Mount Vernon

Recently I posted an Onion bit about ancient Egyptians only visiting the Pyramids when friends came in from out of town.   Sadly, that applied to Mount Vernon as far I was concerned.  I was aware of its existence but never bothered to visit.  My impression is that it was mainly his house and not much else.  I was wrong.

First off, my hiking – an attempt to lose weight without hammering my knees and ankles on the treadmill – took me down the Mount Vernon Trail, which begins at the estate itself and ends 17 miles north in Rosslyn, where I used to live.  I could not hike 17 miles at once, so I had to do it in stages, alternating with similar efforts on the W&OD Trail.   Also, I started from Rosslyn and worked my way south, doing the trail in reverse.  It follows both the George Washington Parkway AND the Potomac River, which are roughly parallel to each other.  As of yet, I had never ventured down that way beyond King Street in Old Town Alexandria, so taking the trail itself was illuminating and fun in its own right.  Not only that, the Potomac River gets much wider, and the view across it to Maryland highly aesthetically pleasing.  Ultimately I became determined to visit the estate itself after the hike was done.   Last weekend I finally managed to do so.

George Washington himself was born in 1732, a younger scion of his father, who was apparently successful at producing multiple offspring.  Sadly, his overworked (!) father died when he was just 11.  In the 1750s he fought in the French & Indian War, then returned to Mount Vernon to manage it after his older brothers conveniently died off.  Twenty years later he led the Revolutionary Armies to victory against the British (1775-1781), served as our first President for two terms (1788-1796) (I prefer to round terms down to their even-numbered election years, though the first election actually took place in 1789) and just a few years after retiring to Mount Vernon to chill indefinitely, sadly did so literally in December 1799, dying of an illness related to the cold weather. 

Washington’s impressive plantation had a fishery, lots of farmland – he switched from tobacco to wheat at some point – and had a whiskey distillery down the road.  It also had a nice wharf which juts out into the river, which as previously noted is fairly wide at this point.  Fort Washington (a future destination) and a nature park face the estate from the Maryland side.

His tomb is here, up on a hill, up away from the marshy slope near the river.  He was originally buried in the Old Tomb until that area degenerated, and someone felt  it was advisable to move his remains to more solid ground, as was done in 1831.   The Masonic Memorial in Alexandria has a curious goblet constructed of his first coffin, an item which is wisely kept behind glass and not used to drink anything.  

The house itself is pretty small, but looks like it has 5 bedrooms and an office.  One intriguing artifact hangs from the wall in a glass case:  the French presented him with no less than the KEY to Bastille Prison in Paris.   (Approving voice from Long Island: “NICE….”)

Those of my readers whose ancestors most highly appreciate the Thirteenth Amendment are probably aware that Washington was indeed a slave owner, and the grounds contain multiple references to his involuntary staff and a large building which housed these unfortunates.   The dialogue insists that Washington was a compassionate manager and even instructed Martha to free the slaves after her death, and she did so after his own.  So at least one group didn’t have to wait for Lincoln….

On the way out, there’s an impressive museum.  This has the usual high tech stuff but does a good job of chronicling his life from 1732 to 1799 with the various things he did along the way – leading our armies to victory against the British and being our first President for two terms.  Back then we only had 13 states, and from 1788-1796 he seemed determined to make sure we didn’t do anything truly stupid.  He kept us out of Syria, Iraq, and Vietnam, personally put down the western Pennsylvania Whiskey Rebellion, resurrected the Navy, and overall remained neutral.  Keep in mind that in 1789 the French had issues, which erupted even more in 1793 when they gave Louis XVI a fatal haircut at the Place de la Concorde, and thereafter Europe was quite busy trying to squash this inconvenient rebellion.  For the ladies, there’s a presentation on George’s relationship with Martha, though I didn’t stay long enough to ascertain if their conjugal relations were explicitly depicted.  I’m guessing decorum and discretion mandate otherwise, though the estate might see more traffic if they were;  others might object given the school groups which frequent the museum.   Anyhow.

