What’s in it for me? An irreverent history of George Washington that cuts through myth to reveal the man.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that you already know the story of George Washington.
Most Americans have seen his face on the dollar bill and heard his name invoked by politicians.
Americans even get a federal holiday on his birthday.
But Washington’s story is more complex than we’ve been led to believe.
For one thing, you can forget about the cherry tree.
In these blinks, you’ll learn the nuanced truth behind the legend of George Washington and why Americans have clung so tightly to his stories over the years.
We’ll follow Washington from his impoverished upbringing to his rise through the military ranks.
We'll find that, as a leader of the Revolutionary War, he was as much, if not more, of a trickster as he was a military strategist.
Even more scandalous is proof that his presidential career was a lot less illustrious than you think you remember.
Throughout his life, he never once freed one of the hundreds of enslaved people at his plantation.
But with his human flaws as a backdrop, his many successes only shine brighter.
In these blinks, you’ll learn what Washington’s favorite tropical fruit was, as well as his preferred breakfast; the terrible truth behind Washington’s famous dentures; and exactly how fancy his inauguration shoes really were.
Many of the most famous stories about Washington simply aren’t true.
You know that joke about history being so named because it’s literally “his story”?
Well, corny as the saying may be, it’s kind of true.
History has typically been written by men, about men, and for men.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the stories we tell about George Washington, America’s Revolutionary War hero and first president.
He’s the subject of hundreds of biographies, artworks, and memorials, including the one-dollar bill and a statue so massive that it’s carved into a literal mountain.
Because he’s so revered, his story has attained cult status.
But when you actually cut through the hero worship, it turns out that several of our favorite stories aren’t based in reality at all.
The key message here is: Many of the most famous stories about Washington simply aren’t true.
Let’s take, for example, the old tale that Washington had wooden dentures, which kept him in constant agony.
The fact that he was able to speak, let alone lead a country, is supposed to demonstrate his mighty stoicism and steadfast resolve.
But when you think about it, the story doesn’t make sense.
Wood is an awful material for dentures, given its annoying tendency to rot.
It’s true that Washington had terrible teeth – if any – but his dentures were actually made from a combination of animal teeth and human teeth that he bought from enslaved people at well below the going market rate.
The famous cherry tree incident also wilts under scrutiny.
The story has a young Washington, overexcited by the gift of a new ax, chopping down his father’s favorite fruit tree.
When questioned, Washington immediately confesses, uttering the famous line, “I cannot tell a lie.
” Washington may have been many things, but an “arborcidal” maniac he was not.
The story was invented by his first biographer in 1798.
That these stories have stayed with us throughout the years says more about us than it does about Washington.
As the so-called Father of his Country, Washington’s character and actions are a reflection of our own.
But as we re-examine history from the perspectives of all of the participants, not just the great men, it becomes clear that history is more nuanced than we realize.
Washington was a great man, sure, but he was also flawed, just like us.
How he was able to overcome his normal-guy nature to become great, well, that’s a story worth telling.
After an impoverished childhood, the ambitious Washington advanced – but he soon realized he could only get so far.
The story starts not in 1732, the year George Washington was born on the banks of the Potomac in Virginia, but 11 years later, in 1743 when his father Augustine died.
His father’s death was a blow to the young family and a crucial catalyst for George’s boundless ambition.
Augustine expected George’s mother to remarry, so he left her very little in his will.
But Mary Washington didn’t remarry.
Instead, she sold off most of their farm to make ends meet and prayed the weather would allow her to grow enough surplus crops to sell.
Small-scale farmers like her were disadvantaged by the British monopoly on trade.
The key message here is: After an impoverished childhood, the ambitious Washington advanced – but he soon realized he could only get so far.
George had to grow up fast.
He dropped out of school and took up land surveying.
By age 18, he was earning enough to support his mother and five siblings.
And he was also able to buy thousands of acres of farmland.
Mary made sure George was a frequent guest at the home of his wealthy half-brother Lawrence, where he became the pet project of Lawrence’s elite military milieu.
Lawrence suffered badly from tuberculosis, so his rich relatives sent the brothers to Barbados, hoping the warmer weather would improve Lawrence’s health.
