III.

Early Career

A.

Militia Officer

Lawrence died in 1752. Under the terms of his will, George soon acquired the beautiful estate of Mount Vernon, in Fairfax County, one of six farms then held by the Washington family interests. Also, the death of his beloved half-brother opened another door to the future. Lawrence had held the post of adjutant in the colonial militia. This was a full-time salaried appointment, carrying the rank of major, and involved the inspection, mustering, and regulation of various militia companies. Washington seems to have been confident he could make an efficient adjutant at the age of 20, though he was then without military experience. In November 1752 he was appointed adjutant of the southern district of Virginia by Governor Robert Dinwiddie.

A.1.

First Mission

During the following summer, Virginia was alarmed by reports that a French expedition from Canada was establishing posts on the headwaters of the Ohio River and seeking to make treaties with the Native American peoples. Governor Dinwiddie received orders from Britain to demand an immediate French withdrawal, and Major Washington promptly volunteered to carry the governor’s message to the French commander. His ambition at this time was to secure royal preference for a commission in the regular British army, and this expedition promised to bring him to the king’s attention.

Washington took with him a skillful and experienced frontiersman, Christopher Gist, together with an interpreter and four other men. Reaching the forks of the Ohio, he found that the French had withdrawn northward for the winter. After inconclusive negotiations with the Native Americans living there, who were members of the Iroquois Confederacy, he pressed on and finally delivered Dinwiddie’s message to the French commander at Fort Le Boeuf, not far from Lake Erie. The answer was polite but firm: The French were there to stay. Returning, Washington reached Williamsburg, the capital of Virginia, to deliver this word to the governor in mid-January 1754, having made a hard wilderness journey of more than 1600 km (1000 mi) in less than three months. With his report he submitted a map of his route and a strong recommendation that an English fort be erected at the forks of the Ohio as quickly as possible, before the French returned to that strategic position in the spring.

Dinwiddie, who was himself a large stockholder in companies exploiting western lands, acted promptly on this suggestion. He sent William Trent with a small force to start building the fort. Major Washington was to raise a column of 200 men to follow and reinforce the advance party.

A.2.

Promotion

This was Washington’s first experience with the difficulties of raising troops while lacking equipment, clothing, and funds. Apparently he thought his efforts worthy of some recognition and successfully applied to Dinwiddie for a lieutenant colonel’s commission. He left Alexandria, Virginia, early in April with about 150 poorly equipped and half-trained troops.

A.3.

First Battles

Before he had advanced very far, Washington received news that the French had driven Trent’s men back from the Ohio forks. He did not turn back, but pushed on to establish an advanced position from which, when reinforced, he hoped to turn the tables. He set part of his men to work building a log stockade, which he named Fort Necessity. On May 27, 1754, he surprised a French force in the woods and routed it after a short battle. The French commander, Ensign Joseph Coulon, Sieur de Jumonville, was killed in the clash, and Washington took prisoners back to Fort Necessity. He had won his first victory.

The French, on hearing of Jumonville’s death, sent out a larger force. Unfortunately for Washington, these troops reached Fort Necessity before he had received either the men or the supplies he expected from Virginia. On July 3 the fort was attacked by the French and some Iroquois who had allied with them, beginning what would be called the French and Indian War (1754-1763). The fort did not have the soldiers or arms to hold out. However, the French offered surrender terms that were not humiliating: The Virginians were to abandon the fort and withdraw to their own settlements, leaving two hostages for good faith. Washington’s papers and journal were taken, and he was to sign a surrender document. Washington accepted the terms on July 4 after the surrender document was translated for him and did not appear to contain any offensive statements.

Back in Williamsburg, Washington had become famous. The victory over Jumonville was applauded, and he was not blamed for surrendering his fort to superior forces. The expedition was written up in a British magazine and thereby came to the attention of the king, George II. The magazine quoted Washington as saying that he found “something charming” in the sound of the bullets whizzing past his head at the Jumonville skirmish. At this the king remarked, “He would not say so if he had been used to hear many.”

There were two repercussions that caused Washington some regrets. First, he found that his translator had been mistaken. An accurate translation of the surrender document showed it to contain the phrase “assassination of Sieur de Jumonville,” implying that Washington had killed the French commander dishonorably. Secondly, the French published a translation of Washington’s journal. But it was heavily edited and the emphasis changed to make it appear that the French soldiers were merely on a diplomatic mission. Representatives of King George inquired into the matter but were satisfied that Washington had acted correctly. He was not held to account for the mistake of his translator.

B.

