The True George Washington Part 2

On the frontier, towards the end of 1757, he was seized with a violent attack of dysentery and fever, which compelled him to leave the army and retire to Mount Vernon. Three months later he said, "I have never been able to return to my command, ... my disorder at times returning obstinately upon me, in spite of the efforts of all the sons of Aesculapius, whom I have hitherto consulted. At certain periods I have been reduced to great extremity, and have too much reason to apprehend an approaching decay, being visited with several symptoms of such a disease.... I am now under a strict regimen, and shall set out to-morrow for Williamsburg to receive the advice of the best physician there. My const.i.tution is certainly greatly impaired, and ... nothing can retrieve it, but the greatest care and the most circ.u.mspect conduct." It was in this journey that he met his future wife, and either she or the doctor cured him, for nothing more is heard of his approaching "decay."

In 1761 he was attacked with a disease which seems incidental to new settlements, known in Virginia at that time as the "river fever," and a hundred years later, farther west, as the "break-bone fever," and which, in a far milder form, is to-day known as malaria. Hoping to cure it, he went over the mountains to the Warm Springs, being "much overcome with the fatigue of the ride and weather together. However, I think my fevers are a good deal abated, although my pains grow rather worse, and my sleep equally disturbed. What effect the waters may have upon me I can't say at present, but I expect nothing from the air--this certainly must be unwholesome. I purpose staying here a fortnight and longer if benefitted."

After writing this, a relapse brought him "very near my last gasp. The indisposition ... increased upon me, and I fell into a very low and dangerous state. I once thought the grim king would certainly master my utmost efforts, and that I must sink, in spite of a n.o.ble struggle; but thank G.o.d, I have now got the better of the disorder, and shall soon be restored, I hope, to perfect health again."

During the Revolution, fortunately, he seems to have been wonderfully exempt from illness, and not till his retirement to Mount Vernon did an old enemy, the ague, reappear. In 1786 he said, in a letter, "I write to you with a very aching head and disordered frame.... Sat.u.r.day last, by an imprudent act, I brought on an ague and fever on Sunday, which returned with violence Tuesday and Thursday; and, if Dr. Craik's efforts are ineffectual I shall have them again this day." His diary gives the treatment: "Seized with an ague before 6 o'clock this morning after having laboured under a fever all night--Sent for Dr. Craik who arrived just as we were setting down to dinner; who, when he thought my fever sufficiently abated gave me cathartick and directed the Bark to be applied in the Morning. September 2. Kept close to the House to day, being my fit day in course least any exposure might bring it on,--happily missed it September 14. At home all day repeating dozes of Bark of which I took 4 with an interval of 2 hours between."

With 1787 a new foe appeared in the form of "a rheumatic complaint which has followed me more than six months, is frequently so bad that it is sometimes with difficulty I can raise my hand to my head or turn myself in bed."

During the Presidency Was.h.i.+ngton had several dangerous illnesses, but the earliest one had a comic side. In his tour through New England in 1789, so Sullivan states, "owing to some mismanagement in the reception ceremonials at Cambridge, Was.h.i.+ngton was detained a long time, and the weather being inclement, he took cold. For several days afterward a severe influenza prevailed at Boston and its vicinity, and was called the _Was.h.i.+ngton Influenza_." He himself writes of this attack: "Myself much disordered by a cold, and inflammation in the left eye."

Six months later, in New York, he was "indisposed with a bad cold, and at home all day writing letters on private business," and this was the beginning of "a severe illness," which, according to McVickar, was "a case of anthrax, so malignant as for several days to threaten mortification.

During this period Dr. Bard never quitted him. On one occasion, being left alone with him, General Was.h.i.+ngton, looking steadily in his face, desired his candid opinion as to the probable termination of his disease, adding, with that placid firmness which marked his address, 'Do not flatter me with vain hopes; I am not afraid to die, and therefore can bear the worst!' Dr. Bard's answer, though it expressed hope, acknowledged his apprehensions. The President replied, 'Whether to-night or twenty years hence, makes no difference.'" It was of this that Maclay wrote, "Called to see the President. Every eye full of tears. His life despaired of. Dr.

MacKnight told me he would trifle neither with his own character nor the public expectation; his danger was imminent, and every reason to expect that the event of his disorder would be unfortunate."

During his convalescence the President wrote to a correspondent, "I have the pleasure to inform you, that my health is restored, but a feebleness still hangs upon me, and I am much incommoded by the incision, which was made in a very large and painful tumor on the protuberance of my thigh.

