The Indispensable Birthday

Why His Excellency?

First in War and in Peace

This will complete the "trifecta" centered around His Excellency George Washington, so it is fitting that I write this piece on his actual birthday - February 22nd. Several years ago, when I began thinking about writing espionage novels, I settled on the American War for Independence as the stage. The how and why I discussed in an earlier blog that I encourage folks to go back to and read. Although military history was my lifelong avocation, I had not read very much about the American Revolution. So, prior to laying out the plot for the first book in the Yankee Doodle Spies series, I began reading as much as I could on Washington and the glorious cause.  I must admit, I soon became impressed with the man, and before too long, I realized what a great and indispensable leader he was. Washington lived in an age of brilliant thinkers, writers, and leaders. One of his strengths was knowing he was not in their league but that he had the abilities they needed for the struggle to succeed. He knew his place, and he took it. And if you look at the timeline of events in his life, it seems as though he had prepared himself from his earliest days.

 Service and Speculation

Washington was driven by the two things that drove most of his Virginia planter class:  the acquisition of land and service to his nation.  In the case of the former, this involved expanding his family's relatively modest holdings through a brilliant (but also romantic) marriage to Martha Parke Custis.  This made him one of the wealthiest landholders in the Old Dominion. Still, he was constantly looking to expand his holdings. He engaged himself in schemes that involved lands from The Great Dismal Swamp in Tidewater, Virginia, to tracts on the Monongahela River and beyond to the Ohio. Both efforts involved him in controversy. But even as he fought for his nation and later as he led it, his thoughts and efforts always returned to land and farming. Washington's early days as a surveyor sort of connect those two dots. Surveying gave him an eye for land and the opportunity to assess land and eventually acquire it. It also led him to the service of Virginia's Governor Dinwiddie, which resulted in missions to the west to assess the land and, more importantly, the activities of the French. This led to further service as a militia officer and an event that caused a world war (Seven Years/French and Indian).  That world war led to the economic, military, and political factors that brought about the American War for Independence.

More than a Military Leader

As the notion of a break with Britain became more widespread, the now-prosperous planter Washington committed to the cause. I won't go into the reasons except to state that his personal experiences led him to believe Americans would never be seen as equals to their British cousins. He realized that British policies were holding America back in economic ways, most especially with regard to trade and westward expansion. So it circles back to land once more. Washington became a military commander in chief (and later President) almost by acclamation. His stature (physical and otherwise) and earlier military achievements marked him as a top contender for high command.  His selection over some other highly qualified candidates was also political - bringing Virginia and the South solidly into the now-open rebellion. But a brilliant choice it proved to be. During the long struggle, Washington developed a persona of nobility and honor that won him international fame.  His stoic resistance to Britain's lightning strikes in New York and Jersey kept the cause from an early collapse. Not a brilliant tactical nor even strategic planner, Washington managed to evolve as a commander, adapting and improvising as he frustrated British efforts to destroy him, his army, and the rebellion. He was savvy enough to place his trust in a few confidants who ably helped him along, Greene, Knox, and Lafayette.  Washington's earlier political, business and farming experiences did prove a boon, as his greatest challenges were logistics and politics. Washington was constantly communicating with a mercurial and weak Congress as well as state leaders who had their own agendas.  He settled the numerous disputes among the officers as well.  He suppressed more than one mutiny as well as a "cabal" of senior officers set against him. He survived attempts on his life. He built the Continental Army, and it became more vital to the unity of the nation than the Continental Congress. As did he. He became the nucleus and the gravity that kept the nation together. During the eight-year struggle, he was the nation.

The less iconic crossing of Delaware

Legacy

Washington was the first chief executive who wasn't  a
monarch, king, duke, or emperor

