County, Virginia, on June 21, 1731, the daughter of John Dandridge, a

planter, and Frances Jones Dandridge, Martha was a rather small, pleasant-

looking woman, practical, with good common sense if not a great intellect.

At 18 she married Daniel Parke Custis, a prominent planter of more than

17,000 acres. By him she had four children, two of whom survived childhood.

Her husband died intestate in 1757, leaving Martha reputedly the wealthiest

marriageable woman in Virginia. It seems likely that Washington had known

Martha and her husband for some time. In March 1758 he visited her at White

House twice; the second time he came away with either an engagement of

marriage or at least her promise to think about his proposal. Their wedding

was a grand affair. The groom appeared in a suit of blue and silver with

red trimming and gold knee buckles. After the Reverend Peter Mossum

pronounced them man and wife, the couple honeymooned at White House for

several weeks before setting up housekeeping at Washington's Mount Vernon.

Their marriage appears to have been a solid one, untroubled by infidelity

or clash of temperament. During the American Revolution she endured

considerable hardship to visit her husband at field headquarters. As the

First Lady, Mrs. Washington hosted many affairs of state at New York and

Philadelphia (the capital was moved to Washington in 1800 under the Adams

administration). After Washington's death in 1799, she grew morose and died

on May 22, 1802.

MILITARY SERVICE: Washington served in the Virginia militia (1752-1754,

1755-1758), rising from major to colonel, and as commander in chief of the

Continental army (1775-1783), with the rank of general. See "Career before

the Presidency."

CAREER BEFORE THE PRESIDENCY: In 1749 Washington accepted his first

appointment, that of surveyor of Culpepper County, Virginia, having gained

much experience in that trade the previous year during an expedition across

the Blue Ridge Mountains on behalf of Lord Fairfax. Two years later he

accompanied his half brother Lawrence to Barbados. Lawrence, dying of

tuberculosis, had hoped to find a cure in the mild climate. Instead, George

came down with a near-fatal dose of smallpox. With the deaths of Lawrence

and Lawrence's daughter in 1752, George inherited Mount Vernon, an estate

that prospered under his management and one that throughout his life served

as welcome refuge from the pressures of public life.

French and Indian War, 1754-1763. In 1752 Washington received his first

military appointment as a major in the Virginia militia. On a mission for

Governor Robert Dinwiddie during October 1753-January 1754, he delivered an

ultimatum to the French at Fort Le Boeuf, demanding their withdrawal from

territory claimed by Britain. The French refused. The French and the Ohio

Company, a group of Virginians anxious to acquire western lands, were

competing for control of the site of present-day Pittsburgh. The French

drove the Ohio Company from the area and at the confluence of the Allegheny

and Monongahela rivers constructed Fort Duquesne. Promoted to lieutenant

colonel in March 1754, Washington oversaw construction of Fort Necessity in

what is now Fayette County, Pennsylvania. However, he was forced to

surrender that outpost to superior French and Indian forces in July 1754, a

humiliating defeat that temporarily gave France control of the entire

region. Later that year, Washington, disgusted with officers beneath his

rank who claimed superiority because they were British regulars, resigned

his commission. He returned to service, however, in 1755 as an aide-de-camp

to General Edward Braddock. In the disastrous engagement at which Braddock

was mortally wounded in July 1755, Washington managed to herd what was left

of the force to orderly retreat, as twice his horse was shot out from under

him. The next month he was promoted to colonel and regimental commander. He

resigned from the militia in December 1758 following his election to the

Virginia House of Burgesses.

Member of House of Burgesses, 1759-1774. In July 1758 Colonel

Washington was elected one of Frederick County's two representatives in the

House of Burgesses. He joined those protesting Britain's colonial policy

and in 1769 emerged a leader of the Association, created at an informal

session of the House of Burgesses, after it had been dissolved by the royal

governor, to consider the most effective means of boycotting British

imports. Washington favored cutting trade sharply but opposed a suspension

of all commerce with Britain. He also did not approve of the Boston Tea

Party of December 1773. But soon thereafter he came to realize that

reconciliation with the mother country was no longer possible. Meanwhile,

in 1770, Washington undertook a nine-week expedition to the Ohio country

where, as compensation for his service in the French and Indian War, he was

to inspect and claim more than 20,000 acres of land for himself and tens of

thousands more for the men who had served under him. He had taken the lead

in pressing the Virginia veterans' claim. “I might add, without much

arrogance,” he later wrote, “that if it had not been for my unremitted

attention to every favorable circumstance, not a single acre of land would

ever have been obtained”.

