May 16, 2025 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, aside from the cherry tree legend, which, of course, isn't true, most of us don't know much about George Washington. To many, he's just a man peering at us from a dollar bill or a figure carved in marble. Here's the definitive story of the most important man in American history.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habeeb, and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people coming to you from where the West begins in
Fort Worth, Texas asign from the Cherry Tree legend, which
of course isn't true. Most of us don't know much
about George Washington. To many, he's just a man peering
(00:31):
at us from a dollar bill or a figure carved
in marble. What we're about to do is take a
look at the flesh and blood man behind the graven image.
Narrating this story is veteran actor James O'Connor, who starred
as Tommy Bones on TV's Gotham and appears regularly on
Law and Order. In this segment, we'll be hearing from
(00:52):
Don Higginbotham, author of George Washington Uniting a Nation. Let's
take a listen.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
The poet Robert Frost once remarked that George Washington was
one of the few in the whole history of the
world who was not carried away by power. Washington could
have become King of America if he wanted to. Instead,
America's first general became the United States first two term
civilian president, something a world familiar only with hereditary monarchs,
(01:28):
had never seen Napoleon. As he lay dying on the
island of Saint Helena, condemned for having seized the power
of an emperor, complained that his critics wanted me to
be another Washington. Underneath the man who has become namesake
to thousands of small towns, high schools, the nation's capital,
(01:49):
and the forty second state, whose image is reproduced endlessly
on coins, currency and stamps, and a huge bust carved
into a South Dakota mountain, we find a man seeking
to belong, longing for acceptance and respect. Parson Mason Weems,
an episcopal clergyman and sometime bookseller, is the source of
(02:13):
some of those pious stories about George Washington, like chopping
down his father's cherry tree. The real George Washington is
born in a modest farmhouse in northern Virginia on February
twenty second, seventeen thirty two, the first child of a
middle aged father and a second wife in the mid
(02:33):
eighteenth century. Virginia is a province of the British Empire.
Its sparse population of mostly British descent see themselves as Englishmen,
subjects of the King, but the British see Virginians as
crude colonists, second class in every way. Washington's father, Augustine
dies when he is eleven. George inherits a farmhouse left
(02:56):
in trust to his mother Mary, but the bulk of
Augustine Washington's state, including the sizeable plantation at Mount Vernon,
goes to his older half brother Lawrence. Unlike Lawrence, who's
educated in England, George's formal education ends when he is fourteen.
Lawrence convinces Mary Washington to send George to him so
(03:17):
that he can teach the boy the ways of society.
As George's surrogate father, Lawrence offers guidance and contact with
the wealthiest and most prominent family in Virginia, the Fairfax family,
which he has married into. The rough young man learns
his social graces by quietly watching and imitating those in
(03:39):
Lawrence's charmed circle. Acutely aware of his own lack of sophistication,
fearful of social missteps, Washington develops lifelong habits of social reserve.
He studies books on matters. He reads English magazines and
translations of Roman classics so that he would have something
to say at dinner parties. But to become one of
(04:01):
the elite, George needs to make money. By seventeen, he
is working as a frontier surveyor in the Appalachian Mountains.
At eighteen, he buys his first piece of land.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Washington, like all Virginians, needed land. Land was the most
valuable commodity in an Integraean society. They needed land to
replenish their tobacco fields, which were out in for eight years.
They needed land for speculative purposes, for a rainy day.
It was the one form of inheritance they could pass
on that would be of great value to their offspring.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
The land west of the Appalachian Mountains bears a wilderness
of inconceivable magnitude and unimaginable richness. Few Americans have seen it,
but the British Crown wants it. So does their archrivals
the French, and both have to reckon with the Indians
who live there. Washington has surveyed it, and in seventeen
(04:57):
fifty four he comes to fight for it. After all,
as a soldier of the British Crown, he can rise
higher in society than any mere surveyor. He is now
twenty two six feet three inches tall, a major in
the Virginia Regiment, and after years in the backwoods as
tough as the terrain, a smoldering Cold war between England
(05:21):
and France, fueled by conflicting land claims on two continents,
hits a flash point in the Ohio Valley. In Europe,
this conflict will be called the Seven Years War. In
North America, it is known as the French and Indian War. Eventually,
the French will be driven from America, but at such
a cost that the British will raise taxes in America
(05:43):
to pay for the fighting. This leads to the American Revolution,
in which the French aids America. The French will pay
for this with higher taxes, which leads to the French Revolution.
Washington is sent out on his first assignment. His job
to lead one hundred and thirty nine men to the
forks of the Ohio River and build a fort there
(06:05):
before the French camp. His only military preparation consists of
fencing lessons and having read two books on the art
of war. But the French beat Washington to his goal,
and now his Indian scouts tell him that the French
are sending a party to ambush. Washington leads his men
on a night march towards the French camp, where he
(06:26):
finds forty men sleeping. At dawn, he strikes. A few
minutes later, ten French, including a French ambassador, and four Englishmen,
are dead. The French court brands him an assassin. The
French and Indian War has begun.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
And you're listening to veteran actor James O'Connor and historian
Don Higginbotham tell the story of young George Washington, and
my goodness, he's so desperate, wants in to polite and
elite society. And he doesn't only survey the land because
that's how he'll get their land ownership. He's now prepared
(07:11):
to and is about to fight for it. When we
come back, more of the story of George Washington, our
most important founder hands down here on our American Stories.
Here aret our American Stories. We bring you inspiring stories
(07:33):
of history, sports, business, faith and love. Stories from a
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(07:54):
keep the great American stories coming. That's our American Stories
dot Com. And we continue with our American Stories and
with the story of George Washington. And this time we're
(08:14):
joined not just by James O'Connor, the actor, but also
we'll be hearing from clare Mount history professor Bob Davidoff.
Christine Meadows, curator at Mount Vernon, will join us too,
and scenes from George Washington and John Adams the mini
series of both. Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Later at the Battle of Fort Duquain, Washington demonstrates that
what he lacks in strategic ability he more than makes
up for in sheer bravery when he has two horses
shot from under him. Three years later, again at Fort Duquain,
two groups of Virginia militiamen stumble upon one another in
the wilderness and mistakenly open and fire on each other.
(09:02):
Washington rides between opposing lines, knocking away guns on both
sides with his sword. Fourteen are killed, twenty six are wounded.
