THE YOUTH OF WASHINGTON [Illustration: âMY BROTHER COMFORTED ME IN MY DISAPPOINTMENT.â] Authorâs Definitive Edition THE YOUTH OF WASHINGTON TOLD IN THE FORM OF AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY S. WEIR MITCHELL, M.D. [Illustration] NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1910 Copyright, 1904, by THE CENTURY CO. _Published October, 1904_ The Knickerbocker Press, New York TO JOHN S. BILLINGS IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF FORTY YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP THE YOUTH OF WASHINGTON âAnd if I have done well, and as is fitting the story, it is that which I desired: but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto.âââ_2 Maccabees xv. 38._ THE YOUTH OF WASHINGTON DIARYââNOVEMBER, 1797 I My retirement from official duties as President has enabled me to restore order on my plantations, and in some degree to repair the neglected buildings which are fallen to decay. The constant coming of guestsââmoved, I fear, more by curiosity than by other reasonsââis diminished owing to snows, unusual at this period of the year. Owing to these favouring conditions, I have now some small leisure to reflect on a life which has been too much one of action and of public interests to admit, hitherto, of that kind of retrospection which is natural, and, as it seems to me, fitting in a man of my years, who has little to look forward to and much to look back upon. My recent uneasiness lest I should be called upon to conduct a war against our old allies, the French, is much abated, and I feel more free to consider my private affairs. I am too far advanced in the vale of life to bear much buffeting, and I have satisfaction in the belief we have escaped a new war for which the nation has not yet the strength. For sure I am, if this country is preserved in tranquillity twenty years longer, it may bid defiance in a just cause to any powers whatever, such in that time will be its power, wealth, and resources. Increasing infirmity and too frequent aches and ailments remind me that I am nearing the awful moment when I must bid adieu to sublunary things, and appear before that Divine Being to whom alone my country owes the success with which we have been blessed. But the great Disposer of events is also the Being who has formed the instruments of his will and left them responsible to the arbitration of conscience. Therefore I have of late spent much time in considering my past life, and how it might have been better or more successful, and in thankfulness that it has escaped many pitfalls. My reflections have brought back to mind a remark which seems to me just, made by my aide, Colonel Tilghman, a man more given to philosophic reflection than I have been. He asked me if I did not think there was something providential in the way each period of my life had been an education for that which followed it. I said that this idea had at times presented itself to my mind, and when I betrayed curiosity, he went on to say that my very early education in self-reliance and my training as a surveyor of wild lands had fitted me for frontier warfare, that this in turn had prepared me for action on a larger stage, and that all through the greater war my necessities called for constant dealing with political questions, and with men who were not soldiers. He thought that this had in turn educated me for the position to which my countrymen summoned me at a later time. As I was silent for a little, this gentleman, who became my aide-de-camp in June, 1780, and for whom I conceived a warm and lasting affection, thinking his remark might have been considered a liberty, said as much, excusing himself. I replied that, so far from annoying me, I found what he had to say interesting. When, recently, these remarks of Colonel Tilghman recurred to me, I felt that they were correct, and dwelling upon them at this remote time, my interest in the sequence of the events of my youthful life assumed an importance which has led me of late to endeavour, with the aid of my diaries, to refresh my memories of a past which had long ceased to engage my attention. I remember writing once that any recollections of my later life, distinct from the general history of the war, would rather hurt my feelings than tickle my pride while I lived. I do not think vanity is a trait of my character. I would rather leave posterity to think and say what they please of me. Those who served with me in war and peace will be judged as we become subjects of history, and time may unfold more than prudence ought to disclose. Concerning this matter I wrote to Colonel Humphreys that if I had talent for what he desired me to do, I had not leisure to turn my thoughts to commentaries. Consciousness of a defective education, and want of leisure, I thought, unfitted me for such an undertaking. I did, however, answer certain questions put to me by Colonel Humphreys concerning the Indian wars, but he has, so far, made no use of these notes. One of these considerations does not so much apply at present, for I possess the leisure, and in recording my early reminiscences I shall do so for myself alone, and assuredly shall find no satisfaction in comments on the conduct of other officers who, like myself, were honestly engaged in learning, and at the same time practising, a business in which none of us had a large experience. I shall confine my attention to recalling the events of my youth, and as I hate deception even where the imagination only is concerned, I shall try, for my own satisfaction, to deal merely with facts. General