This prevents me from walking or sitting. However, the physicians a.s.sure me that it has had a happy effect in removing my fever, and will tend very much to the establishment of my general health; it is in a fair way of healing, and time and patience only are wanting to remove this evil. I am able to take exercise in my coach, by having it so contrived as to extend myself the full length of it." He himself seems to have thought this succession of illness due to the fatigues of office, for he said,--

"Public meetings, and a dinner once a week to as many as my table will hold, with the references _to and from_ the different department of state and _other_ communications with _all_ parts of the Union, are as much, if not more, than I am able to undergo; for I have already had within less than a year, two severe attacks, the last worst than the first. A third, more than probable, will put me to sleep with my fathers. At what distance this may be I know not. Within the last twelve months I have undergone more and severer sickness, than thirty preceding years afflicted me with.

Put it all together I have abundant reason, however, to be thankful that I am so well recovered; though I still feel the remains of the violent affection of my lungs; the cough, pain in my breast, and shortness in breathing not having entirely left me."

While at Mount Vernon in 1794, "an exertion to save myself and horse from falling among the rocks at the Lower Falls of the Potomac (whither I went on Sunday morning to see the ca.n.a.l and locks),... wrenched my back in such a manner as to prevent my riding;" the "hurt" "confined me whilst I was at Mount Vernon," and it was some time before he could "again ride with ease and safety." In this same year Was.h.i.+ngton was operated on by Dr.

Tate for cancer,--the same disorder from which his mother had suffered.

After his retirement from office, in 1798, he "was seized with a fever, of which I took little notice until I was obliged to call for the aid of medicine; and with difficulty a remission thereof was so far effected as to dose me all night on thursday with Bark--which having stopped it, and weakness only remaining, will soon wear off as my appet.i.te is returning;"

and to a correspondent he apologized for not sooner replying, and pleaded "debilitated health, occasioned by the fever wch. deprived me of 20 lbs.

of the weight I had when you and I were at Troy Mills Scales, and rendered writing irksome."

A glance at Was.h.i.+ngton's medical knowledge and opinions may not lack interest. In the "Rules of civility" he had taken so to heart, the boy had been taught that "In visiting the Sick, do not Presently play the Physician if you be not Knowing therein," but plantation life trained every man to a certain extent in physicking, and the yearly invoice sent to London always ordered such drugs as were needed,--ipecacuanha, jalap, Venice treacle, rhubarb, diacordium, etc., as well as medicines for horses and dogs. In 1755 Was.h.i.+ngton received great benefit from one quack medicine, "Dr. James's Powders;" he once bought a quant.i.ty of another, "G.o.dfrey's Cordial;" and at a later time Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton tried a third, "Annatipic Pills." More unenlightened still was a treatment prescribed for Patsy Custis, when "Joshua Evans who came here last night, put a [metal]

ring on Patsey (for Fits)." A not much higher order of treatment was Was.h.i.+ngton sending for Dr. Laurie to bleed his wife, and, as his diary notes, the doctor "came here, I may add, drunk," so that a night's sleep was necessary before the service could be rendered. When the small-pox was raging in the Continental Army, even Was.h.i.+ngton's earnest request could not get the Virginia a.s.sembly to repeal a law which forbade inoculation, and he had to urge his wife for over four years before he could bring her to the point of submitting to the operation. One quality which implies greatness is told by a visitor, who states that in his call "an allusion was made to a serious fit of illness he had recently suffered; but he took no notice of it" Custis notes that "his aversion to the use of medicine was extreme; and, even when in great suffering, it was only by the entreaties of his lady, and the respectful, yet beseeching look of his oldest friend and companion in arms (Dr. James Craik) that he could be prevailed upon to take the slightest preparation of medicine." In line with this was his refusal to take anything for a cold, saying, "Let it go as it came," though this good sense was apparently restricted to his own colds, for Watson relates that in a visit to Mount Vernon "I was extremely oppressed by a severe cold and excessive coughing, contracted by the exposure of a harsh journey. He pressed me to use some remedies, but I declined doing so. As usual, after retiring my coughing increased. When some time had elapsed, the door of my room was gently opened, and, on drawing my bed-curtains, to my utter astonishment, I beheld Was.h.i.+ngton himself, standing at my bedside, with a bowl of hot tea in his hand."

