George Washington

At 67 years old, George Washington has this physical status:

George Washington, 1732-1732 – December 14, 1799), was an American political strategist, military general, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the nation's first president from 1789 to 1797.

He was a strategist in the country's War for Independence earlier this year.

He presided at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which established the United States Constitution and a federal government.

For his service in the early days of the new nation, Washington has been dubbed the "Father of His Country." During the French and Indian War, Washington obtained his first military service and command with the Virginia Regiment.

He was later elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses and was named a delegate to the Continental Congress, where he was named Commanding General of the Continental Army.

He led American forces, allied with France, in the demise and surrender of the British during the Siege of Yorktown, and resigned his post in 1783 following the Treaty of Paris. Washington was instrumental in the creation and ratification of the Constitution, and he was elected president by the Electoral College in the first two elections.

He created a strong, well-funded national government while remaining neutral in a fierce competition between cabinet members Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton.

He declared a policy of neutrality during the French Revolution while still referring to the Jay Treaty.

He set long-serving precedents for the office of president, including the name "President of the United States," and his Farewell Address is often thought of as a precursor to republicanism. Washington slaves were slaves for slave labour and trade, and slave rights were enacted by Congress to protect slavery in order to keep national unity.

In a 1799 will, he became unhappy with the institution of slavery and freed his slaves.

He attempted to assimilate Native Americans into Western history, but they were retaliated against in times of war.

He was a member of the Anglican Church and the Freemasons and encouraged widespread religious rights in his roles as general and president.

On his death, he was eulogized as "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." Many scholars and surveys have ranked him as one of the best American presidents, as monuments, art, geographical locations, stamps, and currency.

Early life (1732–1752)

The Washington family was a wealthy Virginia planter family that had made its fortune from land speculation and tobacco growing. Great-grandfather John Washington emigrated from Sulgrave, Northamptonshire, England, to Little Hunting Creek on the Potomac River in 1656, according to the English colony of Virginia, where he acquired 5,000 acres (2,000 ha) of property. George Washington was born in 1732, at Popes Creek in Westmoreland, Virginia, and was the first of six children of Augustine and Mary Ball Washington. His father, a public figure with four additional children from his first marriage to Jane Butler, was a justice of the peace and a public figure. In 1735, the family moved to Little Hunting Creek. They moved to Ferry Farm near Fredericksburg, Virginia, on the Rappahannock River in 1738. When Augustine died in 1743, Washington inherited Ferry Farm and ten slaves; his older half-brother Lawrence inherited Little Hunting Creek and renamed it Mount Vernon.

Washington did not have the formal education his elder brothers received at Appleby Grammar School in England, but he did attend the Lower Church School in Hartfield. He studied mathematics, trigonometry, and land surveying, and became a gifted draftsman and map maker. He was writing with "strong force" and "precision" by early adulthood; however, his writing had no wit or humor; He tended to attribute his ineffectiveness and failures to someone else's inability in search of admiration, fame, and clout.

Washington frequented Mount Vernon and Belvoir, the plantation that belonged to Lawrence's father-in-law William Fairfax. Fairfax spent a month in 1748 with a team surveying Fairfax's Shenandoah Valley property. When he was 17 years old, he obtained a surveyor's license from the College of William & Mary the following year. Despite that Washington did not complete the apprenticeship, Fairfax appointed him surveyor of Culpeper County, Virginia, and he took his oath of office in Culpeper County, Virginia, 1749. He then became familiar with the frontier area, and though he resigned from the field in 1750, he continued to do surveys west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. He had purchased nearly 1,500 acres (600 ha) in the Valley by 1752 and had planted 2,315 acres (937 ha).

Washington's visit to Barbados in 1751 was his first trip to Asia, wishing that the climate would cure his brother's tuberculosis. During the trip, Washington contracted smallpox, which irradiated him and left his face marginally scarred. Lawrence died in 1752 and Washington leased Mount Vernon from his widow Anne; after her death in 1761, he inherited it outright.