Hamilton, whose remarks I have often just reason to remember, once wrote me that no man had ever written a true biography of himself, that he was apt to blame himself excessively or to be too much prone to self-defence. He went on to state that an autobiography was written either from vanity and to present the man favourably to posterity, or because he desired for his own pleasure in the study of himself to recall the events of his career. In the latter case there is no need of publication. It is only in order to such self-examination as that to which he refers that I am induced to set down the remembrances of my earlier days, and because writing of them will, I feel, enable me more surely to bring them back to mind. I have no other motive. Whatever just ambitions I have had have been fully gratified; indeed, far beyond my wishes. The great Searcher of hearts is my witness that I have now no wish which aspires beyond the humble and happy lot of living and dying a private citizen on my own farm. In my estimation, more permanent and genuine happiness is to be found in the sequestered walks of connubial life, so long denied me in the war, than in the more tumultuous and imposing scenes of successful ambition. Nor can I complain. I am retiring here within myself. Envious of none, I am determined to be pleased with all; and with heartfelt satisfaction, feeling that my life has been on the whole happy, I will move gently down the stream until I sleep with my fathers. There are indeed not many circumstances in my life before the war which it now gives me pain to recall. I could not truthfully say this of that great contest, nor of the political struggles of my service as President. Mr. Adams, or perhaps Mr. Jefferson, once said of me that I was a man too sensitive to condemnation. This I believe to be correct, but I have not discovered that my ability to decide was ever largely affected by either unreasonable blame or the bribes of flattery. The treachery of men who professed for me friendship, and the intrigues of those who, like Conway, Lee, Gates, and Rush, used ignoble means to weaken my authority when it was of the utmost importance to our common cause that it should be strengthened, were calculated to give pain chiefly because they lessened my usefulness. Nor am I ever willing to dwell upon the treason of Arnold, which cost me the most painful duty of the war, and lost to the country a great soldier, who had not the virtue to wait until, in the course of events, his services would obtain their reward. It is, however, somewhat to be wondered at that in so long a war, where hope did at times seem to disappear, the catalogue of traitors was so small. It is strange that there were not more, for few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder. As to ill-natured and unjust reflections on my conduct, I feel, and have felt, everything that hurts the sensibility of a gentleman, but to persevere in oneâs duty and be silent is the best answer to calumny. Dr. Franklin has wisely said that no examples are so useful to a man as those which his own conduct affords, and that he was right in his opinion I have reason to believe. This I have observed to be true of anger, to which I am, or was, subject. I flatter myself that I have now learned to command my temper, although it is still on rare occasions likely to become mutinous. I do not observe that mere abuse ever troubles me long, but in the presence of cowardice or ingratitude I am subject to fits of rage. Arnoldâs treason distressed me, but the treachery of one of my cabinet, Edmund Randolph, the nephew and adopted son of my dear friend Peyton Randolph, disturbed my temper as nothing had done since the misconduct of Lee at Monmouth. If in any instance I was swayed by personal and private feelings in the exercise of official patronage and power, it was in the case of Mr. Randolph; and this fact added to the anger which his conduct excited. I willingly turn from the remembrance of ingratitude, a sin that my soul abhors. It is a severe tax which all must occasionally pay who are called to eminent stations of trust, not only to be held up as conspicuous marks to the enmity of the public adversaries of their country, but to the malice of secret traitors, and the envious intrigues of false friends and factions. But all this is over. I willingly leave time and my country to pronounce the verdict of history. As I wrote what just now I have set down, a remark of Mr. John Adams came into my mind. He said it was difficult for a man to write about himself without feeling that he was all the time in the presence of an audience. This may be true of Mr. Adams, but I am not aware that it is true of me. The statement I shall now record of myself and for myself might be made very full as to events by the use of the details of my diaries, but this I desire to avoid. My intention is to deal chiefly with my own youthful life and the influences which affected it for good or for ill. II Being without children to transmit my name, I have taken no great interest in learning much about my ancestors. I have, indeed, been too much concerned with larger matters. It is, however, far from my design to believe that heraldry, coat-armour, etc., might not be rendered conducive to public and private uses with us, or that they can have any tendency unfriendly to the purest spirit of republicanism; nor does it seem to me that pride in being come of gentry and of dutiful and upright men is without its value, if we draw from an honourable past nourishment to sustain us in continuing to