National Treasure 2 (Book of Secrets).  The original film featured Nicolas Cage and Jon Voight as a father and son team trying to find a lost Mason treasure.  The sequel gets the same pair trying to find Eldorado, which turns out to be located under Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.  In part of the film, Ben Gates (Cage) has to “kidnap” the President himself (Bruce Greenwood) to ask him confidential information in the President’s legendary secret book.  He does so at a nighttime event at Mount Vernon, and their interaction occurs in a secret – and fictitious – underground tunnel at the estate.  The writers preferred to use that than to defer to the actual underground meth lab with which Washington supplanted his income.

Bogus Article.  I picked up the 5/23/19 issue of Washington Post Express which had a particularly onerous article on Mount Vernon by a fatally clue-deficient liberal, Sadie Dingfelder, called “Estate Facts: Hard truths get a bit lost at Mount Vernon”.  My readers know I’m no fan of Trump, but idiocy like this is where I’m  sympathetic when his supporters bitch about “libtards”:  applying contemporary politically correct values to Founding Fathers over 200 years ago.  Her specific argument is that Washington’s slave-owning was “hidden” or “denied” at Mount Vernon.  First off, the slave quarters on the grounds are clearly marked as such, AND there is an exhibit in the museum itself about his slave ownership.  No one is denying he owned slaves or trying to hide that.  Second, Ms. Dingbatter herself cites a $10 “Enslaved People of Mount Vernon” tour at Mount Vernon (!!!).  The Mount Vernon website itself has a section addressing this issue: https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/slavery/ten-facts-about-washington-slavery/

Third, it took a Civil War and 600,000 casualties for the US to finally rid itself of slavery, as South Carolina and the other CSA states didn’t simply say, “sure, OK” when the North demanded they free their slaves.  Washington directed that his slaves be freed upon his wife’s death, and Martha Washington did so during her own lifetime (see website link).   Fourth, George Washington managed to lead a ragtag army from 1775-81 and defeat the strongest country in the world, then successfully steered the country through its first two presidential terms.  None of that features in her article.  According to this woman, because Mount Vernon does not make Washington’s slave-owning the primary focus of the entire estate, somehow they are “hiding” or “losing” this issue.  Forget everything else, the only truly important thing about Washington (and Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers) was that he owned slaves.  Massive facepalm.    

George Washington Masonic National Memorial.  I first visited this in January 2010, then again more recently in better weather.  I mentioned it briefly in my 2015 blog on Old Town Alexandria.  This is not far away from Mount Vernon.  Washington himself was a Mason.  It sits on a hilltop and dominates the fairly modest local skyline for miles around.  The view from the top, especially in nice weather, is especially impressive.  It was started in 1922, building finished in 1932 (200 years after Washington’s birth), and the interior was finally done in 1970.  There’s a huge statue of him as a Mason, lots of Masonic memorabilia, and plenty of the other items to satisfy the curious.  [Oddly, “National Treasure”, a movie which otherwise loves to Mason this, Mason that, ignored it.  SMH…]

The American Revolutionary War

“Revolution” seems a bit of a misnomer: we had to fight a war for independence and then set up our own form of government after that.  War is a better word.  This is an early post, with July 4 coming up close at hand.

The whole thing began in New England in April 1775 with the battles in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, followed by the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775.  Rebel militia, if not defeating British Redcoat regulars, at least inflicted punishing losses.  Over the winter of 1775 the sides were stalemated, until March 1776 when the rebels brought up cannon, forcing the British to evacuate Boston.

Our own invasion of Canada – a campaign lasting from September 1775 to June 1776 – failed.  Blame Canada.

The British, remarkably enough, did not have conscription or a draft (except for limited press-ganging for the Royal Navy).  They relied on volunteers and when those fell short, German mercenaries, most of which were from Hesse, thus “Hessian”.   They also expected Loyalists (Americans loyal to the King) to help in bigger numbers, but consistently overestimated that help.  A substantial number of Americans actually stayed neutral, and Loyalists, in addition to being less numerous than expected, were also of little assistance unless substantial British regulars were nearby to protect their families back at home from harassment by rebel sympathizers.  That is, the Brits could only recruit Loyalist troops from areas under their control (e.g. New York and other coastal areas). 