The Caribbean was a mixed bag for George: he loved the weather and exotic tropical fruit – especially pineapple – but he caught smallpox, which led to some facial scarring.
Lawrence’s eventual death turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
George lost his treasured brother but was able to fill his now-vacant position in the Virginia militia.
Washington’s military career got off to a rough start.
In fact, if the American Revolution hadn’t happened, he would primarily be remembered for sparking the diplomatic feud that resulted in the French and Indian War.
When Washington’s company killed ten Frenchmen in the wilds of western Pennsylvania, it led to skirmishes all over the world.
Despite the blunder, his career took off.
When his wartime diaries were published by the British to stir up anti-French sentiment, the 22-year-old gained a reputation as a brazen swashbuckler.
But boldness didn’t pay the bills.
His command posts were consistently undersupplied, and his British superiors refused to accept that their traditional ideas of European warfare didn’t make sense in an American context.
Washington was sick of risking his life for little pay and less respect.
His wartime experience taught him that even the most ambitious colonist remained a second-class citizen under British rule.
Fed up with the army, Washington retired to genteel civilian life – but he was soon plagued by familiar frustrations.
Washington knew he wasn’t going to reach his financial or social goals as an officer in His Majesty’s army.
He was going to have to marry rich – facial scarring be damned.
It helped that in 1758 he had been inducted into Virginia’s House of Burgesses, the colonial legislative body.
His fancy plantation friends had lobbied on his behalf, which in those days meant plying voters with beer and spirits before they cast their ballots.
A nasty case of dysentery that same year also proved fortuitous.
During his recovery in Williamsburg, Virginia, he met a petite widow with a giant estate of 290 enslaved people and 18,000 acres of land.
Martha seemed to have been as taken with George’s dashing reputation as he was with her.
They agreed to marry after only two meetings.
The key message here is: Fed up with the army, Washington retired to genteel civilian life – but he was soon plagued by familiar frustrations.
Married life suited Washington.
Newly rich, he had a large plantation and was a rising politician.
But even wealthy planters like him had trouble getting fair treatment from the British.
Because of Britain’s monopoly on trade, they were dependent on London for everything.
Prices for colonists were exorbitant, and often they were sent shoddy goods.
Washington was forced to sell his tobacco and other crops to the British for well under market value.
In order to financially scrape by, he relied on forced labor from hundreds of enslaved people and indentured servants.
During this time, a series of exploitative taxes served to rally and radicalize the colonists.
The Stamp Act in 1765, which levied fees on all paper products, was overturned when colonists violently objected.
However, this was replaced by the Townshend Acts of 1767.
The furious planters of Virginia decided to boycott British products, but colonists in Massachusetts took things even further.
In 1773, Massachusetts colonists boarded British ships and dumped hundreds of crates of tea into Boston Harbor.
Less than two years later, the first shots of the Revolution were fired by Massachusetts militias at the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
Washington had been schmoozing up and down the East Coast for years and was the natural choice to lead the army that was now needed.
He accepted the task with an outward show of angst, but inside he was probably pretty excited.
He’d decorated his home with busts of famous military leaders like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar.
And now his moment had come.
At age 43, Washington was still a man eager to be recognized – and this was the best chance for glory he’d ever have.
Washington defeated the British as much through subterfuge as military might – but the victory came at a grave personal cost.
As the big hero of the Revolutionary War, you’d expect Washington to have been extraordinarily successful as a general.
But he actually lost more battles than any victorious general in modern history.
He had swagger, though.
The Patriots were up against serious odds.
The British arrived in 1776 off the coast of New York with 32,000 troops on 400 ships – the largest invading force they had ever mustered.
The Patriots had 19,000 ragtag troops with no naval support.
But when the British sent an emissary to meet with the American leadership, Washington wouldn’t even receive the diplomat until he addressed him as “General.
” What’s more, having refused their terms, he sent the emissary back to the British with a sarcastic “my particular compliments.
” The British admirals were shocked by Washington’s sass.
The war was on.
The key message here is: Washington defeated the British as much through subterfuge as military might – but the victory came at a grave personal cost.
Washington’s battlefield glories have been well documented.
He was no doubt a good military strategist – he won the war against the best military in the world.
But he also ran excellent propaganda campaigns and spy rings, which contributed significantly to the overall triumph.