be what our forefathers were. This also should make men who have children the more careful as to their own manner of life, and as for myself, although denied this great blessing, I may perhaps wisely have been destined to feel that all my countrymen were to me something more than my fellow-citizens. I have heard my half-brother Lawrence say that he had learned from his elders that my English ancestors were violent Loyalists, especially one Sir Henry Washington, when the great struggle arose between the Parliament and the King in the time of the Commonwealth. I recall that, when a young man, I was riding with my friend George Mason, and when this matter arose, and he asked me whether if I had lived in those days I should have been for the crown or the commons, I replied that if I had lived in that time I could have answered him, but that I was not enough informed concerning that period to be able to state on which side I should have been. Certainly I should have found it hard to make war on the King. I profess myself to be ignorant as to much that concerns my ancestry. When too young to have the smallest interest in the matter, I heard my two half-brothers and William Fairfax conversing on the subject of the origin of my family. The brothers were not very clear as to our descent, but were of opinion that we came of the Washingtons of Sulgrave, originally of Lancashire. In 1791 the Garter king-at-arms, Sir Isaac Heard, wrote to me, sending a pedigree of my family; but I had to confess it was a subject to which I had given very little attention; in fact, except as to our later history, I could only say that we came from Lancashire, Yorkshire, or some still more northerly county. Most of the early colonists of all classes were too busy in fighting Indians and raising the means of living to concern themselves with the relatives left in England. This indifference was not uncommon among us, and was in those early days to be expected. It explains why we and other descendants of settlers knew, and indeed cared, too little about our ancestors. I do not know what exactly was the station of the father of the brothers who first came overââJohn, my ancestor, and Lawrence, his brother. It is of more moment to me to know that my forefathers in this country have been gentlemen, and have in many positions of trust, both in civil employ and in the military line, served the colonies and, later, their country with faithfulness and honour. As concerns the question of ancestry and a manâs judging of himself by that alone, I am much of Colonel Tilghmanâs opinion, who once said to me, speaking of Mr. Bââââ, that when a man had to look back upon his ancestors to make himself sure he was a gentleman, he was but a poor sort of man, which I conceive to be true. My great-grandfather, John Washington, the first emigrant of our name, was the son of Lawrence and Amphilis, his wife. He went first to the Barbados, but, not being pleased, came later to Virginia; that is, in 1657. It is certain that my great-grandfather in some respects possessed qualities which resembled those which I myself possess. He was a man of great personal strength, inclined to war, very resolute, and of a masterful and very violent temper. He was accused in 1675 of too severe treatment of the Indians in the frontier wars against the Susquehannocks, for which he was reprimanded by Sir William Berkeley, but, it is said, unjustly. He was a man had in esteem and most respectable, and held a seat in the Assembly in 1670. He was also of a nature greatly moved by injustice, for on his voyage to Virginia a poor woman on board the ship was hanged for a witch, and he made great efforts, on being come ashore, to have the master and crew punished. I find in myself the same anger at injustice. It is proper to add that there was current in the colony a story that, on account of his rigour with the Indians, he was called by them Conocatorius, which, Englished, means a Destroyer of Villages. The Half-King, an Indian chief so called, hearing my name when first we met, addressed me by this title. There must have been among these tribes a remembrance or tradition as to the name, for certainly I never deserved it, and that after so long a time it should have been remembered appears to me strange. My great-grandfatherâs brother Lawrence was engaged for a time in the mercantile way, and at one time signed himself as of Luton, County Bradford, merchant. He made some voyages to Virginia and home again before he settled in the colony, and may have acquired land in England, for, as I shall state later, he devised real estate in the home country. As I speak of the home country, I am reminded that even after the War of Independency the habit of speaking of England as home prevailed with many, so strong was the attachment to the mother country; and, indeed, nothing but the folly of Great Britain could have broken the bonds which united us. My great-grandfather, John Washington, brought with him a wife from England. Her maiden name I do not know. She and her two children died within a few years of his landing. The brothers mention in their wills property in England, but where or exactly what it was they do not say. It would seem, therefore, that it was not poverty which drove my ancestor to emigrate. That this property was not mere money, the proceeds of tobacco, appears to be shown by the will of my great-grandfatherâs brother Lawrence, who devised to Mary, his daughter, his whole estate in England, real as well as personal. My great-grandfather married secondly the widow of Walter