Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Textbook George Washington A Life in Books 1St Edition Hayes Ebook All Chapter PDF
Textbook George Washington A Life in Books 1St Edition Hayes Ebook All Chapter PDF
Edition Hayes
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/george-washington-a-life-in-books-1st-edition-hayes/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
https://textbookfull.com/product/george-washington-a-life-
woodrow-wilson/
https://textbookfull.com/product/seaport-in-virginia-george-
washington-s-alexandria-1st-edition-gay-montague-moore/
https://textbookfull.com/product/seaport-in-virginia-george-
washington-s-alexandria-1st-edition-gay-montague-moore-2/
https://textbookfull.com/product/the-george-washington-bridge-
poetry-in-steel-michael-aaron-rockland/
A Colony in a Nation 1st Edition Chris Hayes
https://textbookfull.com/product/a-colony-in-a-nation-1st-
edition-chris-hayes/
https://textbookfull.com/product/washington-babylon-from-george-
washington-to-donald-trump-scandals-that-rocked-the-nation-mark-
hyman/
https://textbookfull.com/product/george-whitefield-life-context-
and-legacy-1st-edition-hammond/
https://textbookfull.com/product/the-transferred-life-of-george-
eliot-1st-edition-davis/
https://textbookfull.com/product/life-in-a-cold-climate-nancy-
mitford-the-biography-first-pegasus-books-hardcover-edition-
mitford/
GEORGE WASHINGTON
A LIFE IN BOOKS
GEORGE
WASHINGTON
A LIFE IN BOOKS
KEVIN J. HAYES
1
1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries.
1╇3╇5╇7╇9╇8╇6╇4╇2
Printed by Edwards Brothers Malloy, United States of America
for my parents
contents
Prefaceix
Acknowledgmentsxv
vii
viii Contents
Notes317
Sources367
Index371
preface
ix
x Preface
flapped and fluttered in the wind on that raw and gusty Christmas night
in 1776.
Next I told them about the brutal winter of 1777–78, the winter
Washington and his men spent at Valley Forge, a place I encountered
firsthand during a car camping vacation that took our family on a tour of
numerous battlefields and historic sites. The stone farmhouse at Valley
Forge where Washington made his headquarters stands out in my mind.
Having previously heard stories about hardship and privation and frost-
bite and starvation among the Revolutionary soldiers at Valley Forge that
winter, I found the farmhouse a little too cozy. At the time I wondered
why Washington was not sleeping in a tent like his troops. Later I was
relieved to learn that Washington did sleep in a tent with his men when
the Continental Army first came to Valley Forge. Though he enjoyed the
finer things in life, Washington had the sensitivity and the sympathy to
understand when it was time for him to make personal sacrifices and
suffer the hardships others had to suffer.
Long before our family vacation, Mom had urged us children to save
our allowances so we could afford a few special souvenirs. At the Valley
Forge gift shop, I purchased a small bust of Washington, which went on
my bookshelf after we got home. That boyhood souvenir sits on my desk
today. After telling this Australian couple about how Washington crossed
the Delaware one winter and spent the next at Valley Forge, my mind
went blank. I visualized that tiny bust of Washington back home, but it
was mute. After briefly mentioning Washington’s presidency, I just plain
ran out of facts.
Stalling for time, I took another bite of bickie. After chewing that
digestive biscuit once or twice, or maybe thrice, I suddenly remembered
the dollar bill in my wallet, the only folding money I had not converted
to Australian dollars. I took out the bill and used the engraved portrait
of George Washington on its obverse as an emergency visual aid. I spoke
of Washington’s meticulous dress and his concomitant sense of deco-
rum, his clenched lips and firm resolve, his calm eyes and penetrating
gaze. If this good-natured Australian couple noticed that I had stopped
providing them with facts about George Washington and started inter-
preting his portrait, they did not complain. They seemed genuinely
pleased with what I told them. By the time I finished, the sun had almost
disappeared below the horizon, and Washington’s face appeared hazy
in the dusk. Leaving their camper to return to my tent, now barely vis-
ible in the gloaming, I felt embarrassed that I could not say more about
the man known as the Father of His Country—the father of my
country.
Preface xi
the New York Public Library, the Virginia Historical Society—all hold
books from Washington’s library in their collections, most of which I have
examined.
Marginalia. With the notable exception of his copy of James Monroe’s
View of the Conduct of the Executive of the United States, Washington’s sur-
viving books contain little marginalia, but he did write in his books oc-
casionally. Most of the time he did so to correct typographical errors, but
sometimes his marginal notes reveal how he read. Occasionally his notes
in one book indicate other books he read. The fact that Washington wrote
in his books has gone largely unnoticed, because uncovering these notes
requires work that some find tedious. One must examine the surviving
books meticulously, turning over one page after another in search of the
slightest pencil marks showing that Washington did read the volumes
that bear his bookplate.