Delegate to Continental Congress, 1774-1775. A member of the Virginia

delegation to the First and Second Continental Congresses, Washington

served on various military preparedness committees and was chairman of the

committee to consider ways to raise arms and ammunition for the impending

Revolution. He voted for measures designed to reconcile differences with

Britain peacefully but realized that such efforts now were futile. John

Adams of Massachusetts, in a speech so effusive in its praise that

Washington rushed in embarrassment from the chamber, urged that Washington

be named commander in chief of the newly authorized Continental army. In

June 1775, delegates unanimously approved the choice of Washington, both

for his military experience and, more pragmatically, to enlist a prominent

Virginian to lead a struggle that heretofore had been spearheaded largely

by northern revolutionaries.

Commander in chief of Continental Army during Revolution, 1775-1783.

With a poorly trained, undisciplined force comprised of short-term militia,

General Washington took to the field against crack British regulars and

Hessian mercenaries. In March 1776 he thrilled New Englanders by flushing

the redcoats from Boston, but his loss of New York City and other setbacks

later that year dispelled any hope of a quick American victory. Sagging

American morale got a boost when Washington slipped across the Delaware

River to New Jersey and defeated superior enemy forces at Trenton (December

1776) and Princeton (January 1777). But humiliating defeats at Brandywine

(September 1777) and Germantown (October 1777) and the subsequent loss of

Philadelphia undermined Washington's prestige in Congress. Richard Henry

Lee, Benjamin Rush, and others conspired to remove Washington and replace

him with General Horatio Gates, who had defeated General John Burgoyne at

the Battle of Saratoga (October 1777). Washington's congressional

supporters rallied to quash the so-called Conway Cabal. Prospects for

victory seemed bleak as Washington settled his men into winter quarters at

Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, in December 1777.

"To see men without clothes to cover their nakedness," Washington wrote

in tribute to the men who suffered with him at Valley Forge, "without

blankets to lay on, without shoes, by which their marches might be traced

by the blood from their feet, and almost as often without provisions as

with; marching through frost and snow, and at Christmas taking up their

winter quarters within a day's march of the enemy, without a house or hut

to cover them till they could be built, and submitting to it without a

murmur, is a mark of patience and obedience which in my opinion can scarce

be paralleled." Of course, some did grumble— and loudly. "No pay! no

clothes! no provisions! no rum!" some chanted. But remarkably there was no

mass desertion, no mutiny. Patriotism, to be sure, sustained many, but no

more so than did confidence in Washington's ability to see them through

safely. With the snow-clogged roads impassable to supply wagons, the men

stayed alive on such fare as pepper pot soup, a thin tripe broth flavored

with a handful of peppercorns. Many died there that winter. Those that

survived drew fresh hope with the greening of spring and the news,

announced to them by General Washington in May 1778, that France had

recognized the independence of America. Also encouraging was the arrival of

Baron Friedrich von Steuben, who, at Washington's direction, drilled the

debilitated Valley Forge survivors into crack troops. Washington's men

broke camp in June 1778, a revitalized army that, with aid from France,

took the war to the British and in October 1781 boxed in General Charles

Cornwallis at Yorktown, thus forcing the surrender of British forces.

General Washington imposed strict, but not punitive, surrender terms:

All weapons and military supplies must be given up; all booty must be

returned, but the enemy soldiers could keep their personal effects and the

officers could retain their sidearms. British doctors were allowed to tend

to their own sick and wounded. Cornwallis accepted, but instead of

personally leading his troops to the mutually agreed-upon point of

surrender on October 19, 1781, he sent his deputy Brigadier Charles O'Hara.