The acute attacks of illness already touched upon by no means represent all the physical debility and suffering of Was.h.i.+ngton's life. During the Revolution his sight became poor, so that in 1778 he first put on gla.s.ses for reading, and Cobb relates that in the officers' meeting in 1783, which Was.h.i.+ngton attended In order to check an appeal to arms, "When the General took his station at the desk or pulpit, which, you may recollect, was in the Temple, he took out his written address from his coat pocket and then addressed the officers in the following manner: 'Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray, but almost blind, in the service of my country.' This little address, with the mode and manner of delivering it, drew tears from [many] of the officers."

Nor did his hearing remain entirely good. Maclay noted, at one of the President's dinners in 1789, that "he seemed in more good humor than I ever saw him, though he was so deaf that I believe he heard little of the conversation," and three years later the President is reported as saying to Jefferson that he was "sensible, too, of a decay of his hearing, perhaps his other faculties might fall off and he not be sensible of it."

Was.h.i.+ngton's teeth were even more troublesome. Mercer in 1760 alluded to his showing, when his mouth was open, "some defective teeth," and as early as 1754 one of his teeth was extracted. From this time toothache, usually followed by the extraction of the guilty member, became almost of yearly recurrence, and his diary reiterates, with verbal variations, "indisposed with an aching tooth, and swelled and inflamed gum," while his ledger contains many items typified by "To Dr. Watson drawing a tooth 5/." By 1789 he was using false teeth, and he lost his last tooth in 1795. At first these subst.i.tutes were very badly fitted, and when Stuart painted his famous picture he tried to remedy the malformation they gave the mouth by padding under the lips with cotton. The result was to make bad worse, and to give, in that otherwise fine portrait, a feature at once poor and unlike Was.h.i.+ngton, and for this reason alone the Sharpless miniature, which in all else approximates so closely to Stuart's masterpiece, is preferable. In 1796 Was.h.i.+ngton was furnished with two sets of "sea-horse"

(_i.e._, hippopotamus) ivory teeth, and they were so much better fitted that the distortion of the mouth ceased to be noticeable.

Was.h.i.+ngton's final illness began December 12, 1799, in a severe cold taken by riding about his plantation while "rain, hail and snow" were "falling alternately, with a cold wind." When he came in late in the afternoon, Lear "observed to him that I was afraid that he had got wet, he said no his great coat had kept him dry; but his neck appeared to be wet and the snow was hanging on his hair." The next day he had a cold, "and complained of having a sore throat," yet, though it was snowing, none the less he "went out in the afternoon ... to mark some trees which were to be cut down." "He had a hoa.r.s.eness which increased in the evening; but he made light of it as he would never take anything to carry off a cold, always observing, 'let it go as it came.'" At two o'clock the following morning he was seized with a severe ague, and as soon as the house was stirring he sent for an overseer and ordered the man to bleed him, and about half a pint of blood was taken from him. At this time he could "swallow nothing,"

"appeared to be distressed, convulsed and almost suffocated."

There can be scarcely a doubt that the treatment of his last illness by the doctors was little short of murder. Although he had been bled once already, after they took charge of the case they prescribed "two pretty copious bleedings," and finally a third, "when about 32 ounces of blood were drawn," or the equivalent of a quart. Of the three doctors, one disapproved of this treatment, and a second wrote, only a few days after Was.h.i.+ngton's death, to the third, "you must remember" Dr. d.i.c.k "was averse to bleeding the General, and I have often thought that if we had acted according to his suggestion when he said, 'he needs all his strength-- bleeding will diminish it,' and taken no more blood from him, our good friend might have been alive now. But we were governed by the best light we had; we thought we were right, and so we are justified."

Shortly after this last bleeding Was.h.i.+ngton seemed to have resigned himself, for he gave some directions concerning his will, and said, "I find I am going," and, "smiling," added, that, "as it was the debt which we must all pay, he looked to the event with perfect resignation." From this time on "he appeared to be in great pain and distress," and said, "Doctor, I die hard, but I am not afraid to go. I believed from my first attack that I should not survive it." A little later he said, "I feel myself going. I thank you for your attention, you had better not take any more trouble about me; but let me go off quietly." The last words he said were, "'Tis well." "About ten minutes before he expired, his breathing became much easier--he lay quietly--... and felt his own pulse.... The general's hand fell from his wrist,... and he expired without a struggle or a Sigh."