Library catalogues. Much evidence survives to identify books from
Washington’s library that do not survive. Mainly it comes in the form of
library catalogues. Washington himself compiled two such catalogues,
which not only list what books he had at Mount Vernon but also demon-
strate his level of bibliographical expertise. Lund Washington, his cousin
and plantation manager, compiled a list of books at Mount Vernon toward
the end of the Revolutionary War. Washington’s library was inventoried
with his estate after his death. When many of his books went up for sale
in the nineteenth century, the booksellers described them in considerable
detail. All these various catalogues provide much additional information
about Washington’s books.
Published writings. The story of the books in Washington’s life in-
cludes not only those he owned and read; it also includes those he wrote
and published. Washington was a reluctant author, but sometimes his
professional responsibilities compelled him to publish what he wrote.
Occasionally editors, both friends and enemies, took charge and edited
Washington’s writings, especially his letters, for publication. Several
chapters in the present work concern books Washington authored that
were published during his lifetime.
Correspondence. As a writer, Washington was at his best when he was
writing letters. Like any good letter writer, he shaped his tone and per-
sona to suit individual readers. Though he seldom discussed his reading
with his correspondents, sometimes he did provide bookish advice, espe-
cially when it came to recommending what military manuals to read or
what agricultural manuals were useful. Washington’s correspondence,
which fills dozens of volumes in the standard edition of his papers, con-
tains numerous references that shed light on his books and reading. His
Preface xiii
literary allusions are often subtle, and many of them have gone unnoticed
previously.
Diaries. Washington kept a diary through much of his life, but his in-
dividual diary entries are frustratingly brief. He says where he was and
what he did, but seldom does he reveal the inner man. He rarely mentions
what he read or what he was thinking. Every once in a while, he does
provide a tantalizing clue indicating the importance of one particular
book or another. In chapter 7, for instance, I reconstruct the story of how
Washington used a book of farriery in his library to try and save the life
of a favorite horse that had broken its leg.
Extracts, abstracts, and notes. Washington filled many blank quires of
paper with notes he took while reading. Some of these notes come from
practical manuals. Others come from books of history and travel. Several
of these notebooks survive at the Library of Congress. Amounting to a
total of nearly nine hundred pages, Washington’s manuscript notes supply
a wealth of information about his reading process. Other notebooks sur-
vive in fragmented form. The owner of one such notebook disbound it
and distributed its individual holograph leaves to friends. Now only three
leaves from the original notebook survive.
The image of George Washington as a man of letters is much different
from the accepted image of George Washington as a man of action. Like
any new interpretation, this new view may take some getting used to, so I
ask the reader’s patience and indulgence. The story of Washington’s intel-
lectual life can be quite exciting. So pour yourself a cup of tea, put some
bickies on a plate, settle into your favorite reading chair, and enjoy this
new take on Washington’s life.
Kevin J. Hayes
Toledo, Ohio
acknowledgments
xv
xvi Acknowledgments
1
2 george washington: a life in books
Sufficiency of a Standing Revelation does seem like a strange book for him
to be reading as a boy. By no means was it standard reading for Anglicans
in the eighteenth century.2 What was Washington doing with it?
Before answering that question, some quick background detail about
this book’s oddly named author: Offspring Blackall came to prominence
during a dispute with the Irish deist John Toland, whose appeal to reason
in matters of faith attracted the vanguard of the Enlightenment and
whose critique of arbitrary power foreshadowed the political thought of
the American Revolution. Men of the cloth were less enthused with
Toland’s forward-thinking ideas. When he challenged some ancient
Christian writings and thus implicitly questioned the Gospel, Blackall at-
tacked. Toland counterattacked. Blackall emerged from the fray with a
reputation for defending religion based on divine revelation, or, more
simply, revealed religion.
Blackall accepted an invitation to deliver the Boyle lectures in 1700.
Though Robert Boyle had made a name for himself with his scientific
experiments (think Boyle’s law), he was a profoundly devout man. As
people questioned religious dogma in the face of modern scientific discov-
ery, deism, which acknowledged the existence of God but followed no
particular religion, posed a danger to Christianity. Sensing a threat, Boyle
endowed a series of lectures to safeguard religious belief from scientific
empiricism. His lecturers sought evidence to substantiate the tenets of
Christianity.
The Boyle lecturers did not convince everyone. Benjamin Franklin, for
one, encountered some of their lectures when he was fifteen. Having
begun to doubt divine revelation, Franklin avidly read the lectures. He
had hoped they would quash his skepticism, but they had the opposite
effect. Franklin famously explained: “The Arguments of the Deists which
were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much Stronger than the
Refutations. In short I soon became a thorough Deist.”3
Franklin did not say which lecturers he had read, but it is plausible that
he read Blackall, who argued that the physical universe and the Holy
Scriptures together provided sufficient evidence to affirm Christian belief.
By the time Washington turned fifteen, the age Franklin was when he
read the Boyle lectures, he could read, understand, and make up his own
mind about what Blackall had to say. But what was a nine-year-old
Virginia boy doing with a book filled with these heady ideas?
Before he appreciated Blackall’s argument fully, Washington could put
the book to other uses. Books have many purposes that transcend their
texts. Autographing the title page of The Sufficiency of a Standing Revelation,
Washington took possession of this volume, branding it as his own.