Washington isn't touched. At twenty four he returns a hero
to his fellow Virginians. But when he seeks a commission
as a full British officer, not just a Virginia colonial officer,
(09:23):
he is rudely rejected.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
We are at war with France, and you, sir, were
the man who fired the shot that started this war.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
He resigns from the militia and protest denied advancement in
the British Army. He realizes that if he is to
make his mark in the world, he must do it
as a civilian.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
What's so touching about his experience of the French and
Indian War is that it was the making of him
in a way that he did not expect. Instead of
being the making of him as an element of the
glittering gentleman's world of the British Virginia Empire, it was
the making of his experience of human vicissitude and the
forging of his character, and I suspect the beginnings of
(10:08):
those personal feelings which made it possible for him to
be a rebel leader, where once all he had wanted
was to be an imperial guard.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Then, in seventeen fifty two, after having found the town
of Alexandria, Virginia, George's half brother and father figure, Lawrence,
dies of tuberculosis. George becomes the owner of Mount Vernon.
He's got lots of land, but little money to work
it with, and he is alone for ten years. He
(10:42):
has wooed a succession of young women, all of whom
reject him, some because he isn't rich enough, and some
because they are put off by his restrained personality. Then
George is introduced to Martha Custis, a twenty seven year
old widow and mother of two. Martha is five foot
tall with a pleasant appearance, is slightly plump, shy, and serious,
(11:05):
universally liked and easy to talk to. She is also
one of the most wealthy, marriageable women in all of Virginia.
Her husband, Daniel Custis, has left her seventeen thousand acres
of tobacco, hundreds of slaves, and several farms. The two
only spend twenty some hours together before George proposes marriage.
(11:28):
Within the year, they are married, having spent only fifteen
days in one another's company. In marrying Martha Custis, Washington
finally enters the world of the Virginia elite.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
She was extremely supportive of him. She complimented him in
many ways. She socialized more easily than Washington did, like
to talk with friends and greet them, whereas Washington. I
think Washington was a little bit sham and he was.
His size was intimidating. He used to frighten the children,
but were told that Missus watching them grabbed him by
(12:01):
his lapels and pulled him right down to her face
when she wanted to talk.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Credit extended by British tobacco agents enables Virginia planters to
live opulently, but credit also puts them in debt, and
constant droughts keep devastating crop production. As tobacco prices fall,
their debts mount. George and Martha face a dilemma. Washington
faces economic collapse, but he's equally fearful of what others
(12:29):
might think if he's unable to maintain his style of life.
If I economize, Washington writes in a letter, such an
alteration in the system of my living will create suspicions
of a decay in my fortune, and such a thought
the world must not harbor. Image is all important. Washington
(12:51):
staffs his residence with fourteen servants and seven slaves, but
unlike many of his contemporaries who defend slavery. Washington believes
that slavery debases both slaves and slaveholders. Slave mark An
Washington has the resources to pull himself completely out of
debt if he sells all of his slaves, but he says,
(13:12):
I refuse to participate in that practice of selling slaves.
It's wrong. Jonathan Alton, Washington's longtime plantation, has attempts to
sell off the slaves. Washington responds immediately, I gave you.
Speaker 6 (13:27):
No authority to sell any of our people.
Speaker 5 (13:28):
Colonel.
Speaker 7 (13:29):
You instructed me to cut costs because about drought losses.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I've told you before, mister Ralton. I will not break
up families. The will beto sale.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
By not selling slaves without your permission, we can go bankrupt,
Joshuan load them.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Virginia law, of course, does not recognize slave families or
slave marriages, but Washington does. Washington treats them like family,
which is why after their release following his death, the
former slaves come back and take care of Mount Vernon
and his and Marfu's grave. Of all the founding fathers,
(14:08):
Washington is the only one to free his slaves. But
Washington is broke. He sees his and his fellow planter's
problems as one of dependents on their British agents, the
men who sell Virginia's tobacco in Europe and who purchase
finished goods on their behalf in London.
Speaker 8 (14:27):
He was persuaded that they palmed off the shoddiest goods
on colonials. All of this simply intensified his sense of
anti colonial discrimination, this time within the context of the
imperial commercial system.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Although Washington believes he grows the best tobacco in Virginia,
he decides to stop growing the labor intensive, soil depleting
crop and grows grains instead. He is soon selling his
produce in Alexandria and buys finished goods from local importers
and American manufacturers instead of buying through London agents. Within
(15:06):
a decade, he is out of debt and a firm
believer in American economic independence. As the British Parliament levies
one burdensome tax after another on the colonies, Washington begins
to see advantages in American political independence as well, and
when British troops sail into Boston in seventeen sixty eight,
(15:27):
Washington sees them as nothing more than tax collectors in redcoats. Soon,
Washington joins Patrick Henry as one of the most influential
members of the Virginia House of Burgesses. As relations between
Britain and the colonies deteriorate, Virginia sends Washington as one
of its delegates to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia.
(15:49):
By the time the Second Continental Congress convenes one year later,
fighting breaks out between the Massachusetts Minutemen and the British regulars, as.
Speaker 5 (15:59):
It recognize as Missus Adams of Massachusetts.
Speaker 7 (16:04):
I believe, says that the hour has come. How few
of the human race have ever had an opportunity of
choosing a system of government for themselves and their children
while I live, Let me have a country, a free.
Speaker 6 (16:28):
Country.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
It is no exaggeration to say that between seventeen seventy
four and seventeen seventy seven Independence Hall in Philadelphia glows
with more intellectual candlepower than has ever burned in a
single place before or since. Ben Franklin, John Adams, his cousin,
Sam John Jay, the men of the Virginia delegation, Thomas Jefferson,
(16:55):
Patrick Henry, Edmund Pendleton. And then there is George Washington.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
And what a story You're listening to the story of
George Washington. And in the end we learn that what
propels Washington to lead this battle for independence had much
to do with how he was treated after the French
and Indian War. All he'd wanted to become was a
member of the Imperial Guard. The British didn't see it.
(17:25):
This would fuel Washington's streak for independence. And also what
was happening financially, he thought as a result of how
the British treated American businesses and in the end, so
many of them agrarian. When we come back more of
the story of George Washington, America's most important founder here
(17:47):
on our American Stories, and we returned to our American
(18:09):
stories and the story of George Washington along with actor
James O'Connor, we'll be hearing in this segment from history
professors Robert dowardoff, Ira Gruber, and Rosemary Zagarai and a
clip from John Adams mini series. Let's pick up where
we last left off.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
To symbolize the depth of his commitment to the cause
of resistance, Washington arrives in Philadelphia wearing his splendid old
blue and buff Virginia military uniform.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
He wore the uniform because he knew he looked good
in it, and because he wanted to be commander in chief.
And he knew that if other people could see him
in that uniform, they would see him as he saw himself.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
In command, John Adams nominates forty three year old Washington
as commander in chief of the Continental Army, which will
wage a war for national independence.
Speaker 9 (19:04):
What is required now is one able man to build
and to lead this new continental honor.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
And who do you propose of the Massachusetts delegate should
lead this force.
Speaker 6 (19:23):
I have but one gentleman in mind, known to all
of them as the president. I propose as commander in
chief our most honorable industry and Delegate, the good gentleman
from Virginia, Colonel George Washington.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
He is elected unanimously.