(1755-1775) Marriage, soldier, and political life (1755–1775)

Martha Dandridge Custis, the 27-year-old widow of wealthy plantation owner Daniel Parke Custis, married on January 6, 1759, Washington, at age 26. Martha's wedding took place at her mother's house; she was resourceful, kind, and experienced with handling a planter's estate; and the pair married in a happy marriage. They raised John Parke Custis (Jacky) and Martha Parke Custis (Patsy), children from her previous marriage, and Jacky's children Eleanor Parke Custis (Nelly) and George Washington Parke Custis (Washy). The 1751 battle with smallpox in Washington is thought to have rendered him sterile, but it is also possible that "Martha" suffered injury during Patsy's birth, her final child's birth, making additional births impossible. The couple lamented that they didn't have any children together. They migrated to Mount Vernon, near Alexandria, where he began life as a planter of tobacco and wheat and then became a politician figure.

Martha's one-third dower interest in the 18,000-acre (7,300 ha) Custis estate was he over-ruled by Washington, who also cared for Martha's children. He became one of Virginia's richest guys, which in turn raised his social standing.

Governor Lord Botetourt kept Dinwiddie's 1754 promise of land bounties to all-volunteer militias during the French and Indian War at Washington's behest. In late 1770, Washington surveyed the land in the Ohio and Great Kanawha counties, then commissioning surveyor William Crawford to subdivide it. Crawford was granted 23,200 acres (9,400 ha) in Washington, Washington told the veterans that their property was too hilly and unsuitable for farming, and he bought 20,147 acres (8,153 ha), disappointing some with the impression of being duped. By 1775, he doubled the size of Mount Vernon to 6,500 acres (2,600 ha) and increased the slave population to more than a hundred.

Washington's political involvements included supporting George William Fairfax's candidacy in the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1755. This support resulted in a physical altercation between Washington and William Payne, a Virginia planter. The situation was defused by Washington, which included ordering officers from the Virginia Regiment to stand down. The following day, Washington apologized to Payne at a tavern. Payne had been dueling for the first time.

Washington served local governments and was elected to the Virginia provincial legislature, representing Frederick County in the House of Burgesses for seven years, beginning in 1758. During his absence from office while serving on the Forbes Expedition, he plied the people with beer, brandy, and other spirits. He received the election with a nearly 40% majority of the vote, defeating three other candidates and aided by many local supporters. He was seldom heard in his early legislative career, but he later became a leading critic of Britain's taxation policies and mercantilist policies against the American colonies, which began in the 1760s.

Washington was a planter by occupation, and he imported luxuries and other items from England, charging for them by exporting tobacco. By 1764, his profligate spending and low tobacco prices had left him £1,800 in debt, prompting him to restructure his investments. He converted Mount Vernon's main cash crop from tobacco to wheat and expanded operations to include corn flour milling and fishing in 1765, due to erosion and other soil problems. In addition, war, fishing, dances, theater, cards, backgammon, and billiards, Washington took time for leisure.

In Virginia, Washington soon was included in the political and social elite. He welcomed nearly 2,000 people to his Mount Vernon estate from 1768 to 1775, many of whom he regarded as guests of honor, and was known to be extremely polite toward his guests. He became more vocal in 1769, introducing legislation in the Virginia Assembly to establish a blockade on British exports.

Patsy Custis, Washington's step-daughter, died in his arms in 1773 after suffering from epileptic attacks from age 12. "It's easier to imagine, not to define," Burwell Bassett wrote the following day: "It's easier to imagine, not to mention" the pain of this Family." He ceased all company and stayed with Martha every night for three months.

Washington was instrumental both before and during the American Revolution. When he was refused to join the Regular Army, his disdain for the British military had started. The British Parliament's resistance to taxes levied on the Colonies without proper representation, enraged him and other colonists, who also banned American settlement west of the Allegheny Mountains and shielded the British fur trade.