In a time before war correspondents, it was up to clever military tacticians to gather, collate, and publish stories of war crimes and humanitarian atrocity.
Washington collected stories of British brutality against civilians.
He published these stories in newspapers throughout the colonies.
Washington also got Congress to fund a newspaper, over which he held total editorial control.
One observer described these newspapers as being worth “at least two regiments.
” What’s more, Washington personally handled spies and double agents.
They used invisible ink and specific arrangements of laundry on clotheslines to pass messages.
What the Patriots lacked in fancy spy gadgets, they made up for in the bravado of the spies themselves.
A British spymaster at the time said, “Washington didn’t really outfight the British.
He simply outspied us.
” But Washington had a hard war, despite being personally attended to by his enslaved manservants, bodyguards, and for about half the war, his wife, Martha.
By the end of the war, Washington’s finances were in shambles, and his mother was impoverished and at death’s door.
He was victorious and a hero of the young nation, but he couldn’t wait to go home, recover his finances, and live out the rest of his days in peace.
But it wasn’t going to work out that way.
After shocking the world by relinquishing power, Washington retired – but he couldn’t stay away from politics for long.
After the war, Washington was overwhelmingly popular: everywhere he went, huge crowds would cheer and toast him.
Ladies laid flowers under the feet of his horse.
Congress waived postage on letters to him, and he was inundated with fan mail, tributes, and gifts.
The Founding Fathers were watching closely – if not jealously, then at least with some anxiety.
Why would someone so popular willingly give up power?
It had never been done before.
They suspected him of maneuvering to become a Caesar-like figure, an emperor-general.
Even King George of England couldn’t believe that Washington would cede power so readily, saying “if Washington does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.
” So once Washington actually did sign over his wartime authority and start the journey home to Virginia in 1783, he became a living legend.
The key message here is: After shocking the world by relinquishing power, Washington retired – but he couldn’t stay away from politics for long.
Back home at Mount Vernon, Washington enjoyed the simple things in life.
But these homely pleasures only lasted for so long.
America wasn’t on a good path.
Northern and Southern colonies couldn’t agree on powers for a central government.
And the British were circling, building forts on the outskirts of the territory.
Without an intervention, the American experiment seemed doomed to fail.
“I cannot feel myself an unconcerned spectator,” Washington wrote to John Jay in 1786.
The next year, in 1787, Washington finally agreed to the Founding Fathers’ constant pleas to get involved.
He saddled up and rode north to participate in the Constitutional Convention against the wishes of his wife.
By now, Martha was well aware that nothing relaxing ever came of her husbands’ trips to Philadelphia.
Washington was unanimously elected president of the Convention.
Under his leadership, the United States Constitution was created.
Almost as soon as it was signed, he set off back home.
But the Convention had only been successful because the delegates had assumed Washington would be the nation’s first president.
The only alternative seemed to be endless fighting that would probably lead to the country’s demise.
Washington won the first US election without engaging in a campaign or a single debate.
In fact, he sat the whole thing out at home with Martha at Mount Vernon.
But once the news came, he reluctantly set off for New York.
This wasn’t the quiet retirement he’d envisioned, but he felt duty-bound to answer his country’s call.
Washington began his presidency fighting off well-wishers; by its end, he had alienated all but his closest friends.
George Washington’s first presidential inauguration, even by our modern standards, was nothing to sneeze at.
For one thing, his shoes were pretty fancy: they had silver buckles and large diamonds and were worn over knee-high stockings of white silk.
Five hundred soldiers escorted him through massive crowds to the ceremony.
The festivities culminated with pyrotechnics that painted the new president’s face in the night sky.
But no one thought Washington looked particularly happy to be there.
Attention always made him feel uncomfortable.
It’s also possible, though, that he foresaw the difficulties he would face in the coming years.
The key message here is: Washington began his presidency fighting off well-wishers; by its end, he had alienated all but his closest friends.
His vice president was John Adams, appointed because he’d won the second-highest number of votes in the election.
The men had opposing priorities and leadership styles.
Adams was obsessed with formality and wasn’t as charming or dashing as his boss.
He’d already earned the nickname “His Rotundity.
” From the get-go, Washington’s cabinet was shaken by petty rivalry.