Speaker 10 (19:44):
I am truly sensible of the high honor the Congress
has done me. But I tell you now, I do
not think myself equal to the command.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
I am honored with Washington sees is a ointment as
one ordained by God.
Speaker 6 (20:02):
Your Continental Army await you at Cambridge.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Said in his letters. He refers to the war as
the cause with cause always capitalized, recognizing God's providence in
their resistance. John Adams prophetically writes that Washington could become
one of the most important characters in the world. Washington
accepts the assignment, knowing that if he fails, he would
(20:28):
lose everything he struggled so hard to gain. Ben Congress
approves the Declaration of Independence Resolution Carriage, asserting America's right
to choose their own government, absolving all allegiance to the
British Crown.
Speaker 7 (20:43):
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
For one people to dissolve the political band would have
connected them with another.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
It may have been Ben Franklin who said, if we
don't hang together, we will most certainly hang separately. But
it is Washington's neck that will feel the news first.
There is no turning back happiness.
Speaker 11 (21:08):
When George Washington got the Cambridge to assume his new
command of the continent, Alarm, all of his fears were
probably reinforced. What he found instead of an inspired band
of revolutionaries was a disorganized, dirty, undisciplined mob.
Speaker 6 (21:27):
I'd frolled the love of them, and.
Speaker 11 (21:29):
He was supposed to command them and make them an
army and expel the British from North America and secure
independence for the American people.
Speaker 5 (21:36):
Sir.
Speaker 8 (21:37):
The British are landing on Long Island.
Speaker 6 (21:38):
The battle is upon.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
US New York seventeen seventy six. Washington is out numbered
two to one.
Speaker 8 (21:47):
He grew during the war as a military commander, but
at the beginning thom he showed a considerable degree of incompetency.
For instance, at the Battle of Long Island, he left
the end of his line open. The British were able
to run around. They nearly catch his whole army and
destroy it.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Washington loses New York, which begins a succession of losses
up and down Manhattan Island, a skirmish at Harlem Heights,
a defeat at White Plains, a disaster for Washington at
Fort Washington, another disaster at Fort Lee. By November, his
army has almost evaporated. Men have left or deserted to
(22:25):
bring in harvests. Thousands have been captured or killed, many
have fallen ill, and the British are chasing his remnant
of five thousand across the New Jersey plane.
Speaker 8 (22:35):
By the end of seventeen seventy six, the continental army
was melting away. The jig seemed just about up. Washington
was in despair. He started to talk about having to
go hide out.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
In the West to his brother, Washington rights, I think
the game is pretty near all.
Speaker 11 (22:55):
By December of seventeen seventy six, the countinittle Cause was
very soon is trouble. Washington's soldiers were about to go home,
Their enlistments were expiring, Many columns were beginning to take
up the British offer of pardon. They were going over
to the enemy. The revolution was unraveling.
Speaker 8 (23:15):
And then suddenly, at the very end of the year,
in an a bold and daring move, Washington, with his
small remaining army, swooped down on Trenton, New Jersey.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
There are few places in America where history pivots around
the character of a single man. Washington's crossing the Delaware
River in Trenton, New Jersey is one of them. When
Washington wins here, the tide turns with him. The watchword
Washington has chosen for the Trenton attack is victory or death.
(23:50):
Two four hundred American troops crossed the Delaware in the
middle of a sleet storm on Christmas night, Captain seventeen
seventy six. This whether or what the men's power.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Our muskets won't fight, then you must use your bayonet's Sergeant,
Trenton must be taken.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Many things go wrong, but the genius of Washington's attack
lies in the date of its execution. In their barracks,
the enemy has been celebrating Christmas with rum and dale.
As night comes on, so does drunkenness.
Speaker 12 (24:27):
Then sleep at Trenton, Washington had to try something new.
Conventional military tactics had failed him. He remembered the guerrilla
tactics of the Indians from the French and Indian War,
so he and his men snuck up on the sleeping
Hessian soldiers.
Speaker 11 (24:49):
Washington slipping across the Delaware, taking advantage of Hessians who
had had too much to drink, surprising them in the morning,
and winning a very small victory. It's not a great
thing in military terms, but it was very important to
the survival of the revolution.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
The legends of barefoot soldiers leaving bloody footprints in the
snow are not fiction. The tales of starvation, disease, malnutrition,
and exposure at Valley Forge in the winter of seventeen
seventy eight are not exaggerations. One soldier recorded seeing a
dead body so covered with lice that it was thought
(25:28):
the lice alone had killed the man. Even after makeshift
cabins are built and the men are out of the
freezing wind and snow, each century still has to borrow
clothes from his bunkmate before his turn at guard. As
the guard rotates, so does the clothing. But there is
one thing not lacking in the American camps rum. It
(25:52):
is calculated that rebel troops are consuming a bottle of
day per man. When enlistments expire, Washington goes before his
troops and offers a bounty to all who stepped forward
and re enlist.
Speaker 12 (26:09):
The drums rolled. No one stepped forward. Washington couldn't believe it.
He was dismayed, he was shocked. He was desperate. So
he marched up and down the line, begging, pleading, conjoling
his men to stay, telling them that the future of
America arrested with them. The drums rolled again. This time
(26:32):
one man stepped out, two men stepped out, and at
the end everyone who could stayed on.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
He could lead, he could inspire his men. They admired him.
He looked the picture of a general. He was a responsible,
careful tactician. I don't suppose any military genius, but he
had the genius to.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Lead, and nothing could be more true. Washington may not
have been the greatest military genius, a genius for leadership,
and without it we wouldn't have the country we live
in today. A series of mistakes and eerrors in the beginning,
not the greatest strategist, let alone tacticianer and then comes
the master stroke in Trenton and getting that much needed
(27:17):
victory when we come back more of the story of
our founding father, George Washington. Here on our American stories,
and we returned to the story of George Washington, and
(27:40):
with James O'Connor the narrator, we'll be hearing again from
Ira Gruber and Christine Meadows. Let's pick up where we
last left off.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Deeply feeling the plight of his men, Washington constantly hounds
the continent for Congress for supplies, trying to shame them
by appealing to their sense of patriotism. Congress's typical response
is to give Washington permission to commandeer what he needs
from those living near his stationed troops. Washington refuses this
invitation to rob his fellow citizens at the point of
(28:18):
a bayonet, arguing that to do so will alienate the
very people in whose name the struggle has been undertaken.
A struggle also exists with his generals. Washington has as
much trouble with some of them as he does with
the British.
