Quantifiers and George Washington

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Childhood and youth.

  1. is known of George Washington's early childhood, spent largely on the Ferry Farm on the Rappahannock River, opposite Fredericksburg, Virginia.
  2. Lawrence inherited the beautiful estate of Little Hunting Creek, which had been granted to the original settler, John Washington, and which Augustine had done since 1738 to develop.
  3. He describes ... the serving of roast wild turkey on "a Large Chip," for "as for dishes we had ."
  4. For the main background of Washington's life was the work and society of Mount Vernon.
  5. He had to manage that came with the estate and others he bought later; by 1760 he paid tithes on --though he strongly disapproved of the institution and hoped for of abolishing it.
PREREVOLUTIONARY MILITARY AND POLITICAL CAREER

Early military career.

  1. An Indian fired at them at but missed; when they crossed the Allegheny River on a raft, Washington was jerked into the ice-filled stream but saved himself by catching .
  2. With this as base, he made a surprise attack (May 28, 1754) upon an advance detachment of , killing the commander, Coulon de Jumonville, and and making the rest prisoners.
  3. Braddock accepted from him the unwise advice that he divide his army, leaving to come up with the slow wagons and cattle train and taking the other half forward against Fort-Duquesne at a rapid pace.
  4. In this defeat Washington displayed the combination of coolness and determination, the alliance of unconquerable energy with complete poise, that was the secret of .
  5. He was at Braddock's deathbed, helped bring the troops back, and was repaid by being appointed, in August 1755, while still only 23 years old, commander of .
  6. But of his later service was conspicuous.
  7. Finding that a Maryland captain who held a royal commission would not obey him, he rode north in February 1756 to Boston to have the question settled by the commander in chief in America, Governor Shirley, and, bearing a letter from Dinwiddie, in carrying his point.
  8. In the spring of 1758 he recovered sufficiently to return to duty as colonel in command of .
  9. As part of the grand sweep of organized by Pitt, Gen. John Forbes led a new advance upon Fort-Duquesne.
  10. He had hanged and flogged others heavily.
  11. Virginia gave him than other colonies offered their troops.
Marriage and plantation life
  1. She was older than he, was the mother of living and dead, and possessed of Virginia.
  2. of the property brought him by this marriage have been exaggerated, but it did include and , valuable for its proximity to Williamsburg.
  3. As his holdings expanded they were divided into farms, under its own overseer; but he minutely inspected operations and according to often pulled off his coat and performed ordinary labour.
  4. To the eve of the Revolution he devoted himself to the duties and pleasures of a great landholder, varied by attendance in the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg.
  5. In does Washington appear more characteristically than as of Virginia planters.
  6. His care of slaves was exemplary. ... They showed so much attachment that ran away.
  7. The members of the council and House of Burgesses, a roster of influential Virginians, were friends.
Prerevolutionary politics
  1. The next spring, April 4, 1769, he sent Mason the Philadelphia nonimportation resolutions with a letter declaring that .. as a last resort should scruple to use arms in defense of liberty.
  2. He also helped to secure approval of the "Suffolk Resolves," which looked toward armed resistance as a last resort and which did to harden the king's heart against America.
REVOLUTIONARY LEADERSHIP