Broadhurst, daughter of Nathaniel Pope of Appomattocks, gentleman. My grandfather Lawrence was the first born of this marriage. My great-grandfather died in 1677. He was of that importance as to have named for him the parish in which he resided. The brothers were not the only ones of the name who came to Virginia. There was also a cousin, Martha Washington. She emigrated to Virginia and married Nicholas Hayward of Westmoreland. How it was that, being a spinster, she came over alone, I am not informed. She left her property to her cousins John and Lawrence, and a gold twenty-shilling piece to each, and to their sons each a feather bed and furniture, and to their heirs foreverââwhich does appear to me long for a bed to last. There were also others, but if related I have not felt concerned to inquire. They spelled the name Vysington in certain deeds, which I have heard was the ancient manner of spelling it. Of them I know nothing further. My great-grandfather left a legacy to the rector of the lower church of Washington parish, and ordered that a funeral sermon be preached, which appears to me, as Lord Fairfax said, to be a certain way to secure being well spoken of, at least once, after death. He also provided in his will for a tablet of the Ten Commandments, and also the kingâs arms, to be set up in the church of his parish. He may have been led to come to Virginia by the fact that it had become for men loyal to the crown and to the Church of England a refuge such as the Puritans sought in Massachusetts. We have ever since been connected with that Church, nor have I found reason to depart from it. At times I have been a vestryman, but this was in those days also a civil office, having judicial duties, such as charge of the schools and of the poor of the parish. My connection with the Church of my fathers has varied in interest from time to time, for, although I have at times partaken of the sacrament and even fasted, I have not always felt so inclined, although I have with reasonable punctuality attended upon the services. I have had all my life a disinclination to converse on this subject, and confess, as Dr. Franklin once remarked to me, that âsilence is sometimes wisdom as concerns a manâs creed.â In considering so much of my family history as is known to me, I perceive that men married at an early age and remained no long time widowers. Also I observe that many children died young, as was like enough to happen on plantations remote from physicians, and indeed these were few in number and not as good as in the northern colonies. I know less of my grandfather Lawrence than of his father. He did not increase the importance of the family, neither was he inclined to public business. He was, as I have understood, a quiet, thrifty man, and no seeker of adventure by land or water. He married Mildred Warner, by whom he had children, and died leaving a competent estate, but none to be compared with the great lands accumulated by the Byrds or Carters. I conceive him to have been a person of moderate opinions concerning the Church of England, and as one who may have considered the dissenting sects as ill used. This I gather from a book given to me three years ago by a gentleman of Philadelphia, of the Society of Friends, who would have had me to believe that my grandfather was of that sect. This book is the life of one John Fothergill, a Quaker preacher, who says that in 1720 he âheld a meeting at Mattocks, at Justice Washingtonâs, a friendly man, where the Love of God opened my heart toward the people, much to my comfort and their satisfaction.â I do not suppose it to have meant more than that, as the church could not be used by a dissenter, Justice Washington willingly gave the good man the use of his own house. III My father, Augustine, was born in 1694, on the plantation known as Wakefield, granted, in 1667, to his grandfather, and lying between Bridgesâ and Popeâs creeks, in Westmoreland, on the north neck between the Potomac and the Rappahannock. My father, in his will, says: âForasmuch as my several children in this my will mentioned, being by several Ventures, cannot inherit from one another,â etc. What he speaks of as his âVenturesâ were his two marriages. A venture does appear to me to be an appropriate name for the uncertain state of matrimony. The first âventureâ was Jane Butler, who lies buried at Wakefield. Of her four children two survivedââthat is, my half-brothers Lawrence and Augustine, whom we called Austin. I was the first child of my fatherâs second âventure,â and my mother was Mary Ball. I was born at Wakefield,[1] on February 11 [O. S.], 1732, about ten in the morning. I was baptized in the Popeâs Creek church, and had two godfathers and one godmother, Mildred Gregory. Mr. Beverly Whiting and Mr. Christopher Brooks were my godfathers. I do not recall ever seeing Mr. Whiting, although his son, of the same name, I met in after years. Of Mr. Brooks I know nothing, nor do I know which one of the two gave me the silver cups which it was then the custom for the godfather to give to the godson. I still have them. I was told by a silversmith in Philadelphia that the cups are of Irish make, and of about 1720. There were six of these mugs, in order to be used for punch when the child grew up. [1] This estate was bought by my father from his brother John. The Balls were respectable, and came out first as merchants. My maternal grandmother we know to have been Mary Johnson, of English birth, but of her family nothing more. At a later time the older planter families, both with us and in the West Indies, paid more attention to their ancestry, sometimes, it is to be feared, with pretensions which had no just foundation. Many assumed arms to which they were not entitled, or, like Mr. Jâââân, commissioned an agent in London to purchase some heraldic device, having Mr. Sterneâs word for it that âa coat of arms may be purchased as cheap as any other coat.