Speaker 11 (28:33):
Men like Charles Lee and Horatio Gates, men who'd been
officers in the British Army, thought Washington was a bumpkin,
someone who didn't know anything about an army or how
to run a war, and they caused George a tremendous
amount of trouble. They conspired, They talked behind his back,
they spoke to members of Congress. They tried to discredit him,
(28:54):
but in the end he met them with patience and persistence,
and their own incompetence ruined, and George survived and they didn't.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Throughout his career, he appears touched by God. On horseback,
he leads charges into the thick of battle, wilfully exposing
himself to cannon and musket fire, strolling through a hell
of shot, yet not once does a bullet or shrapnel
ever even graze him. In April seventeen eighty one, a
(29:25):
British warship sails up the Potomac and trains her guns
on Washington's cherished home, Mount Vernon. Most of Washington's Virginia
now lay under British control. The governor of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson,
begs Washington to come home and save his state. Washington declines.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
When Jefferson called upon Washington to defend his home and
his state, he was talking to a Washington who no
longer existed. Washington's allegiance was no longer to the country
he had grown up in in much Virginia, but was
an allegiance to the future.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Washington's record on the battlefield is three wins, nine losses,
and one tie, which is no source of pride. If
we succeed, we have a chance to end the war here.
But the best battle to win is the last one.
Speaker 7 (30:21):
Surprise and terror will be your main weapons.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
And Washington indoors long enough to win it. The three
week siege at Yorktown. This is where the Revolutionary War ends.
On October nineteenth, seventeen eighty one, when British General Cornwallis
asks for the terms, Washington replies that the same honor
should be granted to Cornwallis's surrendering army as was granted
(30:45):
to the American garrison of Charleston. The point is not
lost on Cornwallis. When Charleston fell to the British in
seventeen eighty, the British refused to grant the Americans the
honors of war, treating them as rebels and not as
a legit, jitimate army. Washington now demands the same humiliation
of Cornwallace, but Cornwallis claims illness and sends a stand
(31:09):
in to the surrender ceremony.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Corn Wallace is in disposed, I am second in command.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
In an attempt at insult the British stand in tries
to hand over Cornwallis's sword to a French officer who
had fought with the Americans, but the Frenchman refuses, directing
him instead to Washington. Washington also refuses. He orders the
Englishman to surrender Cornwallis's sword to General Lincoln.
Speaker 6 (31:39):
General Lincoln will accept the surrender.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Who was the humiliated American commander at Charleston, Mysore During
his campaign against the British. Washington is always outnumbered, typically outgunned,
and always short on supplies, weapons, wagons, horses, and boats.
Yet he repeatedly slips the British news, choosing strategic retreat
(32:05):
over honorable defeat. He doggedly wears his enemy down. The
British lose the war, not so much because the Americans
under Washington defeat them on the battlefield, but because General
George Washington does not give up or go away. But
Washington's most important performance has yet to occur.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
Let me set the scene. It's the end of the war.
Washington's generals and his high staff officers are disgruntled. They
haven't been paid. They don't trust the Congress. They're not
so sure that it's such a good idea to give
over control of this new nation to this bunch of
squabbling politicians. Many among them wanted Washington to assume greater power,
(32:55):
in fact, maybe dictatorial powers.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
His officers plan a meeting at their headquarters on the
night of March fifteenth, seventeen eighty three.
Speaker 4 (33:05):
They know how you feel, sir, so they do not
want you there. At the secret meeting.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
They will debate a move against Congress to demand their
back pay Congress at gunpoint if necessary. Washington knows he
has to confront them. He begins writing a speech he
agonizes over every sentence and every word.
Speaker 12 (33:26):
He was ripped apart inside. He had suffered with these men.
He'd watch them die, He'd watch them be wounded for
their country. He knew what they had given up, he
knew how Congress had mistreated them, and a part of
him was attracted by their offer to be a kind
of king. And he knew for certain that if he
(33:47):
gave in to their offer, if he gave into the
allure of power, not only would he betray his country,
but he would also betray the reputation and the honor
that had been so hard for him to attain.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
He rides alone to the meeting. As he enters the building,
the angry officers are stunned, but he sees no smiles,
and there is no applause as he stands before them
and begs them not to open the floodgates of civil war,
which would surely drown the new nation and blood.
Speaker 8 (34:19):
If you will not lead to their stand aside, and
if you try to silence me, you are asking for
a nation of which freedom of speech is taken away.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
He knows he is failing, so he decides to read
a copy of a letter from Congress, once again promising
payment it might work where his eloquence has not. He
holds the letter in front of him and begins to read.
Speaker 7 (34:41):
I have a letter from a member of Congress.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
But something is wrong. The officers draw closer. Then Washington
takes out a pair of glasses and puts them on.
No one in the audience has ever seen him in
his glasses. Before the officers are shocked. Washington looks out
at the men and speaks.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Can you will permit me to put on my spectacles?
Speaker 5 (35:06):
For I have not only grown gray, but almost blind
in surface.
Speaker 8 (35:15):
In my country?
Speaker 2 (35:17):
With this, he brings them to tears. He steps down
from the stage and moves slowly towards the door. The
conspiracy collapses. All that is left are the formalities of history.
Speaker 12 (35:31):
He knew that his glasses would be a symbol of
his own weakness and vulnerability, and he hoped, he hoped
that this would persuade his men that by betraying their
country in this manner, they will also betraying him personally.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
It's high political acting. But what he did was he
staged that performance in order to rescue control of the
new government from a disgruntled military and to return it
to civilian power. Or it belongs. And in that moment
we have fused the extraordinary political performance of George Washington,
(36:11):
the ambitious would be leader, and the principles about politics
and about civilian rule which restrained him even in the
moment of his highest acting.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Nine months later, Washington surrenders his commission and his army
to Congress. The grand irony of his life, which in
the beginning was based on acquisition, is that he did
not secure the reputation he sought until he gave something
up power. President Abraham Lincoln once said, to add brightness
(36:45):
to the sun or glory to the name of Washington
is alike impossible. The path of George Washington's life is
one from frontier to capital. It is one of our
greatest American stories. Those who helped create the new nation
none are more deserving of the title Founding Father.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Done a terrific job by the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler. And a special thanks to
our narrator James O'Connor, a terrific actor you know from
his work in Gotham Law and Order and so many
other parts. And also a special thanks to Don Higginbotham
to Bob Davidoff and to Christine Meadows of Mount Vernon.
And if you ever get a chance and you're in
(37:33):
and around the Washington, DC area visiting, go to Mount Vernon.
It's a terrific place. You will not regret it. The
special thanks also to Rice University, the UCLA Film and
TV Archive, and Claremount University for their contributions to this story.
And my goodness, Washington just win the war. He also
(37:53):
ended a potential coup by his own military with a
masterful performance in Newburgh, and then in the end surrendered
his commission, establishing the idea of civilian control of our military.