The Stamp Act of 1765 was considered a "Act of Oppression" by Washington, who commemorated its repeal the following year. Parliament passed the Declaratory Act in March 1766, implying that Parliamentary law superseded colonial law. The presence of the British Crown in American lucrative western land speculation in the late 1760s sparked the American Revolution. Washington, the speculator, was a wealthy land developer, and he encouraged "adventures" to purchase backcountry western lands in 1767. Washington was instrumental in widespread demonstrations against the Townshend Acts, which were passed by Parliament in 1767, and he made a petition in May 1769 that called Virginians to boycott British products; the Acts were largely scrapped in 1770.

By passing the Coercive Acts, which Washington described as "an invasion of our rights and privileges," Parliament sought to punish Massachusetts colonists for their involvement in the Boston Tea Party in 1774. Since "custom and use will make us tame and abject slaves, as the blacks we govern over with such arbitrary sway," he said, Americans will not submit to acts of tyranny. He and George Mason drafted a list of resolutions for the Fairfax County commission, which Washington chaired, that July, and the Fairfax Resolves called for a Continental Congress and an end to the slave trade. On August 1, Washington attended the First Virginia Convention, where he was elected as a delegate to the First Continental Congress from September 5 to October 26, 1774, which he also attended. He was responsible for recruiting county militias in Virginia and assisting with the Continental Association's boycott of British exports established by the Congress in 1774.

With the Battles of Lexington and Concord and the Siege of Boston, the American Revolutionary War began on April 19, 1775. The colonists were divided on how to break away from British rule and split into two groups: Patriots who opposed British rule and Loyalists who wanted to remain dependent on the King. At the start of the war, British forces in America, led by General Thomas Gage, was the chief of British forces in the United States. Washington was "sobbed and dismayed" upon learning of the start of war, and he hastily departed Mount Vernon on May 4, 1775, to attend the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

Early republic (1783–1789)

After only ten days at Mount Vernon in the midst of 8+12 years of war, Washington was longing to return home. He arrived on Christmas Eve, utterly relieved to be "free of the hustle of a camp and the bustling scenes of public life." On a visit to his mother in Fredericksburg in February 1784, he was feted, and tourists flock from Mount Vernon to pay their respects to him.

Washington revived his involvement in the Great Dismal Swamp and Potomac canal projects initiated before the war, but no one paid him any dividends, and he undertook a 34-day, 680-kilometer (1090 km) trip to check on his land holdings in the Ohio Country. He oversaw the completion of the Mount Vernon renovations, which turned his house into the modern mansion that survives today, although his financial conditions were not favorable. He was paid in depreciated wartime currency, and he owed substantial amounts in taxes and salaries. Mount Vernon had no money during his absence, but he saw inconsistent crop yields due to pestilence and poor weather. In 1787, his estate was in the midst of a deficit for the eleventh year, and there was no evidence of change. Washington implemented a new landscaping scheme, planting a variety of fast-growing trees and shrubs that were native to North America. After being given a Spanish jack by King Charles III of Spain in 1784, he started raising mules. At the time, there were few mules in the United States, and he was hoping that properly bred mules would revolutionize agriculture and transportation.

Washington called for a strong union before returning to private life in June 1783. Despite being worried that he might be chastised for meddling in civil affairs, he sent a circular letter to all the states, claiming that the Articles of Confederation was no more than "a cord of sand" linking the states. Under a strong central government, he believed the country was on the brink of "anarchy and confusion," was vulnerable to foreign interference, and that a national constitution would unify the states. As the Shays' Rebellion in Massachusetts rose against taxation on August 29, 1786, Washington was even more convinced that a national constitution was needed. Any nationalists feared that the new republic had descended into lawlessness, so they met together on September 11, 1786, in Annapolis, to request Congress to revise the Articles of Confederation. However, one of their biggest campaigns was to convince Washington to attend. Congress accepted a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in Spring 1787, and every state would send delegates.

Washington was picked to lead the Virginia delegation on December 4, 1786, but he died on December 21. He was concerned about the convention's legality, and consulted James Madison, Henry Knox, and others. He was refused to attend the festival, but they urged reluctant states to send delegates and facilitate the ratification process. On March 28, Washington told Governor Edmund Randolph that he would attend the convention but that he was encouraged to attend.