â I have had some reason to believe that our friends did not regard my motherâs family, being in the mercantile line, as on the same social level as our own. But, in fact, we ourselves were not until a later day considered as of the highest class of Virginia gentry. Why this was I do not fully know. It is certain, however, that nowhere were aristocratic pretensions and the distinctions of social rank more marked than in Virginia. For a long time families like the Lees, Byrds, Carys, Masons, etc., regarded themselves as superior to other planter families, of as good or better blood. The lines of social rank among us I judge to have been made early to depend on extent of landed property, so that the owners of these vast estates were like great nabobs, and by having seats and control in the governorâs council and the House of Burgesses obtained large influence. They were at pains to defend their pretensions by a law of primogeniture, which made entails so strict that they could not be broken, as in England, by agreement of father and son, but required to break them, in each case, an act of the Assembly. Families like our own were regarded rather as minor gentry, and were, for a time, owing in a measure to their having but moderate estates, looked down upon by certain of the great proprietors of enormous plantations and numberless slaves. Whatever may have been the reason, or the reasons, I was more than once made to feel the fact that I was not looked upon as an equal by certain of these gentlemen, and this at an age when men are sensitive to such considerations. My father, Augustine, has been described as a good planter and a man of energy. I apprehend that he was of a serious tendency, for Lawrence, my brother, once gave me to understand that most of the few books at Wakefield were religious; but whether this was so or not I do not know. Like some of the rest of us, my father had a high and quick temper, which, as he used to say, he had to keep muzzled. I remember being terrified at seeing him in a storm of anger because the clergyman who was to have baptized my sister Mildred was too much in liquor to perform the ceremony. About the year 1724 he became interested in the mining of iron ore with the Principio Company, in which the venturers were chiefly English. A furnace was opened on his estate in Stafford County. It was confiscated in 1780 as rebel property. He had a contract for hauling the ore from the mines, and later commanded a ship for the taking of iron to England and the fetching back of convict labourers. On this account, I apprehend, he was known as Captain Washington. He was, I have understood, a man of enterprising nature and better informed than most planters of his time. He was educated at Appleby in England, near Whitehaven. I have often regretted that I never had his opportunities, or those of my brothers, in the way of education. The fact of my being a younger son and my fatherâs death, and also my motherâs overfondness, may have stood in the way, and on this and other occasions interfered with my own plans or with those of others for me. I did not take after my mother in appearance, and I had the large frame and strength of my father. In other respects also I was somewhat like him in my mind and character. When in later years I returned to visit Wakefield I used to fancy I remembered it. This I could not have done, as I was only three years old when, because of the unhealthfulness of the place, my father moved away. The house was burned down on Christmas eve, 1779. It was of wood, with brick foundations, and had eight bedrooms. There was an underground dairy, a great garden with fig-trees and other fruit, and along the shores were wild flowering grapes and laurel and honeysuckle and sweetbrier roses, very fragrant in the spring season. Here in the middle of a great field lie my ancestors and some of the children of my fatherâs first marriage. In the year 1735 we moved, as I have said, fifty miles higher up the Potomac to the estate then known as Epsewasson or Hunting Creek. This was given, with other land, by the colony to my great-grandfather and Colonel Spencer for importing an hundred labourers, and was bought by my father in 1726 from my aunt Mildred Gregory, later my godmother. It came afterwards to be called Mount Vernon. It was at that time in Prince William County, which my father represented in the House of Burgesses, as my brother did later. There we remained until 1739. In this year our house took fire, as was supposed, by the act of one of our slaves, but never surely ascertained. We were then obliged to remove, and this time settled in Stafford, formerly St. George, on the east bank of the Rappahannock, opposite to Fredericksburg. This residence was a two-story house on a rise of ground, with a fertile meadow sloping gently to the river. It was built of wood and painted red. There, as people well-to-do, we lived until my fatherâs death, when the division of his estate did somewhat lessen the easiness of our lives; and of these latter years I can recall some more or less distinct remembrances, for here my education began. IV While I was a child, my father, as I have said, made many voyages to England and fetched back with him