The story of our founding father, George Washington. Here on
(38:13):
our American Stories
This is Lee Habeeb, and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people coming to you from where the West begins in
Fort Worth, Texas asign from the Cherry Tree legend, which
of course isn't true. Most of us don't know much
about George Washington. To many, he's just a man peering
(00:31):
at us from a dollar bill or a figure carved
in marble. What we're about to do is take a
look at the flesh and blood man behind the graven image.
Narrating this story is veteran actor James O'Connor, who starred
as Tommy Bones on TV's Gotham and appears regularly on
Law and Order. In this segment, we'll be hearing from
(00:52):
Don Higginbotham, author of George Washington Uniting a Nation. Let's
take a listen.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
The poet Robert Frost once remarked that George Washington was
one of the few in the whole history of the
world who was not carried away by power. Washington could
have become King of America if he wanted to. Instead,
America's first general became the United States first two term
civilian president, something a world familiar only with hereditary monarchs,
(01:28):
had never seen Napoleon. As he lay dying on the
island of Saint Helena, condemned for having seized the power
of an emperor, complained that his critics wanted me to
be another Washington. Underneath the man who has become namesake
to thousands of small towns, high schools, the nation's capital,
(01:49):
and the forty second state, whose image is reproduced endlessly
on coins, currency and stamps, and a huge bust carved
into a South Dakota mountain, we find a man seeking
to belong, longing for acceptance and respect. Parson Mason Weems,
an episcopal clergyman and sometime bookseller, is the source of
(02:13):
some of those pious stories about George Washington, like chopping
down his father's cherry tree. The real George Washington is
born in a modest farmhouse in northern Virginia on February
twenty second, seventeen thirty two, the first child of a
middle aged father and a second wife in the mid
(02:33):
eighteenth century. Virginia is a province of the British Empire.
Its sparse population of mostly British descent see themselves as Englishmen,
subjects of the King, but the British see Virginians as
crude colonists, second class in every way. Washington's father, Augustine
dies when he is eleven. George inherits a farmhouse left
(02:56):
in trust to his mother Mary, but the bulk of
Augustine Washington's state, including the sizeable plantation at Mount Vernon,
goes to his older half brother Lawrence. Unlike Lawrence, who's
educated in England, George's formal education ends when he is fourteen.
Lawrence convinces Mary Washington to send George to him so
(03:17):
that he can teach the boy the ways of society.
As George's surrogate father, Lawrence offers guidance and contact with
the wealthiest and most prominent family in Virginia, the Fairfax family,
which he has married into. The rough young man learns
his social graces by quietly watching and imitating those in
(03:39):
Lawrence's charmed circle. Acutely aware of his own lack of sophistication,
fearful of social missteps, Washington develops lifelong habits of social reserve.
He studies books on matters. He reads English magazines and
translations of Roman classics so that he would have something
to say at dinner parties. But to become one of
(04:01):
the elite, George needs to make money. By seventeen, he
is working as a frontier surveyor in the Appalachian Mountains.
At eighteen, he buys his first piece of land.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Washington, like all Virginians, needed land. Land was the most
valuable commodity in an Integraean society. They needed land to
replenish their tobacco fields, which were out in for eight years.
They needed land for speculative purposes, for a rainy day.
It was the one form of inheritance they could pass
on that would be of great value to their offspring.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
The land west of the Appalachian Mountains bears a wilderness
of inconceivable magnitude and unimaginable richness. Few Americans have seen it,
but the British Crown wants it. So does their archrivals
the French, and both have to reckon with the Indians
who live there. Washington has surveyed it, and in seventeen
(04:57):
fifty four he comes to fight for it. After all,
as a soldier of the British Crown, he can rise
higher in society than any mere surveyor. He is now
twenty two six feet three inches tall, a major in
the Virginia Regiment, and after years in the backwoods as
tough as the terrain, a smoldering Cold war between England
(05:21):
and France, fueled by conflicting land claims on two continents,
hits a flash point in the Ohio Valley. In Europe,
this conflict will be called the Seven Years War. In
North America, it is known as the French and Indian War. Eventually,
the French will be driven from America, but at such
a cost that the British will raise taxes in America
(05:43):
to pay for the fighting. This leads to the American Revolution,
in which the French aids America. The French will pay
for this with higher taxes, which leads to the French Revolution.
Washington is sent out on his first assignment. His job
to lead one hundred and thirty nine men to the
forks of the Ohio River and build a fort there
(06:05):
before the French camp. His only military preparation consists of
fencing lessons and having read two books on the art
of war. But the French beat Washington to his goal,
and now his Indian scouts tell him that the French
are sending a party to ambush. Washington leads his men
on a night march towards the French camp, where he
(06:26):
finds forty men sleeping. At dawn, he strikes. A few
minutes later, ten French, including a French ambassador, and four Englishmen,
are dead. The French court brands him an assassin. The
French and Indian War has begun.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
And you're listening to veteran actor James O'Connor and historian
Don Higginbotham tell the story of young George Washington, and
my goodness, he's so desperate, wants in to polite and
elite society. And he doesn't only survey the land because
that's how he'll get their land ownership. He's now prepared
(07:11):
to and is about to fight for it. When we
come back, more of the story of George Washington, our
most important founder hands down here on our American Stories.
Here aret our American Stories. We bring you inspiring stories
(07:33):
of history, sports, business, faith and love. Stories from a
great and beautiful country that need to be told that
we can't do it without you. Our stories are free
to listen to, but they're not free to make. If
you love our stories in America like we do, please
go to our American Stories dot Com and click the
donate button. Give a little, give a lot, help us
(07:54):
keep the great American stories coming. That's our American Stories
dot Com. And we continue with our American Stories and
with the story of George Washington. And this time we're
(08:14):
joined not just by James O'Connor, the actor, but also
we'll be hearing from clare Mount history professor Bob Davidoff.
Christine Meadows, curator at Mount Vernon, will join us too,
and scenes from George Washington and John Adams the mini
series of both. Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Later at the Battle of Fort Duquain, Washington demonstrates that
what he lacks in strategic ability he more than makes
up for in sheer bravery when he has two horses
shot from under him. Three years later, again at Fort Duquain,
two groups of Virginia militiamen stumble upon one another in
the wilderness and mistakenly open and fire on each other.
(09:02):
Washington rides between opposing lines, knocking away guns on both
sides with his sword. Fourteen are killed, twenty six are wounded.