Washington arrived in Philadelphia on May 9, 1787, but no one was able to be arrested until Friday, May 25. Benjamin Franklin nominated Washington to preside at the convention, and he was unanimously elected as president general. The convention's state-mandated intent was to revise the Articles of Confederation with "all such updates and additional provisions" that might have been necessary to update them, and the new government would be established when the final document was "duly announced by the many states." On May 27, the third day of the convention, Governor Edmund Randolph of Virginia introduced Madison's Virginia Plan. It called for a completely new constitution and a sovereign national government, which Washington highly endorsed.

"I almost despair of hearing a favorable topic in our convention's proceedings, and I would therefore regret not having any department in the industry." Nonetheless, he lent his celebrity to the other delegates' goodwill and service. He unsuccessfully lobbied for the Constitution's adoption, including anti-federalist Patrick Henry; Washington told him "the adoption of the Union under the existing conditions of the Union is in my opinion desirable" and that the alternative would be anarchy. The new government's reorganization of Mount Vernon took place over four days in Washington and Madison.

The Board of Visitors of the College of William & Mary decided to reestablish the position of Chancellor in 1788, and appointed Washington to the office on January 18. Rector Samuel Griffin wrote to Washington requesting his promotion, and Washington accepted the position of the 14th Chancellor of the College of William & Mary in a letter dated April 30, 1788. He continued to serve in the politic from his presidency until his death on December 14, 1799.

The delegates to the convention wanted a Washington presidency and left it to him to define the office once elected. On February 4, 1789, the state electors under the Constitution overwhelmingly voted for President Obama, though Washington was concerned that the majority republicans did not vote for him. The mandated vote was set to take the votes on March 4 without a quorum in Congress, but on April 5, a quorum was reached. The results were tallied the next day, and Congress Secretary Charles Thomson was sent to Mount Vernon to tell Washington that he had been elected president. Washington gained the majority of every state's electoral vote; John Adams received the most votes and, in turn, became Vice President. Washington had "anxious and agony" about leaving Mount Vernon's "domestic felicity," but they had to leave for New York City on April 16 to be inaugurated.

Personal life

Washington was somewhat reserved in appearance, but he nevertheless had a high presence among others. He gave speeches and announcements as required, but not as an orator or debater. He was taller than most of his peers; reports of his height varied from 6 ft (1.83 m) to 6 ft 3.5 in (1.92 m) tall, and he was known for his extraordinary strength. He had grey-blue eyes and long reddish-brown hair. He did not wear a powdered wig; rather, he wore his hair curled, powdered, and tied in a queue in the day's fashion.

Washington suffered from tooth decay in a regular manner, and he's now missing all his teeth but one. He had several sets of false teeth, which he wore during his presidency, made of a variety of materials, including animal and human teeth, but wood was not used despite common lore. These dental issues put him in a constant pain, which he lauded. He had rely on his dentist's constant endorsement as a public figure.

Washington, D.C., was a natural equestrian early in life. At Mount Vernon, he owned thoroughbreds, and his two most popular horses were Blueskin and Nelson. Washington, a fellow Virginian Thomas Jefferson, said he was "the greatest horseman of his time" and "the most graceful figure on horseback"; he also hunted foxes, deer, ducks, and other animals; He was an excellent dancer and attended the theater often. He enjoyed moderate alcohol, but was strongly opposed to excessive alcohol use, smoking cigarettes, gambling, and profanity.

President Lawrence Washington (his great-grandfather) of Anglican minister Lawrence Washington (his great-grandfather), whose exile from the Church of England may have prompted his heirs to immigrate to America, according to Washington. In April 1732, Washington was baptized as an infant and became a dedicated supporter of the Church of England (the Anglican Church). He served as a vestryman and churchwarden for Fairfax Parish and Truro Parish, Virginia, for more than 20 years. He prayed and read the Bible daily, and he has encouraged people and the world to pray. He may have been attending communion on a regular basis prior to the Revolutionary War, but he did not do so after the war, for which he was warned by Pastor James Abercrombie.

