George Washington
...knews’ ” (George Washington, Carrison 15). The year of 1752 was a hard year for Washington’s family. George contracted pleurisy, and Lawrence died in late July. Anne Washington remarried and moved away, leaving Mount Vernon to George. Already, by the age of twenty-one, George was a very accomplished and prosperous man. “He was the occupant and proprietor of Mount Vernon property, he had succeeded to one of the adjutant vacancies left by the death of his brother, and he was a county surveyor of proven ability and integrity”(Carrison 16). He also went the rank of major in the Virginia militia, which was when he began to take his military career seriously. Washington, only twenty-one, was the adjutant of the Virginia militia, whom was responsible for the discipline of the colonial troops, and instructing the militia officers and soldiers in the use and exercise of their arms. He received a salary of one hundred pounds a year for this job. George realized from not having any actual military service before, he would have to learn more about the art of war on his own, so he studied and he talked with men with military experience. Soon, the French and Indian War would take place where he would play a major role. In 1753, Great Britain’s Colonial empire lay along the eastern coast of America. The Indians and French however, both wanted new land and were trying to obtain it. There was threat to territory already claimed by England. These citizens wanted to send a message to the French. George saw this as an opportunity and duty, and he volunteered to take the message himself. Soon, Washington set out for the French fortification at Fort Le Boeuf, which was right near Lake Erie. Washington got a small group together for his journey, and they set out on horseback on November 15, 1753. “Their first destination was the settlement of Logstown, where Washington enlisted the services of a friendly Indian chief, Half King, to provide guides for the remainder of the journey to the French forts”(Carrison 20). He learned that four forts lay between New Orleans and Illinois. Half King and three other men joined Washington’s party to Fort Le Bouef, and December 11, they arrived at there. George Washington delivered the British letter and the French leader looked the least bit worried. Washington’s party observed the tents after the refusal and noticed that it looked like the French were preparing for movement. The party rushed back to Williamsburg to warn the governor of what they saw. Governor Dinwiddie selected Washington as second-in-command of the Virginia militia. Washington was to immediately raise two companies of troops and proceed into the Ohio country to reinforce another company already there. On April 2, 1754, Washington left Alexandria with about 150 men. They reached Wills Creek, on the Potomac River, and learned that the French had invaded a fort that Washington’s party was supposed to have been re-building. The French and British started to play a dangerous game with each other. Half King returned from a scouting patrol and warned Washington’s troops that a nearby French group was hiding and planning on attacking the English force. On May 27, one of the two groups fired the fist shot and shots after that where fired for a short while until the little skirmish was over. About ten of the French died and the rest of them were taken into captive. The French and English were down the path toward war once again and on July 3, Washington pulled his small force back into Fort Necessity (in Great Meadows, Pennsylvania) where he was overwhelmed by the French in an all-day battle fought in drenching rain. On July 4, 1754, Washington surrendered but was able to keep their arms to protect themselves against Indians on their returned back to Virginia. Discouraged by his defeat, he resigned his commission near the end of 1754. The next year, however, he volunteered to join British general Edward Braddock’s expedition against the French. In 1755, he was promoted to colonel and appointed commander-in-chief of the Virginia militia, with responsibility for defending the frontier. Before the next war that Washington was involved in, he was elected to the First Continental Congress in 1774 and the Second Continental Congress in 1775. He also played a role in the Intolerable Acts. During the time of the Intolerable Acts in 1774, Washington was attending the House of Burgesses. When the news that the Boston port was being shut down, George adopted a resolution saying that the Boston Port Act was “a hostile invasion of Boston.” There were many other resolutions threatening to cut off all commercial intercourse with Great Britain if Parliament persisted in taxing the colonies without their consent. Though Washington disapproved of the destruction of the tea at Boston, he was in sympathy with the resolutions he signed. The Virginia House of Burgesses realized it would be useful to have a general congress, so on September 5, 1775 the First Continental Congress was formed. Washington played only a very minor part in this. On May 10, 1775, the grievances set forth in the petition to the king were not redressed by that date, so the First Continental Congress had to dissolve itself on October 26. The fighting at Lexington and Concord on April 10, 1775 made it a necessity for a Second Continental Congress. The American Revolution had just begun and one of the most urgent problems was to prevent the British from occupying New York. On May 15, a committee was chosen to deal with this problem. Washington headed this committee. Then on June 14, Congress took the first step to establish an army. George Washington was headed commander-in-chief. The other war Washington was involved in was the American Revolution. In June of 1775, he became the commander-in-chief of the Continental forces. Washington took command of the troops surrounding British-occupied Boston on July 3, 1775. In March 1776, Washington commanded Dorchester Heights and forced the British to evacuate on March 17. Then he moved to defend New York City against Sir William Howe. In 1776, he lost New York City to the British. Washington soon captured Trenton, New Jersey where he planned a brilliant attack in which his troops crossed the Delaware River on December 25, 1776 and surprised the predominantly Hessian Garrison. In June 1778, he attacked the British near Monmouth Courthouse, New Jersey. “Washington had grown enormously in stature during the wars” (http://sc94.ameslab.gov/TOUR/gwash.html 3). He learned to trust his own judgment. He soon developed what was his greatest strength in a society suspicious of the military-his ability to deal effectively with civil authority. In the battlefield, he relied on a policy of trial and error and became a master of improvisation. After the American Revolution, George Washington returned home. Since he was such a great commander of the Continental Army, the Continental Congress wanted George to be the first President. They elected him in 1789 but he wanted to help his country instead of being President. Finally he gave in and took the job. George left Mount Vernon on April 16 and took an eight-day trip to New York. There, he was elected into office on April 30, 1789. “Washington acted carefully and deliberately, aware of the need to build an executive structure that could accommodate future presidents” (Carrison 130). As thousands of admirers watched him at Federal Hall on April 30, he kissed the Bible and onlookers roared, “’Long live George Washington,’” and “’God Bless our President.’” A section from Washington’s First Inaugural Address of 1789 reads: Fellow Citizens of the Senate and the House of Representatives, Among the vicissitudes incident to life, no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the fourteenth day of the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my Country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the asylum of my declining years: a retreat which was rendered every day more necessary as well as more dear to me, by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my Country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens, a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence, one, who, inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpracticed in the duties of civil administration, ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies….. (Washington’s First Inaugural Address 1). In his first year, he was fortunate and did not face any major crises, which gave him time to proceed with necessary amendments to the Constitution to establish the federal court system and to give the parliamentary system of government a chance to overcome its growing problems. People, realizing they were participating in living history caused endless debates. George soon set up a workable Cabinet to help with these problems. He also chose a Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson. Washington chose Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Knox as Secretary of War, and Edmund Randolph as Attorney General. The Presidents own secretaries were Tobias Lear and David Humphreys. Working hard with his gifted advisors, he believed in a strong central government and soon proved to have and intuition for the feelings of the people. He kept informed of public opinion through the newspapers, or gazettes. “The Presidential residence at No. 3 Cherry Street was three-story brick hose near the Brooklyn Bridge” (Carrison 135). Washington soon moved to a bigger and better house at 39 Broadway. Here, he lived in high-style. “Mr. President” was now being paid $25,000 of an annual salary. During the summer of 1789, he became very ill with a large bump on hi...