Meditations and Contemplations 3
away from Appleby well educated and well mannered. Both contributed
to the library fund Yates had established for Appleby, which would help
make its school library one of the finest in Britain.8
Lawrence returned to Virginia when he was around twenty and George
was around six. Lawrence would prove a powerful influence on his half-
brother. The first of Mary’s children, George was born at the family home
in Virginia near Pope’s Creek, a tributary of the Potomac River in
Westmoreland County. Five more children would follow, four surviving
into adulthood. John Augustine, or “Jack,” born in 1736, would be George’s
favorite sibling. George remembered Jack as “the intimate companion of
my youth and the most affectionate friend of my ripened age.”9
In 1735 Augustine Washington moved his growing family to a plot of
land on Little Hunting Creek overlooking the Potomac. Lawrence would
name this property Mount Vernon after Admiral Edward Vernon, who led
the British expedition against Cartagena, the Spanish colonial port on the
northern tip of South America in what is now Colombia, during the War of
Jenkins’s Ear. (This Anglo-Spanish war is named for Robert Jenkins, an
officer in the British merchant naval service whose maiming rallied the
English in the face of Spanish bravado.) An officer during the Cartagena
expedition, Lawrence had participated as one of the leaders of a daring
nighttime amphibious assault. Once ashore, his troops attacked the battery,
spiked the cannon, and repulsed the Spanish troops defending the coast.10
Admiral Vernon, who planned the assault, thoroughly impressed
Lawrence Washington, who was proud to name his home after him.
Leaving Lawrence at Mount Vernon in 1738, Augustine Washington re-
located to a property on the Rappahannock River opposite Fredericksburg,
the county seat. Their home became known as Ferry Farm after the con-
veyance the Washington family operated across the river.
Augustine Washington was an educated man. He, too, had attended
Appleby School. Evidence of his reading is spotty. Only a few books from
his personal library survive. One is a copy of the second edition of Henry
Crouch’s Complete View of the British Customs—the standard work on the
subject, which people consulted as an official guide. Into his copy of
Crouch’s Customs, he wrote:
Augustine Washington
his Book bought the 4th of
May 1737
of the Bookseller under
the Royal Exchange. Cost
7/Shillings11
Meditations and Contemplations 7
"Miks'ei isä tuo hyvää leipää, en minä saa tätä syödyksi", kuului
taas lapsen itkevä soperrus.
Mikon käsi jähmettyi oven ripaan. Ensi kerran kävi hänen mielensä
synkäksi, toivottomaksi: hän ei parhaalla tahdollaankaan voinut
hankkia edes kunnollista leipää rakkaille omaisillensa, tämä koski
kovasti hänen lempeään, vaikka lujaan mieleensä.
"Onneton en ole niin kauvan, kuin sinä olet minulla", sanoi Kerttu,
"mutta sitä itkin, kun sinulla on niin paljo huolta, ett'ei yön lepoa!"
"Mitäs tänne tulit, kun kielsin", torui Maija, "ole täällä nyt susien
syöttönä!"
"Äläs nyt sentään niin kova ole, ettäs minun tänne susille jätät;
mistäs sitten luulet miehen saavas," jutteli Pekka.
"Olehan nyt", vastaa Pekka, "kun kerran kotia pääsen, kyllä siellä
pysynkin!"
*****
"Ja Mikko tarvitsee, hän teki työtä enemmän kuin muut! Nyt on
hän ollut kaksi vuotta poissa; sanotaan hänen käyvän koulua, mutta
mitä varten? Olisipa hän jo herra muutenkin?"
Näin puhui Pekka myöhään yöhön, siksi kuin uni viimeinkin lopetti
keskustelun.
"Jos vielä tässä tällä tavoin nostelemme kaloja jonkun aikaa, niin
pian rupee käymään kuin kaimamiehen Kristuksen aikaan; mutta
näkyyhän tuolla Suonpään Wilppukin ruuhinensa, kyllä se auttaa",
jutteli Pekka.
"Kyllä kai," sanoi Pekka, "mutta ei se ole niin vallan helppoa, sillä
teidän laatuisia miehiä hän ei kärsi; kuitenkin jos teillä on tupakkaa,
niin taitaa tuo olla mahdollista!"
"Tulenko mukaan, kyllä kai, eihän tuon ole niin kiirettä", mumisi
Wilppu. "Tupakoimaan, sanoi Pekka; niin kyllä, eihän olisi
hullumpaa.
Mistä lienevät veneesensä saaneet tuommoisen herra rentun? Kyllä
miesparat on huonoilla teillä!"
Mikko sillä välin haki tupakat ja tarjosi Wilpulle. Nyt rupesi ukko
koperoimaan housunsa taskuja ja löysi siellä mustan, varrettoman
nysän; sitte haki hän tulukset ja monen vaikean kokeen perästä sai
hän viimein palavan taulapalan piippunsa päälle. Vähitellen rupesi
ankaruus katoamaan ukon kasvoista, hän istui tyytyväisenä,
poltellen nysäänsä, ja unhottain raju-ilmat ja muut vastukset.
*****
"Niinpä niin, kyllä se niin on. Mutta totta se, vaikka minulle
tarjottaisiin talo töllipahastani, niin tuskinpa vaihtaisin!"