Yet, at the earliest opportunity, he gave it up. In December 1783, when the last British ship departed New York, he said farewell to his officers (at the renowned Fraunces tavern) and headed south to render his final report to Congress and turn over his sword. He immediately rode on to Mount Vernon and resumed the life of a planter. However, the failings of the Articles of Confederation and his experiences dealing with a weak central government during the war led him to join the effort of writing a new constitution. He was not a brilliant writer, thinker, or philosopher, but he did have certain ideas that he lent to the discourse.  But mostly he provided a rallying point and served as the president of the constitutional convention in Philadelphia. His character and his presence kept the proceedings from devolving. They kept the members' eyes on the ultimate goal: a government that would "promote the general welfare and provide for the common defense..."  The italics are mine. Later, as President, the experiment that was America could have failed. That it didn't was a testimony to him. Washington steered the infant republic through treacherous domestic and diplomatic waters.  A nation with a Chief Executive over a Republic, not a monarchy, had never been done before. Everything he did as President was a first, and so many things we find routine in government today - he had to figure out as he went along. How much executive action was just enough?  How do you deal with Congress, the cabinet (which he created), the press, or the people?  How to provide that leadership without the crown and scepter wielded by every other national leader before him? Yet he sustained it for eight precious years allowing for the young Republic to grow roots. And then, once more, he simply walked away. He gleaned no wealth for his service.  Indeed, Mount Vernon was a shambles, and his other holdings dissipated. No million-dollar book deal.  No paid speaking engagement or other fat cat deals. When war with France threatened under John Adams he agreed with accepting command of the army. But otherwise, farm life and greeting and entertaining numerous well-wishers carried him till his death.   Throughout his military and government service, Washington had many detractors. Cynics always waited for the other shoe to drop: exploitation of power, creating a kingship, declining to give up power and position.  And many admirers wanted him to do so. Implored him to do so. The fact that he did not sets him apart from any other person in similar circumstances in history. And it is what made him, His Excellency, the indispensable man of his nation,  his age, or any age.

The indispensable man found his farm indispensable

How I spent my Summer Vacation - Part II

Let me say upfront this is the first summer that I have been able to go on two different trips - one north - one south. However, both took me to coastal beaches. And both took me back in time...at least notionally. Part two took me to North Carolina.  I briefly lived in North Carolina many years ago but my Army duties and other interests kept me from truly exploring the state.  This trip convinced me of the error of my ways. I stayed at Kill Devil Hills on the Outer Banks.  My place was within sight of the place where the Wright brothers changed the world forever and about twenty-five yards from the beach.




Driving down to the Banks took me through some notable places during the time of the Yankee Doodle Spies.  I took Highway 15 and then 17 instead of the interstate. The route took me through the Virginia Piedmont to Fredericksburg, which was an operating seaport during the 18th century. There begins a trip through the upper tidewater region. Mary Washington's last home, purchased for her by her son in 1772, is in Fredericksburg, Va.

American field guns at Yorktown

Highway 17 takes you through Gloucester, which is across the York River from the famous town of that name. Crossing the York River you find yourself at historic Yorktown. The National Park Service maintains a fabulous battlefield center there and the park extends into part of the town itself. As most know, a combined French-American force besieged General Cornwallis there and caused his surrender in 1781, forcing the British to begin negotiations with the rebels and the French.

My GPS routed me through Yorktown, Newport News, Smith Island, and finally to Portsmouth and meandered south. At that point, I left 17 for the more traditional (and traffic-laden) approach to the Banks. Had I stayed on 17 I would have passed near the Great Dismal Swamp, a hundred-mile square area of marsh connected by a series of small streams - all heavily wooded at the time of the Yankee Doodle Spies.  George Washington and many of his Virginia peers lost a bit of money in a venture aimed at developing the swamp as an inland waterway.

Great Dismal Swamp

Little of this has anything to do with the time of the Yankee Doodle Spies but geography often dictates history.  And so I expand on that idea a bit. The British government's main advantage over their rebellious colonies was the Royal Navy. They had the largest and best navy in the world and the Americans had none at the war's start. However, navies need ports to make them most effective - and North Carolina had few of note. To that end, the Outer Banks served as a more than 100-mile long barrier against British naval supremacy in North Carolina. This limited British operations from the sea and thus no naval actions of note took place there. Late in the war, when the British invaded North Carolina, they did so over land, and the series of events leading to Yorktown ensued.

Fort George marker 

But further, down the coast from the Banks, there was an attempt to maintain a coastal base at New Bern, Wilmington, and Bald Head Island, which guards the mouth of the Cape Fear River. The main British forts were Fort George (on Bald Head itself) and Fort Johnston. The British clung to these but never found a way to exploit them, thanks to aggressive patriot actions that continued throughout the war.