General Samuel Hopkins Chapter
of
Henderson County, Kentucky

GEORGE WASHINGTON BICENTENNIAL INFOLINE
APRIL 1999
 

  THREADS

         Often the individual threads that create a completed tapestry only become apparent upon close inspection.  So, too, the "threads" that run through a person's life are often only seen in retrospect.  We can identify self-reliance, self discipline, flexibility, leadership ability and an independent spirit as the "threads" which ran through Washington's life.  Combined, these threads enabled him to assume leadership in the birth of our republic and made him so "American".

        Washington was born in America and came to know and feel at ease in this country through his work as a surveyor.  At age 16, he helped survey land in the then wild regions of the Shenandoah Valley.  During 31 days of March and April, George Washington learned self-reliance as he faced survival in the wilderness, crossed swollen rivers, got lost in the Blue Ridge Mountains and traversed roads, described in his youthful exaggeration as the "worst road(s) ever trod by human or beast".  At a frontier settlement, he encountered a party of 30 Native Americans who claimed to be a "war party".  At the end of this trek, according to  Washington's biographer, Douglas Southall Freeman, "Washington had learned he could run a line in the wilderness, he could camp out ..., he could cook his food over the flames and he had slept by a fire in the open; he had been among Indians....  He had seen with his own eyes the fine western lands.  He had felt the frontier."

        Although Washington's exploits in the French and Indian War on behalf of the British crown were not successful, they did teach him leadership skills.  He survived treacherous deep snowfalls and ice-covered rivers which he sometimes had to cross on foot as well as battles in which his forces were outnumbered.  When the British forces were routed and the regulars were milling in disarray at Braddock's defeat, Washington ordered the mortally wounded commander onto a cart and with some sense of order was able to lead the remnants of the troops out of battle.  While this did not impress the British, it did make Washington a hero to his fellow colonists.  They and he knew he could lead men.  Afterwards, Virginia asked him to take command of an expanded militia to protect their citizens on the frontier.  At the start of the Revolutionary War, Washington was the only colonial with experience in leading large groups of men in battle.

        Washington's self-discipline was reinforced by his agricultural labors. Successful farming requires attention to the rhythm of the seasons.  There are appropriate times for planting, fertilizing and harvesting.  Farming also taught Washington to be flexible and to bend to the circumstances nature presented.  If conditions weren't suited to the crop originally planned, an alternative crop had to be substituted.  The ability to be flexible was paramount to the military leader who had to "make do" with whatever forces and supplies the individual colonies sent and who had to change and change and change again plans for battles depending on the circumstances.

        Washington's great desire to be independent, to be in control of his own destiny is a thread that speaks to the spirit of our Revolution.  As a producer of agricultural goods, especially tobacco, Washington was dependent upon the British markets to sell his products.  He found out that he had little say over what price he would get for his crop and likewise, little control over the quality or cost of goods he needed to import from England's merchants.  This situation so distressed George Washington that he gradually stopped producing tobacco and chose instead to grow corn and wheat which he could trade himself for merchandise within the colonies.   Such experiences, fanned by the flames of the Intolerable Acts, helped Washington to identify with those who cried, "No taxation without representation!"

        Threads, these threads of self-reliance, self discipline, flexibility, leadership ability and an independent spirit are woven in the life experiences of George Washington.  Woven into the tapestry of his life, they made him able to meet the challenges of leading our new nation.

James Thomas Flexner. George Washington, 4-vols. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1965-72; 1-vol abridgement, 1974).

Douglas Southall Freeman. George Washington, 7 vols, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1949-1957; vol 7 completed by John A. Carroll and Mary Wells Ashworth; 1-vol. abridgement by Richard Harwell, 1968).