Head of the colonial forces

  1. Washington's choice as commander in chief of the military forces of followed immediately upon the first fighting, though it was by no means inevitable and was the product of partly artificial forces.
  2. When the second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia on May 10, was to find a permanent leadership for this force.
  3. Beyond the considerations noted, he owed his choice to the facts that Virginia stood with Massachusetts as ; .. and that his poise, sense, and resolution had impressed all the delegates.
  4. In accepting the command he refused beyond his expenses and called upon " in the room" to bear witness that he disclaimed fitness for it.
  5. In he imparted discipline to the army, which at maximum strength slightly exceeded 20,000.
  6. His position was at first precarious, for the Charles River pierced the centre of his lines investing the town; and if the British general, Sir William Howe, had moved boldly up the stream, he might have pierced Washington's army and rolled either wing back to destruction.
  7. But was on Washington's side.
  8. was his tendency to subordinate his own judgment to that of the generals surrounding him; at , before Boston, before New York, before Philadelphia, in New Jersey, he called a council of war and in accepted its decision.
  9. of Washington's strength was his sternness as a disciplinarian.
  10. Troops from , New England, the middle states, and the South, showed a deplorable jealousy of the others.
  11. At the same time, the commander in chief won the devotion of by his earnestness in demanding better treatment for them from Congress.
  12. He complained of their short rations, declaring once that they were forced to "eat of horse food but hay."
  13. The darkest chapter in Washington's military leadership was opened when, reaching New York in April 1776, he placed , about , under Israel Putnam, on the perilous position of Brooklyn Heights, Long Island, where a British fleet in the East River might cut off their retreat.
  14. He spent a fortnight in May with the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, then discussing the question of independence; and though of his utterances exists, there can be that he advocated complete separation.
The Trenton-Princeton campaign
  1. Washington, at his camp west of the Delaware, planned a simultaneous attack on , using his whole command of .
  2. But his subordinates in charge of failed him, and he was left on the night of December 25, 1776, to march on Trenton with .
  3. These were put to flight with a loss of 500 men, and Washington escaped with to a strong position at Morristown, New Jersey.
  4. The effect of these victories heartened , brought recruits flocking to camp in the spring, and encouraged foreign sympathizers with the American cause.
  5. His army, twice beaten, ill housed, and ill fed, with "barefoot and otherwise naked," was at the point of exhaustion; it could not keep the field, for inside of a month it would have disappeared.
  6. He was astounded and angered when found expression in a letter from Col. Lewis Nicola offering a plan by which he should use the army to make himself king.
  7. He then attempted successfully to repair his fortunes, his annual receipts from being from $10,000 to $15,000 a year
PRESIDENCY
Postrevolutionary politics
  1. being necessary between Virginia and Maryland regarding the navigation of the Potomac, commissioners from met at Mount Vernon in the spring of 1785; from this seed sprang the federal convention.
  2. Washington approved in advance the call for a gathering of to meet in Philadelphia in May 1787 to "render the Constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union."
  3. Although he hoped to the last to be excused, he was chosen .
  4. Though he said in debate, did outside the hall to insist on stern measures.
  5. "My wish is," he wrote, "that the convention may adopt , but probe the defects of the Constitution to the bottom, and provide a radical cure."
  6. His weight of character did than any other single force to bring the convention to an agreement and obtain ratification of the instrument afterward.
  7. But immediately turned to him for the first president.
  8. He alone commanded the respect of engendered by the struggle over ratification, and he alone would be able to give prestige to the republic throughout Europe.
  9. In was considered.
  10. The electors chosen in the first days of 1789 cast a unanimous vote for him, and reluctantly--for his love of peace, his distrust of his own abilities, and his fear that his motives in advocating the new government might be misconstrued made him unwilling--he accepted.
The Washington administration
  1. A painstaking inquiry into confronting the new nation laid the basis for a series of judicious recommendations to Congress in his first message.
  2. In selecting of his first cabinet, Thomas Jefferson as secretary of state, Alexander Hamilton as secretary of treasury, Henry Knox as secretary of war, and Edmund Randolph as attorney general, Washington balanced evenly.
  3. Distressed when the inevitable clash between Jefferson and Hamilton arose, he tried to keep harmony, writing frankly to and refusing to accept their resignations.
  4. His object, he wrote, was to keep the country "free from political connections with , to see them independent of all, and under the influence of none.
  5. In both New York and Philadelphia he rented the best houses procurable, refusing to accept the hospitality of George Clinton, for he believed the head of the nation should be guest.
  6. He returned and shook hands with , acknowledging salutations by a formal bow.
  7. He attended receptions dressed in a black velvet suit with gold buckles, with yellow gloves, powdered hair, a cocked hat with an ostrich plume in and a sword in a white leather scabbard.
  8. After being overwhelmed by callers, he announced that except for a weekly levee open to , persons desiring to see him must make previous engagements.
  9. Indeed, his simple ceremony offended , who did not share his sense of its fitness and accused the president of conducting himself as a king.
  10. But his cold and reserved manner was caused by native diffidence rather than of dignity.
Retirement
  1. On December 12, 1799, he exposed himself on horseback for to cold and snow and, returning home exhausted, was attacked late next day with quinsy or acute laryngitis.
  2. "I feel myself going. I thank you for your attentions; but I pray you to take about me.
  3. When the news reached Europe, the British channel fleet and the armies of Napoleon paid tribute to his memory, and of the time joined in according him a preeminent place among the heroes of history.
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Ann Salzmann
Intensive English Institute
University of Illinois