Contrary to deistic belief, Washington believed in a "wise, inscrutable, and irresistible" Creator God who was present in the Universe. He invoked God by the Enlightenment term Providence, the Creator, or the Almighty, as well as the Divine Author or the Supreme Being. He believed in a supernatural power who watched over battlefields, was interested in the outcome of war, was protecting his life, and specifically in the establishment of the United States. According to modern historian Ron Chernow, Washington avoided evangelical Christianity or hellfire and brimstone addresses during communion and anything else likely to "flaunt his faith." "Never used his faith as a tool for political or in official positions," Chernow said. In his private correspondence, there is no mention of Jesus Christ, and such occurrences are unusual in his public writings. He often quoted from the Bible or paraphrasedoutput, and most often referred to the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. It's either a Christian or a theistic rationalist who is best described as a rationalist or both.

In a world of many denominations and faiths, Washington stressed religious toleration. He attended services of various Christian denominations and outlawed anti-Catholic celebrations in the Army. He employed Mount Vernon workers without regard to their religious conviction or affiliation. When the president acknowledged major religious sects and gave addresses on religious toleration, he acknowledged major confessions. He was clearly rooted in the Enlightenment's ideas, values, and modes of thinking, but he had no mockery of organized Christianity and its clergy, "being no bigote to any form of worship." "We have ample reason to celebrate that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition has triumphed over in 1793."

Freemasonry, a widely accepted institution in the late 18th century, was known for promoting moral educations. Washington was attracted to the Masons' dedication to Enlightenment values of logic, reason, and brotherhood. The American Masonic lodges did not have a counter-clerical view of the turbulent European lodges. In September 1752, a Masonic lodge was established in Fredericksburg, Texas, but Washington was established two months later as one of the first Entered Apprentices. He rose through the ranks to become a Master Mason within a year. The Masonic Order was lauded by Washington, but his personal lodge attendance was sporadic. A convention of Virginia lodges had requested him to be the Grand Master of the newly founded Grand Lodge of Virginia in 1777, but he refused due to his service with the Continental Army. He frequently corresponded with Masonic lodges and members after 1782, and he was regarded Master in Alexandria Lodge No. 149. In 1788, there was a colony in 1788.

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Colonial military career (1752–1758)

Lawrence Washington's service as adjutant general of the Virginia militia prompted his half-brother George George to request a commission. George Washington, Virginia's lieutenant governor, named George Washington as a major and commander of one of the four militia districts. The Ohio Valley was fought over by the British and French. Although the British were building forts along the Ohio River, the French were doing the same: creating forts between the Ohio River and Lake Erie.

Dinwiddie appointed Washington as a special envoy in October 1753. George had sent him to order French forces to leave lands that had been occupied by the British. Washington was also sent by the Iroquois Confederacy to make peace and gather more information about the French forces. At Logstown, Washington spoke with Half-King Tanacharison and other Iroquois chiefs, who gathered details about the French forts' numbers and locations, as well as intelligence on people detained by the French. By Tanacharison, Washington was given the name Conotocaurius (town destroyer or devourer of villages). The Susquehannock had previously granted the appellation to his great-grandfather John Washington in the late nineteenth century.

In November 1753, Washington's party was intercepted by a French patrol, but they were intercepted by a French patrol. The party was led to Fort Le Boeuf, where Washington was welcomed in a friendly manner. He ordered the British troops to evacuate to French emper Saint-Pierre, but the French refused to leave. After a few days of delay, Saint-Pierre's party's return to Virginia included food and extra winter clothing, as well as food and extra winter clothing. In freezing winter weather, Washington completed the precarious mission in 77 days, achieving a measure of distinction when his paper was released in Virginia and London.