Washington isn't touched. At twenty four he returns a hero
to his fellow Virginians. But when he seeks a commission
as a full British officer, not just a Virginia colonial officer,
(09:23):
he is rudely rejected.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
We are at war with France, and you, sir, were
the man who fired the shot that started this war.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
He resigns from the militia and protest denied advancement in
the British Army. He realizes that if he is to
make his mark in the world, he must do it
as a civilian.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
What's so touching about his experience of the French and
Indian War is that it was the making of him
in a way that he did not expect. Instead of
being the making of him as an element of the
glittering gentleman's world of the British Virginia Empire, it was
the making of his experience of human vicissitude and the
forging of his character, and I suspect the beginnings of
(10:08):
those personal feelings which made it possible for him to
be a rebel leader, where once all he had wanted
was to be an imperial guard.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Then, in seventeen fifty two, after having found the town
of Alexandria, Virginia, George's half brother and father figure, Lawrence,
dies of tuberculosis. George becomes the owner of Mount Vernon.
He's got lots of land, but little money to work
it with, and he is alone for ten years. He
(10:42):
has wooed a succession of young women, all of whom
reject him, some because he isn't rich enough, and some
because they are put off by his restrained personality. Then
George is introduced to Martha Custis, a twenty seven year
old widow and mother of two. Martha is five foot
tall with a pleasant appearance, is slightly plump, shy, and serious,
(11:05):
universally liked and easy to talk to. She is also
one of the most wealthy, marriageable women in all of Virginia.
Her husband, Daniel Custis, has left her seventeen thousand acres
of tobacco, hundreds of slaves, and several farms. The two
only spend twenty some hours together before George proposes marriage.
(11:28):
Within the year, they are married, having spent only fifteen
days in one another's company. In marrying Martha Custis, Washington
finally enters the world of the Virginia elite.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
She was extremely supportive of him. She complimented him in
many ways. She socialized more easily than Washington did, like
to talk with friends and greet them, whereas Washington. I
think Washington was a little bit sham and he was.
His size was intimidating. He used to frighten the children,
but were told that Missus watching them grabbed him by
(12:01):
his lapels and pulled him right down to her face
when she wanted to talk.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Credit extended by British tobacco agents enables Virginia planters to
live opulently, but credit also puts them in debt, and
constant droughts keep devastating crop production. As tobacco prices fall,
their debts mount. George and Martha face a dilemma. Washington
faces economic collapse, but he's equally fearful of what others
(12:29):
might think if he's unable to maintain his style of life.
If I economize, Washington writes in a letter, such an
alteration in the system of my living will create suspicions
of a decay in my fortune, and such a thought
the world must not harbor. Image is all important. Washington
(12:51):
staffs his residence with fourteen servants and seven slaves, but
unlike many of his contemporaries who defend slavery. Washington believes
that slavery debases both slaves and slaveholders. Slave mark An
Washington has the resources to pull himself completely out of
debt if he sells all of his slaves, but he says,
(13:12):
I refuse to participate in that practice of selling slaves.
It's wrong. Jonathan Alton, Washington's longtime plantation, has attempts to
sell off the slaves. Washington responds immediately, I gave you.
Speaker 6 (13:27):
No authority to sell any of our people.
Speaker 5 (13:28):
Colonel.
Speaker 7 (13:29):
You instructed me to cut costs because about drought losses.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I've told you before, mister Ralton. I will not break
up families. The will beto sale.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
By not selling slaves without your permission, we can go bankrupt,
Joshuan load them.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Virginia law, of course, does not recognize slave families or
slave marriages, but Washington does. Washington treats them like family,
which is why after their release following his death, the
former slaves come back and take care of Mount Vernon
and his and Marfu's grave. Of all the founding fathers,
(14:08):
Washington is the only one to free his slaves. But
Washington is broke. He sees his and his fellow planter's
problems as one of dependents on their British agents, the
men who sell Virginia's tobacco in Europe and who purchase
finished goods on their behalf in London.
Speaker 8 (14:27):
He was persuaded that they palmed off the shoddiest goods
on colonials. All of this simply intensified his sense of
anti colonial discrimination, this time within the context of the
imperial commercial system.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Although Washington believes he grows the best tobacco in Virginia,
he decides to stop growing the labor intensive, soil depleting
crop and grows grains instead. He is soon selling his
produce in Alexandria and buys finished goods from local importers
and American manufacturers instead of buying through London agents. Within
(15:06):
a decade, he is out of debt and a firm
believer in American economic independence. As the British Parliament levies
one burdensome tax after another on the colonies, Washington begins
to see advantages in American political independence as well, and
when British troops sail into Boston in seventeen sixty eight,
(15:27):
Washington sees them as nothing more than tax collectors in redcoats. Soon,
Washington joins Patrick Henry as one of the most influential
members of the Virginia House of Burgesses. As relations between
Britain and the colonies deteriorate, Virginia sends Washington as one
of its delegates to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia.
(15:49):
By the time the Second Continental Congress convenes one year later,
fighting breaks out between the Massachusetts Minutemen and the British regulars, as.
Speaker 5 (15:59):
It recognize as Missus Adams of Massachusetts.
Speaker 7 (16:04):
I believe, says that the hour has come. How few
of the human race have ever had an opportunity of
choosing a system of government for themselves and their children
while I live, Let me have a country, a free.
Speaker 6 (16:28):
Country.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
It is no exaggeration to say that between seventeen seventy
four and seventeen seventy seven Independence Hall in Philadelphia glows
with more intellectual candlepower than has ever burned in a
single place before or since. Ben Franklin, John Adams, his cousin,
Sam John Jay, the men of the Virginia delegation, Thomas Jefferson,
(16:55):
Patrick Henry, Edmund Pendleton. And then there is George Washington.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
And what a story You're listening to the story of
George Washington. And in the end we learn that what
propels Washington to lead this battle for independence had much
to do with how he was treated after the French
and Indian War. All he'd wanted to become was a
member of the Imperial Guard. The British didn't see it.
(17:25):
This would fuel Washington's streak for independence. And also what
was happening financially, he thought as a result of how
the British treated American businesses and in the end, so
many of them agrarian. When we come back more of
the story of George Washington, America's most important founder here
(17:47):
on our American Stories, and we returned to our American
(18:09):
stories and the story of George Washington along with actor
James O'Connor, we'll be hearing in this segment from history
professors Robert dowardoff, Ira Gruber, and Rosemary Zagarai and a
clip from John Adams mini series. Let's pick up where
we last left off.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
To symbolize the depth of his commitment to the cause
of resistance, Washington arrives in Philadelphia wearing his splendid old
blue and buff Virginia military uniform.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
He wore the uniform because he knew he looked good
in it, and because he wanted to be commander in chief.
And he knew that if other people could see him
in that uniform, they would see him as he saw himself.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
In command, John Adams nominates forty three year old Washington
as commander in chief of the Continental Army, which will
wage a war for national independence.
Speaker 9 (19:04):
What is required now is one able man to build
and to lead this new continental honor.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
And who do you propose of the Massachusetts delegate should
lead this force.
Speaker 6 (19:23):
I have but one gentleman in mind, known to all
of them as the president. I propose as commander in
chief our most honorable industry and Delegate, the good gentleman
from Virginia, Colonel George Washington.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
He is elected unanimously.