convicts, and perhaps also indentured servants. Often in those days some of the unfortunate people thus sent to the colonies were under sentence for political offences, but many, of course, for crimes. One of these, a convict I was told, was my first schoolmaster. We called him Hobby, which was, I believe, a nickname; but he was named Grove, and was sexton of the Falmouth church, two miles away. Of what our sexton schoolmaster had been convicted I never heard, but of this I am assured, that my father would not have used as a schoolmaster a common thief. I used to ride the two miles to the âfield-school,â as they called it, in front of a slave named Peter, and later was allowed a pony, to my motherâs alarm when he would tumble me off, as happened now and then. Hobby was a short man, with one eye, and too good-humoured or too timid to be a good teacher, even of the a-b-câs and the little else we learned. My father was kind to this man, and perhaps knew his history. He would even have allowed him the use of the rod, with the aid of which I might have profited more largely, for I am of his opinion that children should be strictly brought up. Hobby, being of a humourous turn, seems to me, as I remember him, to have resembled the grave-digger in the play of âHamlet.â He sometimes amused and at other times terrified us by tales of London or of his recent life as a sexton. He believed many of the negro superstitionsââas that if a snakeâs head was cut off the tail would live until it thunderedââand was much afraid of having what he called black magic put upon him by the negroes. I did not learn much from Hobby and preferred to be out of doors. My father considered, I believe, that, as I was a younger son and must in some way support myself, I should be well trained in both mind and body, and had he lived the chance of the former might have been bettered. The latter was often made difficult by my mother, who was unhappy when I was subject to the risks to which all lads of spirit are exposed. I remember that, when later my father was teaching me to leap my pony, the pony refused over and over, and this being near to the house, my mother ran out, and at last had a kind of hysterick turn. My father sat still on a big stallion and took no notice of her entreaties. At last I got the pony over, and he fell with me. I jumped up and was in the saddle in a moment. My father said that was ill ridden, I must try it again; and upon this my mother ran back to the house, crying out I would be murdered. But my father was this manner of man; he hated defeat, while my mother was ever desirous of keeping me out of danger, because it made her uncomfortable; and this was strange, for I have never been able to see that she was greatly pleased when I was successful, or was much moved by what the great Master allowed me to attain in later years. My elder brothers, Lawrence and Augustine, were both at different times sent to England for education at Appleby School, near Whitehaven, when I was a child. Lawrence had the family liking for enterprises and martial employment. I was eight years old, and he of age, when Lawrence served with Admiral Vernon and General Wentworth in the disastrous attack on Cartagena. I remember as a boy the interest this expedition caused in our neighbourhood. It was said that Harry Beverley and other Virginians captured by the Spaniards had been made to work as slaves, and this stirred up much feeling among us. The ex-Governor Spottiswood, although an aged man, would have gone as a major-general, but died suddenly at Temple Farm, near Yorktown, where forty-two years later Lord Cornwallis met me to sign the capitulations. Lawrence was away two years. The letters wrote by him to my father were full of interest, and, as I remember, were the means of arousing in me, who was but a little lad, the liking for warfare, of which we all had a share. I can remember how, as we sat about the hearth at evening, my father read aloud to us these letters, and explained to me the military terms used, and why, for want of foresight, the gallantry of soldiers and sailors served only to give opportunity for loss of life. This was especially in connection with the last letter we received, after the dismal failure of the attack on Cartagena. He wrote: HONOURED AND DEAR FATHER: What with dissensions between the General Wentworth and Admiral Vernon, who was, as we think, not to blame, we have come away, leaving the Spaniards to crow, and our Colonel Gooch ill at Jamaica. When I am to have another dose of glory I pray to have better doctors. We were to storm Fort _Lazaro_ââwhich must mean Lazarusââat night. But we were too long getting there, or the guides treacherous, and the ladders too short and no sufficient breach. This _Lazarus_ fort was too much alive, but we were actually on the rampart when Colonel Grant was killed, and we were driven back in sad confusion, and half of us, a good thousand, killed or wounded for want of forethought. I came off with no more hurt than to be so spent that I had no breath to curse the folly for which so many brave men died. The climate was worse than the dons, and we took ship with our tails between our legs and some two thousand shaking with agues and racked with fever. When I heard this I jumped up and said I wished I could have been there, upon which my father laughed and said I was better off where I was, and my mother that I had better go to bed. I was at that age when lads of spirit are apt to ask questions, and concerning these my father was always patient, and encouraged a reasonable curiosity; but, on