Aide-de-Camp

Washington had succeeded in getting the king’s attention, but he did not get the royal commission he hoped for. The king’s military advisers, while admitting his “courage and resolution,” believed that officers in the British regular army were better qualified to lead troops against the French. Later in 1754, the Virginia military was reorganized in accordance with that opinion, now made policy: Regular army officers coming from Britain would now have command over officers who held colonial commissions. This meant that Washington might find himself reporting to officers he outranked and who had less experience than he had. Finding that possibility intolerable, he resigned his commission. However, a strong British force under Major General Edward Braddock arrived early in 1755 with orders to drive the French from Fort Duquesne, which they had built at the forks of the Ohio. Washington’s local military reputation was such that Braddock invited him to join the staff as a volunteer aide-de-camp.

The advance was slow, and the British soldiers were not at their best in forest warfare. On July 9, 1755, the column was surprised and routed by the French and their Native American allies, only 11 km (7 mi) from Fort Duquesne. The British troops, in Washington’s words, were “immediately struck with such a deadly Panick that nothing but confusion prevail’d amongst them.” Braddock was mortally wounded. Washington did his best to try to rally the regulars and to use a few Virginia troops to cover the retreat. His coolness and bravery under fire enhanced his reputation.

B.1.

Militia Commander

The western frontier of Virginia was now dangerously exposed, and in August 1755, Governor Dinwiddie appointed Washington commander in chief of all the colony’s troops, with the rank of colonel. For the next three years, Washington struggled with the bitter and endless problems of frontier defense. He never had enough resources to establish more than a patchwork of security, but he acquired valuable experience in the conduct of war with the logistical and political problems peculiar to American conditions. In the fall of 1758 he had the satisfaction of commanding a Virginia regiment under British General John Forbes, who recovered Fort Duquesne from the French and renamed it Fort Pitt.

With Virginia’s strategic objective attained, Colonel Washington resigned his commission and turned his attention to the quieter life of a Virginia planter. In January 1759 he married Martha Dandridge Custis, a charming and wealthy young widow.

C.

Virginia Planter

As a planter, Washington showed eager interest in improving the productivity of his fields and the quality of his livestock. He read all available works on progressive agriculture and constantly experimented in crop rotation. He invested in new implements and used new methods and fertilizers. He found that planting only tobacco, the chief cash crop of Virginia, did not pay. It was too dependent on the weather, the state of the British market, and the honesty of the British agents who managed the overseas end of the transactions. He developed fisheries, increased his production of wheat, set up a mill and an ironworks, and taught his slaves cloth-weaving and other handicrafts.

C.1.

The Mature Washington

During his years as a gentleman farmer, Washington matured from an ambitious youth into the patriarch of the Washington clan and a solid member of Virginia society. He remained somewhat shy and reserved throughout his life. He was sensitive and emotional, with a violent temper that he usually held firmly in check. But most of all he was a man of great personal dignity. His connection with the wealthy and powerful Fairfax family, through his half-brother Lawrence’s marriage, perhaps as much as his own energies, made him a wealthy landowner and, from 1759 to 1774, a member of the House of Burgesses, the lower chamber of the Virginia legislature. In all, as Washington prospered and his responsibilities grew, his character was enriched and grew to keep pace.

Washington’s perspective broadened, and he became involved in the protests of Virginians against the restrictions of British rule. He became yearly more convinced that the king’s ministers and British merchants and financiers regarded Americans as inferior and sought to control “our whole substance.” His wartime experience had given him ample evidence of the contempt felt by British military men for colonial officers. Now he began to see the deepening division between the true interests of the American people and the view held of those interests in Britain. As a member of the House of Burgesses he opposed such measures as the 1765 Stamp Act, which imposed a tax on the colonies without consulting them, and he foresaw that British policy was moving toward doing away with self-government in America altogether.

Washington’s anti-British feelings were strengthened by the introduction of the Townshend Acts in 1767. These acts imposed more unpopular taxes. His voice joined in Virginia’s decision in 1770 to retaliate by banning taxable British goods from the colony. His belief in the colonies’ right of free action resounds in his words written to Virginia statesman George Mason: “... as a last resource ...Americans should be prepared to take up arms to defend their ancestral liberties from the inroads of our lordly Masters in Great Britain.”

C.2.

Political Leader

By 1774, when the spirit of American resistance was well developed, Washington had become one of the key Virginians supporting the colonial cause. He was elected to the First Continental Congress, an assembly of delegates from the colonies to decide on actions to take against Britain. Although he did not enter much into debate, his viewpoint was uniformly sound and acceptable. However, he knew that more than paper resolutions would be needed to safeguard American liberties, and he spent the winter of 1774 and 1775 organizing militia companies in Virginia.

When Washington attended the Second Continental Congress in May 1775, he appeared in the blue and buff uniform of the Fairfax County militia. These colors were later adopted for the army of the colonies, called the Continental Army. As he entered the hall, the country was already ringing with the news from Massachusetts, where the battles at Lexington and Concord had been fought, and the only British army in the colonies was besieged in Boston by the militia of the surrounding towns (see American Revolution).