III

EDUCATION

The father of Was.h.i.+ngton received his education at Appleby School in England, and, true to his alma mater, he sent his two elder sons to the same school. His death when George was eleven prevented this son from having the same advantage, and such education as he had was obtained in Virginia. His old friend, and later enemy, Rev. Jonathan Boucher, said that "George, like most people thereabouts at that time, had no education than reading, writing and accounts which he was taught by a convict servant whom his father bought for a schoolmaster;" but Boucher managed to include so many inaccuracies in his account of Was.h.i.+ngton, that even if this statement were not certainly untruthful in several respects, it could be dismissed as valueless.

Born at Wakefield, in Was.h.i.+ngton parish, Westmoreland, which had been the home of the Was.h.i.+ngtons from their earliest arrival in Virginia, George was too young while the family continued there to attend the school which had been founded in that parish by the gift of four hundred and forty acres from some early patron of knowledge. When the boy was about three years old, the family removed to "Was.h.i.+ngton," as Mount Vernon was called before it was renamed, and dwelt there from 1735 till 1739, when, owing to the burning of the homestead, another remove was made to an estate on the Rappahannock, nearly opposite Fredericksburg.

Here it was that the earliest education of George was received, for in an old volume of the Bishop of Exeter's Sermons his name is written, and on a flyleaf a note in the handwriting of a relative who inherited the library states that this "autograph of George Was.h.i.+ngton's name is believed to be the earliest specimen of his handwriting, when he was probably not more than eight or nine years old." During this period, too, there came into his possession the "Young Man's Companion," an English _vade-mec.u.m_ of then enormous popularity, written "in a plain and easy stile," the t.i.tle states, "that a young Man may attain the same, without a Tutor." It would be easier to say what this little book did not teach than to catalogue what it did. How to read, write, and figure is but the introduction to the larger part of the work, which taught one to write letters, wills, deeds, and all legal forms, to measure, survey, and navigate, to build houses, to make ink and cider, and to plant and graft, how to address letters to people of quality, how to doctor the sick, and, finally, how to conduct one's self in company. The evidence still exists of how carefully Was.h.i.+ngton studied this book, in the form of copybooks, in which are transcribed problem after problem and rule after rule, not to exclude the famous Rules of civility, which biographers of Was.h.i.+ngton have a.s.serted were written by the boy himself. School-mates thought fit, after Was.h.i.+ngton became famous, to remember his "industry and a.s.siduity at school as very remarkable," and the copies certainly bear out the statement, but even these prove that the lad was as human as the man, for scattered here and there among the logarithms, geometrical problems, and legal forms are crude drawings of birds, faces, and other typical school-boy attempts.

From this book, too, came two qualities which clung to him through life.

His handwriting, so easy, flowing, and legible, was modelled from the engraved "copy" sheet, and certain forms of spelling were acquired here that were never corrected, though not the common usage of his time. To the end of his life, Was.h.i.+ngton wrote lie, lye; liar, lyar; ceiling, cieling; oil, oyl; and blue, blew, as in his boyhood he had learned to do from this book. Even in his carefully prepared will, "lye" was the form in which he wrote the word. It must be acknowledged that, aside from these errors which he had been taught, through his whole life Was.h.i.+ngton was a non-conformist as regarded the King's English: struggle as he undoubtedly did, the instinct of correct spelling was absent, and thus every now and then a verbal slip appeared: extravagence, lettely (for lately), glew, riffle (for rifle), latten (for Latin), immagine, winder, rief (for rife), oppertunity, spirma citi, yellow oaker,--such are types of his lapses late in life, while his earlier letters and journals are far more inaccurate.

It must be borne in mind, however, that of these latter we have only the draughts, which were undoubtedly written carelessly, and the two letters actually sent which are now known, and the text of his surveys before he was twenty, are quite as well written as his later epistles.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Easy Copies to Write by_. COPY OF PENMANs.h.i.+P BY WHICH WAs.h.i.+NGTON'S HANDWRITING WAS FORMED]

On the death of his father, Was.h.i.+ngton went to live with his brother Augustine, in order, it is presumed, that he might take advantage of a good school near Wakefield, kept by one Williams; but after a time he returned to his mother's, and attended the school kept by the Rev. James Marye, in Fredericksburg. It has been universally a.s.serted by his biographers that he studied no foreign language, but direct proof to the contrary exists in a copy of Patrick's Latin translation of Homer, printed in 1742, the fly-leaf of a copy of which bears, in a school-boy hand, the inscription:

"Hunc mihi quaeso (bone Vir) Libellum Redde, si forsan tenues repertum Ut Scias qui sum sine fraude Scriptum.