the other hand, my mother disliked this habit of curiosity, and when my father talked of Indian wars and of my brotherâs fine conduct at Cartagena she was sure to say I should never go to war. My father would reply that it was sometimes the business and also the duty of a gentleman, and then there was no greater pleasure than to hear over and over how Sir Henry Washington, said to be of our family, defended Worcester in the civil war in England. In those days all the world was at war, and with us there was always the dread of Indian outbreaks. It was no wonder that I and other little fellows at Hobbyâs school played at soldiering. A lad named William Bustle, a fat, sturdy boy, was commander of the Indians, and in the woods we imitated the red men and the frontier farmers, and passed from tree to tree throwing stones, or, in winter, snowballs, with mock scalping and much pulling of hair, which was worn long. This was interfered with one winter because Bustle hit me in the eye with a snowball in which was a stone, a thing not considered fair. My mother wished Bustle punished. My father said I must take care of my own quarrels, and this I did, for, being then ten years old, and very strong, as soon as I went back to school I gave Bustle a good beating. In fact, I was of unusual strength, and because of my violence of temper felt no hurt, and would not listen when Bustle called, âEnough.â My motherâs uncertain discipline and her too affectionate weakness did me great harm. For if my father punished me on account of disobedience or outbursts of temper, my mother was sure to interfere, or to coddle and pity me, a thing I greatly disliked. I never learned much self-control until a later day, which, in its place, I shall call to mind. My sister Betty, who afterwards married Fielding Lewis, was, next to my half-brother Lawrence and my brother Jack, most dear to me. Samuel had some of the weaknesses of my mother, and Charles, in later days, some worse ones of his own. In after life Samuel was often in debt, and was married five times, being extravagant in this as in all other ways. Mildred was sadly affected from birth and died young. It was unfortunate for me that while I was a child my half-brothers were sent from home and put in charge of the plantations of Wakefield and of Mount Vernon, which had been rebuilt and given the name of the admiral whom Lawrence much admired. V In 1742 Lawrence came from Cartagena, and meant to continue in the service, but, after our sudden way, he fell in love with Anne, the daughter of William Fairfax of Belvoir, our neighbour, the cousin and agent of my lord of that name, and this, luckily for my own character, ended his desire for a military life. I too well recall the event which delayed his marriage. I was at this time, April 17, 1743, being eleven years old, on a visit to my cousins at Choptank, some thirty miles away. We were very merry at supper, when Peter, who was supposed to look after me, arrived with the news of my fatherâs sudden illness. It was the first of my too many experiences of the ravage time brings to all men. I heard the news with a kind of awe, but without realizing how serious in many ways was this summons. I rode home behind Peter, and found my mother in a state of distraction. She led me to the bedside of my father, crying out, âHe is dying.â The children were around him, and he was groaning in great pain; but he kissed us in turn, and said to me, âBe good to your mother.â I may say that throughout her life I have kept the promise I made him as I knelt, crying, at his bedside. He died that night, and I lost my best friend. My mother for a month talked of him incessantly, and after that very little, except to say, âIf your father were alive I should be more considered.â I do not know why I, too, was averse to speaking of him, and yet I loved him above all people. But concerning such matters children are puzzled, and unable to express themselves, nor have I ever been other than shy in saying what I feel in the way of affection, whereas on paper I do not suffer this shyness, nor feel the reserve which occasioned Colonel Trumbull to say to me once that I was often unjustly regarded as cold because of my difficulty of being outspoken concerning my regard for those dear to me. I am little better of it to-day. My father had much land and little money. As was usual in Virginia, he left to his elder sons the larger share. To Lawrence he gave his interest in the iron-works, with Mount Vernon and two thousand five hundred acres, also the resident slaves and the mill, and, in case of his failure to leave a child lawfully begotten or such child dying under age, this property was âto go to and remainâ to me. To Augustine he left Wakefield; to me his farm on the Rappahannock and one moiety of his land on Deep Run, with ten negro slaves. Samuel, John, and Charles were also given land and slaves, and Betty four hundred pounds. My mother was to have my estate for her use until I was of age, and with whatever else was left her, and her own sixteen hundred acres, might have sufficed with economy; but that virtue she found difficult to practise, and was never a prudent or managing woman. She soon felt her children to be a heavy burden upon an estate which was none too large, and complained, as was common for her to do all her life, that she was poor, and this even when I was assured that she was comfortably cared for. I never knew a more affectionate mother. She was said to have been foolishly fond of her children, and I was more than once brought to feel that her