Speaker 10 (19:44):
I am truly sensible of the high honor the Congress
has done me. But I tell you now, I do
not think myself equal to the command.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
I am honored with Washington sees is a ointment as
one ordained by God.
Speaker 6 (20:02):
Your Continental Army await you at Cambridge.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Said in his letters. He refers to the war as
the cause with cause always capitalized, recognizing God's providence in
their resistance. John Adams prophetically writes that Washington could become
one of the most important characters in the world. Washington
accepts the assignment, knowing that if he fails, he would
(20:28):
lose everything he struggled so hard to gain. Ben Congress
approves the Declaration of Independence Resolution Carriage, asserting America's right
to choose their own government, absolving all allegiance to the
British Crown.
Speaker 7 (20:43):
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
For one people to dissolve the political band would have
connected them with another.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
It may have been Ben Franklin who said, if we
don't hang together, we will most certainly hang separately. But
it is Washington's neck that will feel the news first.
There is no turning back happiness.
Speaker 11 (21:08):
When George Washington got the Cambridge to assume his new
command of the continent, Alarm, all of his fears were
probably reinforced. What he found instead of an inspired band
of revolutionaries was a disorganized, dirty, undisciplined mob.
Speaker 6 (21:27):
I'd frolled the love of them, and.
Speaker 11 (21:29):
He was supposed to command them and make them an
army and expel the British from North America and secure
independence for the American people.
Speaker 5 (21:36):
Sir.
Speaker 8 (21:37):
The British are landing on Long Island.
Speaker 6 (21:38):
The battle is upon.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
US New York seventeen seventy six. Washington is out numbered
two to one.
Speaker 8 (21:47):
He grew during the war as a military commander, but
at the beginning thom he showed a considerable degree of incompetency.
For instance, at the Battle of Long Island, he left
the end of his line open. The British were able
to run around. They nearly catch his whole army and
destroy it.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Washington loses New York, which begins a succession of losses
up and down Manhattan Island, a skirmish at Harlem Heights,
a defeat at White Plains, a disaster for Washington at
Fort Washington, another disaster at Fort Lee. By November, his
army has almost evaporated. Men have left or deserted to
(22:25):
bring in harvests. Thousands have been captured or killed, many
have fallen ill, and the British are chasing his remnant
of five thousand across the New Jersey plane.
Speaker 8 (22:35):
By the end of seventeen seventy six, the continental army
was melting away. The jig seemed just about up. Washington
was in despair. He started to talk about having to
go hide out.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
In the West to his brother, Washington rights, I think
the game is pretty near all.
Speaker 11 (22:55):
By December of seventeen seventy six, the countinittle Cause was
very soon is trouble. Washington's soldiers were about to go home,
Their enlistments were expiring, Many columns were beginning to take
up the British offer of pardon. They were going over
to the enemy. The revolution was unraveling.
Speaker 8 (23:15):
And then suddenly, at the very end of the year,
in an a bold and daring move, Washington, with his
small remaining army, swooped down on Trenton, New Jersey.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
There are few places in America where history pivots around
the character of a single man. Washington's crossing the Delaware
River in Trenton, New Jersey is one of them. When
Washington wins here, the tide turns with him. The watchword
Washington has chosen for the Trenton attack is victory or death.
(23:50):
Two four hundred American troops crossed the Delaware in the
middle of a sleet storm on Christmas night, Captain seventeen
seventy six. This whether or what the men's power.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Our muskets won't fight, then you must use your bayonet's Sergeant,
Trenton must be taken.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Many things go wrong, but the genius of Washington's attack
lies in the date of its execution. In their barracks,
the enemy has been celebrating Christmas with rum and dale.
As night comes on, so does drunkenness.
Speaker 12 (24:27):
Then sleep at Trenton, Washington had to try something new.
Conventional military tactics had failed him. He remembered the guerrilla
tactics of the Indians from the French and Indian War,
so he and his men snuck up on the sleeping
Hessian soldiers.
Speaker 11 (24:49):
Washington slipping across the Delaware, taking advantage of Hessians who
had had too much to drink, surprising them in the morning,
and winning a very small victory. It's not a great
thing in military terms, but it was very important to
the survival of the revolution.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
The legends of barefoot soldiers leaving bloody footprints in the
snow are not fiction. The tales of starvation, disease, malnutrition,
and exposure at Valley Forge in the winter of seventeen
seventy eight are not exaggerations. One soldier recorded seeing a
dead body so covered with lice that it was thought
(25:28):
the lice alone had killed the man. Even after makeshift
cabins are built and the men are out of the
freezing wind and snow, each century still has to borrow
clothes from his bunkmate before his turn at guard. As
the guard rotates, so does the clothing. But there is
one thing not lacking in the American camps rum. It
(25:52):
is calculated that rebel troops are consuming a bottle of
day per man. When enlistments expire, Washington goes before his
troops and offers a bounty to all who stepped forward
and re enlist.
Speaker 12 (26:09):
The drums rolled. No one stepped forward. Washington couldn't believe it.
He was dismayed, he was shocked. He was desperate. So
he marched up and down the line, begging, pleading, conjoling
his men to stay, telling them that the future of
America arrested with them. The drums rolled again. This time
(26:32):
one man stepped out, two men stepped out, and at
the end everyone who could stayed on.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
He could lead, he could inspire his men. They admired him.
He looked the picture of a general. He was a responsible,
careful tactician. I don't suppose any military genius, but he
had the genius to.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Lead, and nothing could be more true. Washington may not
have been the greatest military genius, a genius for leadership,
and without it we wouldn't have the country we live
in today. A series of mistakes and eerrors in the beginning,
not the greatest strategist, let alone tacticianer and then comes
the master stroke in Trenton and getting that much needed
(27:17):
victory when we come back more of the story of
our founding father, George Washington. Here on our American stories,
and we returned to the story of George Washington, and
(27:40):
with James O'Connor the narrator, we'll be hearing again from
Ira Gruber and Christine Meadows. Let's pick up where we
last left off.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Deeply feeling the plight of his men, Washington constantly hounds
the continent for Congress for supplies, trying to shame them
by appealing to their sense of patriotism. Congress's typical response
is to give Washington permission to commandeer what he needs
from those living near his stationed troops. Washington refuses this
invitation to rob his fellow citizens at the point of
(28:18):
a bayonet, arguing that to do so will alienate the
very people in whose name the struggle has been undertaken.
A struggle also exists with his generals. Washington has as
much trouble with some of them as he does with
the British.