NY & NJ.  The next phase took place mostly in New York and New Jersey.  In addition to Newport, Rhode Island, the British took Staten Island without a fight.  They swept Long Island until Brooklyn, at which point rebel resistance stiffened.  However, for some reason General Howe refused to finish off the rebels in Brooklyn – like Hitler’s mysterious halt at Dunkirk – and as at Dunkirk, the good guys managed to slip away to safety, in this case Manhattan.  The Brits chased Washington out of Manhattan, into New Jersey, where Washington managed to keep his army alive, conducting a fighting retreat, similar to Rommel in North Africa from October 1942 to May 1943.  At various points Howe had the opportunity to crush Washington’s army, but held off on doing so, even to Washington’s surprise. 

In December 1776 Washington crossed the Delaware into Pennsylvania, but came back later that month to surprise the Hessians at Trenton, and stayed for the winter at Morristown, New Jersey.

1777 opened with the Brits taking two separate – and uncoordinated – campaigns.  Down south, Howe took Philadelphia – without a fight – but did not coordinate with Burgoyne coming down from Canada to attack Albany.  Without Howe’s help, Burgoyne was defeated near Albany in September and October, a climactic battle at Saratoga.  This put an end to Burgoyne’s campaign and essentially defeated half of the British army in America.  That left it up to the other half to get things done.

For the winter of 1777, Washington camped at Valley Forge, just outside Philadelphia.  In addition to nurturing his battered army, Washington got Baron von Steuben to give it a crash course in military training:  meaning the US Army which emerged from Valley Forge in 1778 was a disciplined, trained regular army for once, although Washington never had enough regulars to avoid relying on militias and guerillas for the rest of the war.

In 1778, the French, Spanish, and Dutch entered the war.  The French were willing to do so openly, while the Spanish and Dutch preferred to keep their assistance “under the radar”.   The timid and mostly ineffective General Howe was replaced in May 1778 with General Clinton, who abandoned Philadelphia to defend NYC.  Washington then marched back up to White Plains, but the British held on to Staten Island, Manhattan, and Long Island for the remainder of the war.

The British were also hampered in their war efforts in America by the need to defend their overseas possessions elsewhere, in the West Indies and in India.  A US attack on Newport in August 1778 failed, but by October 1779 the British had abandoned Newport anyway.  Over the winter of 1779 Washington’s army was again weakened, but British attempts to wipe it out were defeated by NJ militias.  Benedict Arnold defected in September 1780, but his last major act of any significance for the British was a failed attack on New London, CT in September 1781.

Their campaigns in PA, NJ, NY and MA failing, the Brits then attempted to gain some success down further south.  While they managed to take Savannah, GA and Charleston, SC, attempts further inland consistently failed.   Horatio Gates took over US forces, later to be replaced by Nathaniel Greene; Cornwallis commanded the British forces in this campaign.  He won several battles, but at costs which severely depleted his armies and forced him to retreat back to Wilmington, NC.   Thus by late 1780, only the coastal regions were securely in British control.

In early 1781 Cornwallis went up to Yorktown and established a base there, joined up by Arnold who had been raiding Virginia and received reinforcements from New York.  Washington sent Lafayette and Wayne down to oppose him.  The French sent a huge fleet to the Chesapeake – far larger than the British imagined or expected, effectively blockading Cornwallis from the sea.  With Washington facing him on land and the French blocking him from the sea, Cornwallis was trapped.  By October 19, 1781, he was forced to surrender.  In terms of active hostilities on land, the war ended at this point.

North’s Tory government in the UK resigned in March 1782, and the Whigs took over.  Initial peace treaties were signed in November 1782, with the Treaty of Paris in September 1783 finally ending the war and establishing American independence once and for all. 

Washington’s role is hard to overestimate.  He had to not merely command troops in battle, but also keep his army intact during retreats AND deal with a rudimentary government which had little power to assist him in anything.  America’s Fifth Column, its diplomatic efforts – e.g. Benjamin Franklin – also deserve immense credit.  Without help from Von Steuben in reforming the US Army, and direct (and indirect) help from the French, Spanish, and Dutch in keeping the Brits busy elsewhere and directly opposing them at Yorktown, the British may have been able to defeat the Americans.  Some credit also goes to Howe for being so timid in attacking US forces, basically the McClellan of this war. 

As an aside, check out A Transatlantic Tunnel! Hurrah!, an alternate history story by Harry Harrison (best known for The Stainless Steel Rat and Deathworld) in which the British won the Revolutionary War, and a descendent of Washington helps design – guess what – a transatlantic tunnel from the UK to America, very much in a steampunk vein.  Enjoy.