As he made his way along the road flanked by American and French forces,

O'Hara came face to face with Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau, the

latter decked out in lavish military regalia. O'Hara mistook Rochambeau for

the senior commander, but the French officer quickly pointed to Washington,

and O'Hara, probably somewhat embarrassed, turned to the American.

Unwilling to deal with a man of lesser rank, Washington directed O'Hara to

submit the sword of capitulation to his aide General Benjamin Lincoln. In

his victory dispatch to Congress, Washington wrote with obvious pride,

“Sir, I have the Honor to inform Congress, that a Reduction of the British

Army under the Command of Lord Cornwallis, is most happily effected. The

unremitting Ardor which actuated every Officer and Soldier in the combined

Army in this Occasion, has principally led to this Important Event, at an

earlier period than my most sanguine Hope had induced me to expect”. In

November 1783, two months after the formal peace treaty was signed,

Washington resigned his commission and returned home to the neglected

fields of Mount Vernon.

President of Constitutional Convention, 1787. Washington, a Virginia

delegate, was unanimously elected president of the convention. He was among

those favoring a strong federal government. After the convention he

promoted ratification of the Constitution in Virginia. According to the

notes of Abraham Baldwin, a Georgia delegate, which were discovered only

recently and made public in 1987, Washington said privately that he did not

expect the Constitution to last more than 20 years.

ELECTION AS PRESIDENT, FIRST TERM, 1789: Washington, a Federalist, was

the obvious choice for the first president of the United States. A proven

leader whose popularity transcended the conflict between Federalists and

those opposed to a strong central government, the man most responsible for

winning independence, a modest country squire with a winsome aversion to

the limelight, he so dominated the political landscape that not 1 of the 69

electors voted against him. Thus, he carried all 10 states—Connecticut,

Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey,

Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia. (Neither North Carolina nor Rhode

Island had ratified the Constitution yet. New York was unable to decide in

time which electors to send.) Washington was the only president elected by

a unanimous electoral vote. John Adams of Massachusetts, having received

the second-largest number of votes, 34, was elected vice president.

election as president, second term, 1792: Despite the growing strength

of Democratic-Republicans, Washington continued to enjoy virtually

universal support. Again he won the vote of every elector, 132, and thus

carried all 15 states—Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland,

Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina,

Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, and Virginia. John

Adams of Massachusetts received the second-highest number of votes, 77, and

thus again became vice president.

INAUGURAL ADDRESS (FIRST): New York City, April 30, 1789. ". . . When I

was first honored with a call into the service of my country, then on the

eve of an arduous struggle for its liberties, the light in which I

contemplated my duty required that I should renounce every pecuniary

compensation. From this resolution I have in no instance departed; and

being still under the impressions which produced it, I must decline as

inapplicable to myself any share in the personal emoluments which may be

indispensably included in a permanent provision for the executive

department, and must accordingly pray that the pecuniary estimates for the

station in which I am placed may during my continuance in it be limited to

such actual expenditures as the public good may be thought to require. ..."

INAUGURAL ADDRESS (SECOND): Philadelphia, March 4, 1793. (This was the

shortest inaugural address, just 135 words.) "Fellow Citizens: I am again

called upon by the voice of my country to execute the functions of its

Chief Magistrate. When the occasion proper for it shall arrive, I shall

endeavor to express the high sense I entertain of this distinguished honor,

and of the confidence which has been reposed in me by the people of united

America.

"Previous to the execution of any official act of the President the

Constitution requires an oath of office. This oath I am now about to take,

and in your presence: That if it shall be found during my administration of

the Government I have in any instance violated willingly or knowingly the

injunctions thereof, I may (besides incurring constitutional punishment) be

subject to the upbraidings of all who are now witnesses of the present

solemn ceremony."

VICE PRESIDENT: John Adams (1735-1826), of Massachusetts, served 1789-

1797. See "John Adams, 2d President."

CABINET:

Secretary of State. (1) Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), of Virginia,

served 1790-1793. See "Thomas Jefferson, 3d President," "Career before the

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