love of us did interfere with good judgment. Certainly whatever were her opinions,ââand we did not often agree,ââthese differences never lessened my love for her, as differences often do. As she grew old her peculiarities were more and more notable. With very many good qualities, she was hard to satisfy, and this did not cease until the end of her life, for she could not be restrained from borrowing money and accepting gifts from those who were not her relations. Indeed, I once had to write her that while I had a shilling left she should never want, but that I must not be viewed as a delinquent, or be considered by the world as unjust and an undutiful son. But so was she made, and even her doctor, Thornton, wrote to me in her last illness, in which his cousin, Dr. Rush, was also consulted, that he âhad every day a small battle with her.â VI My father died in April, 1743, and Lawrence was married to Miss Fairfax in June of that year. It was fortunate for me that my brotherâs wife, Anne Fairfax, soon shared the constant affection felt for me by her husband Lawrence. Austin, as we usually called Augustine, also embarked into the matrimonial state as the husband of Anne Aylett of Westmoreland, who brought him a large property. The next three years of my young life were important. I learned very soon from my mother that, when of age, I would have a moderate estate and insufficient. It is a happy thing that children have no power to realize what money means to their elders, else I might have been set against Lawrence and thought my father unjust. As I did not understand my motherâs complaints of poverty, they had no effect upon me. After my fatherâs death, and in the absence of my elder brothers, the house and farm soon showed the want of a manâs care, and we lads enjoyed at this time almost unlimited freedom. My older brothers saw it, and felt that I, at least, might suffer, being of an age and nature to need discipline and to be guided. In fact, I delighted to skip away from my man Peter, and find indulgence in roasting ears of Indian corn in the forbidden cabins of the field-slaves, or in coon-hunts at night, when all the house was asleep. When my pranks were discovered my mother was sometimes too severe in her punishments, or else only laughed. Nothing was assured or certain in the house, now that the hand of wise and strong government was gone. We were taught the catechism as a preparation for Sundays, and my mother read the Bishop of Exeterâs sermons or Matthew Haleâs âCommentaries, Moral and Divine.â I still have this book. It belonged originally to my fatherâs first wife, Jane Butler, and below her name my mother wrote her own, âMary Ball.â At this time she was much given to Puritanical views, which were beginning to be felt in Virginia, owing largely to the want of better clergymen in the Established Church. She would have the servants up late on Saturday to cook, that there might be no labour on Sunday. In consequence, the blacks fell asleep in church. My mother would then get up in mid-service, and go where they sat, and poke them awake with her fan. At this period my great personal strength and endurance were constant temptations to forbidden enterprises on land or water, and it was at this time of my life that I discovered a certain pleasure in danger. I find it difficult, not having the philosophical turn of mind, to describe what I mean; but of this I became aware as time went on, that, in battle or other risks, I was suddenly the master of larger competence of mind and body than I possessed at other times. When, on one occasion, the learned Dr. Franklin desired to be excused if he asked whether in battle I had ever felt fear, I had to confess that in contemplating danger I was like most men, but that immediate peril had upon me the influence which liquor has upon some, making them feel able for anything. He said yes, but as to the influence of drink, that was a mere delusion; whereas he understood, and here he begged to apologize, that, in great danger in battle and when the ranks were breaking, I had seemed to possess powers of decision and swift judgment beyond those I could ordinarily command. I said it was true, that danger seemed to lift me in mind and body above my common level, and that it was the satisfaction this gave which made danger agreeable; not, be it said, the peril, but the results. I apprehend him to have been correct, for in battle I have often felt this, as at Monmouth, at Princeton, and elsewhere. In general, my mind acts slowly, and I have been often painfully aware of it when in council with General Hamilton, Mr. Jefferson, or General Knox. General Wayne was fortunate in this quickening of the mind in danger. He once said to Colonel Humphreys of my staff that he disliked danger, but liked its effects upon himself when it came. Certainly I had my share of risks at the time I now speak of. No one controlled my actions, and old Peter, in whom my father had greatly trusted, now allowed me, in general, to do as pleased me. The river and the forests afforded game, but the riding of half-broken horses was what most I liked. My joy in the horse and his ways was the mere satisfaction in conquest and in the training of a strong brute; but it made me a good horseman, and helped, though I knew it not then, to prepare me for the years when I was to be so much in the saddle. We had at this time a slave named Sampson, who possessed great
{'title': 'The Youth of Washington: Told in the Form of an Autobiography by S. Weir Mitchell', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}