Speaker 11 (28:33):
Men like Charles Lee and Horatio Gates, men who'd been
officers in the British Army, thought Washington was a bumpkin,
someone who didn't know anything about an army or how
to run a war, and they caused George a tremendous
amount of trouble. They conspired, They talked behind his back,
they spoke to members of Congress. They tried to discredit him,
(28:54):
but in the end he met them with patience and persistence,
and their own incompetence ruined, and George survived and they didn't.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Throughout his career, he appears touched by God. On horseback,
he leads charges into the thick of battle, wilfully exposing
himself to cannon and musket fire, strolling through a hell
of shot, yet not once does a bullet or shrapnel
ever even graze him. In April seventeen eighty one, a
(29:25):
British warship sails up the Potomac and trains her guns
on Washington's cherished home, Mount Vernon. Most of Washington's Virginia
now lay under British control. The governor of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson,
begs Washington to come home and save his state. Washington declines.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
When Jefferson called upon Washington to defend his home and
his state, he was talking to a Washington who no
longer existed. Washington's allegiance was no longer to the country
he had grown up in in much Virginia, but was
an allegiance to the future.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Washington's record on the battlefield is three wins, nine losses,
and one tie, which is no source of pride. If
we succeed, we have a chance to end the war here.
But the best battle to win is the last one.
Speaker 7 (30:21):
Surprise and terror will be your main weapons.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
And Washington indoors long enough to win it. The three
week siege at Yorktown. This is where the Revolutionary War ends.
On October nineteenth, seventeen eighty one, when British General Cornwallis
asks for the terms, Washington replies that the same honor
should be granted to Cornwallis's surrendering army as was granted
(30:45):
to the American garrison of Charleston. The point is not
lost on Cornwallis. When Charleston fell to the British in
seventeen eighty, the British refused to grant the Americans the
honors of war, treating them as rebels and not as
a legit, jitimate army. Washington now demands the same humiliation
of Cornwallace, but Cornwallis claims illness and sends a stand
(31:09):
in to the surrender ceremony.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Corn Wallace is in disposed, I am second in command.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
In an attempt at insult the British stand in tries
to hand over Cornwallis's sword to a French officer who
had fought with the Americans, but the Frenchman refuses, directing
him instead to Washington. Washington also refuses. He orders the
Englishman to surrender Cornwallis's sword to General Lincoln.
Speaker 6 (31:39):
General Lincoln will accept the surrender.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Who was the humiliated American commander at Charleston, Mysore During
his campaign against the British. Washington is always outnumbered, typically outgunned,
and always short on supplies, weapons, wagons, horses, and boats.
Yet he repeatedly slips the British news, choosing strategic retreat
(32:05):
over honorable defeat. He doggedly wears his enemy down. The
British lose the war, not so much because the Americans
under Washington defeat them on the battlefield, but because General
George Washington does not give up or go away. But
Washington's most important performance has yet to occur.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
Let me set the scene. It's the end of the war.
Washington's generals and his high staff officers are disgruntled. They
haven't been paid. They don't trust the Congress. They're not
so sure that it's such a good idea to give
over control of this new nation to this bunch of
squabbling politicians. Many among them wanted Washington to assume greater power,
(32:55):
in fact, maybe dictatorial powers.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
His officers plan a meeting at their headquarters on the
night of March fifteenth, seventeen eighty three.
Speaker 4 (33:05):
They know how you feel, sir, so they do not
want you there. At the secret meeting.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
They will debate a move against Congress to demand their
back pay Congress at gunpoint if necessary. Washington knows he
has to confront them. He begins writing a speech he
agonizes over every sentence and every word.
Speaker 12 (33:26):
He was ripped apart inside. He had suffered with these men.
He'd watch them die, He'd watch them be wounded for
their country. He knew what they had given up, he
knew how Congress had mistreated them, and a part of
him was attracted by their offer to be a kind
of king. And he knew for certain that if he
(33:47):
gave in to their offer, if he gave into the
allure of power, not only would he betray his country,
but he would also betray the reputation and the honor
that had been so hard for him to attain.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
He rides alone to the meeting. As he enters the building,
the angry officers are stunned, but he sees no smiles,
and there is no applause as he stands before them
and begs them not to open the floodgates of civil war,
which would surely drown the new nation and blood.
Speaker 8 (34:19):
If you will not lead to their stand aside, and
if you try to silence me, you are asking for
a nation of which freedom of speech is taken away.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
He knows he is failing, so he decides to read
a copy of a letter from Congress, once again promising
payment it might work where his eloquence has not. He
holds the letter in front of him and begins to read.
Speaker 7 (34:41):
I have a letter from a member of Congress.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
But something is wrong. The officers draw closer. Then Washington
takes out a pair of glasses and puts them on.
No one in the audience has ever seen him in
his glasses. Before the officers are shocked. Washington looks out
at the men and speaks.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Can you will permit me to put on my spectacles?
Speaker 5 (35:06):
For I have not only grown gray, but almost blind
in surface.
Speaker 8 (35:15):
In my country?
Speaker 2 (35:17):
With this, he brings them to tears. He steps down
from the stage and moves slowly towards the door. The
conspiracy collapses. All that is left are the formalities of history.
Speaker 12 (35:31):
He knew that his glasses would be a symbol of
his own weakness and vulnerability, and he hoped, he hoped
that this would persuade his men that by betraying their
country in this manner, they will also betraying him personally.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
It's high political acting. But what he did was he
staged that performance in order to rescue control of the
new government from a disgruntled military and to return it
to civilian power. Or it belongs. And in that moment
we have fused the extraordinary political performance of George Washington,
(36:11):
the ambitious would be leader, and the principles about politics
and about civilian rule which restrained him even in the
moment of his highest acting.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Nine months later, Washington surrenders his commission and his army
to Congress. The grand irony of his life, which in
the beginning was based on acquisition, is that he did
not secure the reputation he sought until he gave something
up power. President Abraham Lincoln once said, to add brightness
(36:45):
to the sun or glory to the name of Washington
is alike impossible. The path of George Washington's life is
one from frontier to capital. It is one of our
greatest American stories. Those who helped create the new nation
none are more deserving of the title Founding Father.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Done a terrific job by the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler. And a special thanks to
our narrator James O'Connor, a terrific actor you know from
his work in Gotham Law and Order and so many
other parts. And also a special thanks to Don Higginbotham
to Bob Davidoff and to Christine Meadows of Mount Vernon.
And if you ever get a chance and you're in
(37:33):
and around the Washington, DC area visiting, go to Mount Vernon.
It's a terrific place. You will not regret it. The
special thanks also to Rice University, the UCLA Film and
TV Archive, and Claremount University for their contributions to this story.
And my goodness, Washington just win the war. He also
(37:53):
ended a potential coup by his own military with a
masterful performance in Newburgh, and then in the end surrendered
his commission, establishing the idea of civilian control of our military.
The story of our founding father, George Washington. Here on
(38:13):
our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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