He successfully mediated between bitter foes Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, but wasn’t able to keep the peace indefinitely.
Washington fell out with his cabinet and Congress over the Jay Treaty, a trade deal with the British that many viewed as unfavorable to Americans.
When Congress demanded to see documents pertaining to the treaty negotiation, Washington refused, invoking the first instance of executive privilege.
During his second term, Washington faced his most trying test as president – and by most accounts, failed.
When distillers in Kentucky and western Pennsylvania refused to pay their taxes, Washington sidestepped both the governor of Pennsylvania and the Constitution.
He personally rode out with a federal militia to bring the so-called Whiskey Rebellion into line.
According to James Madison, it was the gravest error of his political career.
Here was a man known for self-control and wisdom under pressure.
But instead of talking to the rebels, or even threatening them, he became the only US president to take up arms against his own citizens.
Washington was also beginning to see the writing on the wall when it came to the morality of slavery.
He purported to be in favor of gradual emancipation but did nothing to legislate it while in office, much less move to free his own enslaved people, who numbered in the hundreds.
With more enemies than allies in government, Washington declined to run for a third term.
Instead, he retired to Mount Vernon for a final time and looked to secure his legacy.
As Washington began focusing on his legacy, he took action to appear more magnanimous in death than he had been in life.
In his final retirement, Washington was a man of routine.
He ate the same breakfast every morning.
It was a type of corncake known as a hoecake, swimming in butter and honey, and washed down with three cups of tea.
After breakfast, he took his horse for a long ride to inspect his estate.
Washington worried about his legacy.
When members of his cabinet published tell-all accounts of their time working for him, including attacks on his personal character, he annotated his copies with catty remarks in the margins.
As for the future of American politics, he predicted that political partisanship would reduce the government to bickering representatives who were very good at thwarting each other but ineffective at serving their constituents.
However, Washington himself had fallen victim to black-or-white thinking: he came to see people as for or against his presidency.
The key message here is: As Washington began focusing on his legacy, he took action to appear more magnanimous in death than he had been in life.
John Adams won the next presidential election, but Washington still had some power in the capital.
Members of government continued to ask him to play a role, not always unsuccessfully.
When war once again loomed, this time with France, Washington accepted Adams’ offer to lead the Continental Army.
But the undeclared, so-called Quasi War was fought only at sea, so Washington never had to fight in a battle.
Washington was also asked to run for president another time in the election of 1800, an offer he declined.
It turns out he wouldn’t live to see it.
In December 1799, Washington went out on his normal ride despite hail, rain, and snow.
Unsurprisingly, he came home with a cold.
Doctors performed the contemporary medical procedures of bloodletting, enemas, and creating pustules from Spanish flies, but Washington died a few days later at age 67.
In his will, he finally did what he had been talking about doing for two decades.
He freed all 123 of the enslaved people on his plantation or at least promised them their freedom after Martha had her use of them.
But his will also revealed his most enduring hypocrisy.
His excuse for enslaving other human beings was always that he didn’t have enough liquid cash to make up for their absence.
His will showed him to be the owner of 51,000 acres of land across five states, making him one of the richest men in America.
Had he sold just some of this land, he would have had enough cash to grant that inalienable American right of liberty to the people he enslaved.
Final summary
The key message in these blinks: George Washington was the hero of the American Revolution and, according to many scholars, its finest president.
But in remembering him as the infallible ideal of a man, we miss out on a much more nuanced picture of one of history’s great men.
In studying Washington as someone with mistakes and misjudgments, we discover that this legend is not so different than the rest of us.
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What to read next: The First Conspiracy, by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch You’ve just learned how George Washington became the hero of American history, winning the Revolutionary War and rescuing the country from fatal squabbling by becoming its first president.
The fables that have emerged about Washington’s victories have painted him as the perfect man: righteous, stoic, humble, and wise.
As we’ve seen, these stereotypes weren’t always based in reality.
In fact, some people at the time hated Washington and thought he was a threat to the established world order – enough to want to see him dead.
In the lead-up to the Revolutionary War, the governor of New York, mayor of New York City, British intelligence, and a motley assortment of bodyguards, soldiers, and prostitutes, conspired against the general of the Continental Army.
This story is another powerful narrative that complicates the legacy of the so-called Father of His Country.