulation of means, the word honesty loses significance and is looked upon either as hypocrisy or a joke. And yet, such conditions fail and the success does not succeed.

George Washington was fortunate in his childhood protectors. Besides having his father and mother to take watchful care of his right views of life, there was Lawrence, fourteen years older than George.

Lawrence Washington was a son of their father's earlier marriage. He had been sent away to England to be educated and he returned when George was eight years old. He has been described as a handsome, splendid, gentlemanly young man. He dearly loved George and did all he could to give the boy his honorable ideas of social and political life.

In the midst of this fraternal interest, at the most impressionable age of a child, came a great military excitement. War for the possession of the West Indies was on between Great Britain and Spain.

Admiral Vernon had captured Porto Bello on the Isthmus of Darien, and the Spaniards, aided by the French, were preparing to drive the English out. A regiment was to be raised in the Colonies and Lawrence Washington was eager to become a soldier. Such was his father's position in Colonial affairs that Lawrence was given a Captain's commission and he sailed away in 1740.

The sound of fife and drum, with Lawrence's enlistment, doubtless excited the martial spirit in George, as is confirmed by many an anecdote, and started him on the way to that knowledge and training which fitted him to become the head of the revolutionary army.

Augustus Washington, George's father, died suddenly in 1743, at the age of forty-nine. He was estimated to have been at his death the wealthiest man in Virginia. At least he was able to leave an inheritance to each of his seven children, so that they were each regarded as among the most extensive property owners of that prosperous colony.

Lawrence inherited the estate on the Potomac, which he named Mount Vernon, in honor of his commander in the war with the Spaniards.

George was eleven years old when his father died, and he, with the other four minor children, were left with their property to the guardianship of their mother.

She was indeed the great mother of a great man. Her management morally and financially was conscientious, exact and admirable. George, being her eldest child, was always her favorite, but, with scrupulous care she served each as needed and with the unstinted affection of a n.o.ble mother.

II. A COMMUNITY PROUD OF ITS FAMILY HONOR

Lawrence Washington showed in many ways that he dearly loved his reliable, busy little half-brother. George spent much of his time at Mount Vernon. Lawrence had become quite an important man in the public estimation. He had what might well be called a princely estate, which he upheld in princely style, without offence to any one, and with the admiration of all the people.

Next to him, on the picturesque Potomac ridge, lived his father-in-law on the beautiful estate named Belvoir. This very honorable and high-minded gentleman was of an old aristocratic English family, and he was the manager of the extensive estates in Virginia of his cousin, Lord Fairfax.

George Washington grew up in these severely aristocratic a.s.sociations, in which the gentility had no sn.o.bbery and the cla.s.s distinction nothing offensive beyond the requirements of merit, culture and the manners of genuine gentlemen. Doubtless in admiration for the neatness, cleanliness, harmony and scrupulous morality of these beautiful homes, he was inspired to draw up his famous code known as "Rules for Behavior in Company and Conversation." We can easily imagine that the visitors he met at Mount Vernon and Belvoir were the very well-bred ladies and chivalrous gentleman of a courtly English period, among whom were mingled numerous heroic captains from the West Indies, whose chief topics of conversation were thrilling descriptions and stories of Pirates and Spaniards. Perhaps he was then receiving a vision of international affairs, from a world view, that was important to his mission in civilization, even as Lincoln learned his country's welfare in his struggle upward among the backwoods commoners of his times.

That George was greatly influenced by the warship heroes he met is shown by his eagerness to join the navy. Everybody seemed to think this was the thing for him except his mother. Even her firm decisions were at last overcome, a midshipman's place was obtained for him and his personal effects were sent aboard the man-of-war, but the mother could not say good-bye to her eldest son. She couldn't give him up and she didn't. It is hardly likely that the world, a hundred years later, could have known that there ever was such a person as George Washington, if his mother had not changed her mind and kept him from the boisterous turmoil of the uncertain sea. However that may be, he was sent to school instead of making a cruise in the West Indies. His study was mathematics and military tactics, the very thing most needed in the sublime undertaking that was to make his name immortal.

Strange to say, he was known as a very bashful boy. In fact, all through his life he was embarra.s.sed in the presence of ladies. A girl of his own age, who saw much of him when he was a boy, wrote in later life, that "he was a very bashful young man." She says, "I used often to wish that he would talk more."

That his emotional feelings were very early developed is quite certain from his own diary written at that time. He wrote, with the usual foolishness of a boy, about some unnamed girl with whom he was madly in love. He was for a long time exceedingly unhappy. Even his well-disciplined mind and his severe regulation of conduct were no proof against the turmoil of unreturned affection. We have never known anything about this beautiful lodestone that had drawn the heart out of him. He never described her or told who she was. It was probably merely a fancy ideal with which he clothed some one utterly impossible as a real friend or mate to him. Such queer freaks of interest have often happened to the emotions of a growing mind, and later, the victim wondered what was possible in the object to cause such feelings. In all likelihood, there was nothing in the object that should have caused anything more than a just admiration or respect.

But instead, the feelings caught on fire and had to burn out. So it was with Washington. As he was loyal to his ideals, even when they were merely fancy, foolishly wrapped about some inappropriate object, he remained devoted to his grief until years wore out the memory.

III. THE SELF-PITY AND SENTIMENTALISM OF YOUTH

Those who like their hero to be of chiseled marble may be shocked to think that George Washington, "the father of his Country," wrote pages in his journal of foolish love-sighs and more foolish poetry. He often bewailed his "poor restless heart, wounded by Cupid's dart," and wrote of this wounded heart as "bleeding for one who remains pitiless to my griefs and woes." That he never had a confidant to whom he could tell his sacred heart-burnings is indicated by the lines:

"Ah, woe is me, that I should love and conceal, Long have I wished and never dared reveal."

But such experiences let George Washington come a little closer to us as a real boy, and is consolation for many a man who had a like foolish spell in his youth.