Washington, George 1732-99
1st President of the USA

George Washington was born in Bridges Creek, West-moreland County, Virginia, of immigrant English stock from Northamptonshire, and was the great-grandson of John Washington, who had acquired wealth and position in Virginia. George's father, Augustine, died while his son was still a boy, leaving a large family and inadequate means. George seems to have been a healthy, sober-minded boy, and the story of his honest admission to cutting down a cherry tree with a hatchet is probably the invention of his biographer, Mason Weems.

Augustine had married twice, and produced six children by his second marriage. In 1747 George went to Mount Vernon to live with his eldest half-brother Lawrence, who had received most of the Washington property. Here he had access to books, and came to know the Fairfaxes, the family of his brother's wife. He showed a talent for surveying, and in 1748 Lord Fairfax employed him to survey his property. Surveying alternated for a while with hunting; he learned, too, the use of arms, and studied the art of war. He accompanied Lawrence, who was dying of consumption, to Barbados (1751), and on his death the next year was left guardian of Lawrence's only daughter and heir to his estates in the event of her death without issue.

In 1752, on the deaths of Lawrence's wife and daughter, George inherited the Mount Vernon estate. In the same year, Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia appointed him to the staff of the local militia, and instructed him to warn off the French, who were encroaching on British interests in the Ohio Valley (1753). Washington made a long and hazardous journey to deliver the message, which the French ignored. The following year, promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, he drove them out of Fort Duquesne, but was himself later besieged and forced to surrender.

When the British general Edward Braddock arrived in Virginia, Washington joined his service with the rank of colonel. In 1755 Braddock was killed at Fort Duquesne; Washington saved the remnant of the British army and was put at the head of the Virginia forces (1756). In 1759 he married a rich young widow, Martha Custis (1732-1802), and the combined estates of Mount Vernon and of his new wife made him one of the richest men in the country. He kept open house, entertained liberally, led the hunting, and farmed successfully.

Washington also entered politics and represented his county in the House of Burgesses. When he showed an interest in the growing dispute of the colonies with the British Crown, he was chosen to represent Virginia in the first (1774) and second (1775) Continental Congresses, and took an active part in them. He was neither orator nor writer, but in plain common sense and in the management of affairs he excelled. As the one American soldier of national reputation, he was the inevitable choice as Commander-in-Chief of the colonial army (1775).

Washington set about an ambitious programme of recruitment and training, and under his leadership a half-armed body of men managed to coop up in Boston a well-equipped British army and to force their evacuation (1776); the retreat from Concord and the slaughter at Bunker Hill were largely due to the incompetence of the English commander. The only able English commander was Charles Cornwallis, and he was hampered by the stupidity of his superior. Following reverses in the New York area, Washington made a remarkable retreat through New Jersey, inflicting notable defeats on the enemy at Trenton and Princeton (1777). He suffered reverses at Brandywine and Germantown but held his army together through the winter of 1777-78 at Valley Forge, near Philadelphia.

France entered the war on the American side in 1778, and with the assistance of the Comte de Rochambeau, Washington forced the defeat and surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781, which virtually ended the War of Independence. Washington resigned his commission in 1783 and retired to Mount Vernon, where he sought to secure a strong government by constitutional means. In 1787 he presided over the convention of delegates from 12 states at Philadelphia which formulated the constitution; and the government under this constitution began in 1789 with Washington as first chief-magistrate or president. The new administration was a strong consolidated government; parties were formed, led by Washington's two most trusted advisers, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, whom he appointed as his Secretary of State and Treasury Secretary respectively.

In 1793 Washington was elected to a second term, but by this time considerable differences had developed between Jefferson's Democratic Republicans and Hamilton's Federalists. Washington tended to favour the Federalists; in the face of fierce personal attacks from the Republicans he retired from the presidency in 1797. He died at Mount Vernon on 14 December 1799. The federal capital of the USA, in the planning of which he was associated, was named after him.

Bibliography: J Alden, George Washington: A Biography (1984); M L Weems, The Life and Memorable Actions of George Washington (10th edn, 1962).