Est mihi nomen, Georgio Was.h.i.+ngton, George Was.h.i.+ngton, Fredericksburg, Virginia."

It is thus evident that the reverend teacher gave Was.h.i.+ngton at least the first elements of Latin, but it is equally clear that the boy, like most others, forgot it with the greatest facility as soon as he ceased studying.

The end of Was.h.i.+ngton's school-days left him, if a good "cipherer," a bad speller, and a still worse grammarian, but, fortunately, the termination of instruction did not by any means end his education. From that time there is to be noted a steady improvement in both these failings.

Pickering stated that "when I first became acquainted with the General (in 1777) his writing was defective in grammar, and even spelling, owing to the insufficiency of his early education; of which, however, he gradually got the better in the subsequent years of his life, by the official perusal of some excellent models, particularly those of Hamilton; by writing with care and patient attention; and reading numerous, indeed mult.i.tudes of letters to and from his friends and correspondents. This obvious improvement was begun during the war." In 1785 a contemporary noted that "the General is remarked for writing a most elegant letter,"

adding that, "like the famous Addison, his writing excells his speaking,"

and Jefferson said that "he wrote readily, rather diffusely, in an easy and correct style. This he had acquired by conversation with the world, for his education was merely reading, writing and common arithmetic, to which he added surveying at a later day."

There can be no doubt that Was.h.i.+ngton felt his lack of education very keenly as he came to act upon a larger sphere than as a Virginia planter.

"I am sensible," he wrote a friend, of his letters, "that the narrations are just, and that truth and honesty will appear in my writings; of which, therefore, I shall not be ashamed, though criticism may censure my style."

When his secretary suggested to him that he should write his own life, he replied, "In a former letter I informed you, my dear Humphreys, that if I had _talents_ for it, I have not leisure to turn my thoughts to Commentaries. A consciousness of a defective education, and a certainty of the want of time, unfit me for such an undertaking." On being pressed by a French comrade-in-arms to pay France a visit, he declined, saying, "Remember, my good friend, that I am unacquainted with your language, that I am too far advanced in years to acquire a knowledge of it, and that, to converse through the medium of an interpreter upon common occasions, especially with the Ladies, must appear so extremely awkward, insipid, and uncouth, that I can scarce bear it in idea."

In 1788, without previous warning, he was elected chancellor of William and Mary College, a distinction by which he felt "honored and greatly affected;" but "not knowing particularly what duties, or whether any active services are immediately expected from the person holding the office of chancellor, I have been greatly embarra.s.sed in deciding upon the public answer proper to be given.... My difficulties are briefly these. On the one hand, nothing in this world could be farther from my heart, than ... a refusal of the appointment ... provided its duties are not incompatible with the mode of life to which I have entirely addicted myself; and, on the other hand, I would not for any consideration disappoint the just expectations of the convocation by accepting an office, whose functions I previously knew ... I should be absolutely unable to perform."

Perhaps the most touching proof of his own self-depreciation was something he did when he had become conscious that his career would be written about. Still in his possession were the letter-books in which he had kept copies of his correspondence while in command of the Virginia regiment between 1754 and 1759, and late in life he went through these volumes, and, by interlining corrections, carefully built them into better literary form. How this was done is shown here by a single facsimile.

With the appointment to command the Continental Army, a secretary was secured, and in an absence of this a.s.sistant he complained to him that "my business increases very fast, and my distresses for want of you along with it. Mr. Harrison is the only gentleman of my family, that can afford me the least a.s.sistance in writing. He and Mr. Moylan,... have heretofore afforded me their aid; and ... they have really had a great deal of trouble."

Most of Was.h.i.+ngton's correspondence during the Revolution was written by his aides. Pickering said,--

"As to the public letters bearing his signature, it is certain that he could not have maintained so extensive a correspondence with his own pen, even if he had possessed the ability and promptness of Hamilton.

That he would, sometimes with propriety, observe upon, correct, and add to any draught submitted for his examination and signature, I have no doubt.

And yet I doubt whether many, if any, of the letters ... are his own draught.... I have even reason to believe that not only the _composition_, the _clothing of the ideas_, but the _ideas themselves_, originated generally with the writers; that Hamilton and Harrison, in particular, were scarcely in any degree his amanuenses. I remember, when at head-quarters one day, at Valley Forge, Colonel Harrison came down from the General's chamber, with his brows knit, and thus accosted me, 'I wish to the Lord the General would give me the heads or some idea, of what he would have me write.'"