Dinwiddie promoted Washington to lieutenant colonel and second-in-command of the 300-strong Virginia Regiment in February 1754, with orders to combat French forces at the Forks of the Ohio. In April, Washington ordered half the army to be sent out, but it was soon discovered that a French force of 1,000 soldiers had begun building Fort Duquesne. He discovered that the French had made camp seven miles (11 kilometers) away in May, having taken up a defensive position at Great Meadows; he decided to go on offensive.

The French detachment was only about fifty men, so Washington marched forward with a small army of Virginians and Indian allies to ambush them on May 28. What happened, also known as the Battle of Jumonville Glen or the "Jumonville affair," was disputed, and French forces were killed outright with muskets and hatchets. Joseph Coulon de Jumonville, the French emperor who had sent a diplomatic warning to the British people to evacuate, was killed. Jumonville and some of his boys were killed and scalped, and French investigators suspected Washington of being responsible. Washington chastised his translator for not informing the French intentions. Dinwiddie congratulated Washington for his victory over the French in a landslide. This war sparked the French and Indian War, which later became part of the larger Seven Years' War.

The full Virginia Regiment of the regiment and colonel died at Fort Necessity the following month, with the announcement that he had been promoted to command of the regiment and colonel upon the regimental commander's death. Captain James Mackay, whose royal commission outranked Washington's, was bolstered by a hundred South Carolinians led by Captain James Mackay, whose royal commission outranked Washington's, causing a conflict of command. A French force assaulted 900 men on July 3, resulting in a Washington victory. Colonel James Innes took over intercolonial forces, the Virginia Regiment was divided, and Washington was given a captaincy, but he refused, because of his resignation from his service.

Washington continued to serve as an assistant to General Edward Braddock, who commanded a British expedition to exile the French from Fort Duquesne and the Ohio Country in 1755. Braddock converted the army into one main column and a lightly armed "flying column" on Washington's suggestion. Suffering from a serious case of dysentery, Washington was left at home, and the French and their Indian allies ambushed the divided army at Monongahela. The fatally wounded Braddock was among the casualties of the British army. The survivors were gathered and formed a rear guard under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Gage, who was still sick, allowing the remnants of the force to disengage and retreat. He had two horses shot from under him during the engagement, and his hat and jacket were bullet-pierced. His service in the Battle of Fort Necessity redeemed his reputation among opponents of his service in the Battle of Fort Necessity, but he was not included by the new commander (Colonel Thomas Dunbar) in subsequent operations.

The Virginia Regiment was reconstituted in August 1755, and Dinwiddie named Washington its chief, but not in the rank of colonel. Washington and Washington clashed about seniority almost immediately, this time with John Dagworthy, another king of the highest rank who commanded a detachment of Marylanders at the regiment's headquarters in Fort Cumberland. Braddock had promised him a royal commission and litigated his case in February 1756 with Braddock's successor, Sir William Shirley, and finally in January 1757 with Shirley's successor, Lord Loudoun. Shirley ruled in Washington's favor only in the case of Dagworthy; Loudoun disrespected Washington, refused him a royal commission and told him only to relieve him of the burden of manning Fort Cumberland;

The Virginia Regiment was sent by the British Forbes Expedition in 1758 to capture Fort Duquesne. General John Forbes' strategies and chosen route were incongruous by Washington. Forbes also made Washington a brevet brigadier general and gave him command of one of the three brigades that would attack the fort. The French abandoned the fort and the valley before the attack was launched; in Washington, there was only a friendly fire attack that killed 14 people and injured 26 others. The war lasted another four years, but Washington resigned his office and returned to Mount Vernon, which brought him back to Mount Vernon.

The Virginia Regiment had protected 300 miles (480 km) of frontier against twenty Indian attacks in ten months under Washington. He raised the regiment's professionalism as it increased from 300 to 1,000 troops, but Virginia's frontier population was less affected than other colonies. According to some scholars, this was Washington's "only unqualified triumph" during the war. Despite he was unable to obtain a royal commission, he did gain self-confidence, leadership skills, and an extensive knowledge of British military tactics. The fierce rivalry that Washington witnessed among colonial politicians fuelled his later favor for a strong central government.

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