Martha Washington (38 page)

84 “inconsiderable” and “Nothing in my power”:
Ibid., 9:215-16.

84 “of exceeding good Character”:
Ibid., 9:219-20.

84 “I shall say nothing”:
Ibid.

85 “in better health and spirits” and all other quotes on this page and the following page:
Ibid., 9:243-44.

88 “useful knowledge” and all other quotes on this page:
Ibid., 9:406-07.

90 “We had never seen”:
Graham Hood,
The Governor's Palace in Williamsburg: A Cultural Study
(Williamsburg, Va.: CWF, 1991), 178.

91 “the General Congress at Philadelphia”:
DGW
, 3:254-68.

92 “I was much pleased”:
David John Mays, ed.,
The Letters and Papers of Edmund Pendleton, 1734-1803
, 2 vols. (Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1967), 1:98.

94 “no pecuniary consideration”:
PGWRWS
, 1:1-3.

94 “unwillingness to part with you” and all other quotes on this and the following page:
Ibid., 1:3-6.

96 “as I have no expectations”:
Ibid., 1:12-14.

96 “My great concern”:
Ibid., 1:15-16.

96 “a cutting stroke”:
Ibid., 1:19-20.

96 “a happy Meeting”:
Fields, 161.

97 “the infernal curiosity”:
PGWRWS
, 2:72.

98 “the Hospitality of the House”:
Ibid., 2:432.

98 “I believe Mrs. Washingtons Charitable disposition”:
Ibid., 3:129.

98 “let her have a barrel”:
Fields, 163.

100 “to come to me”:
PGWRWS
, 2:162.

100 “I expect her home Imediately”:
Ibid., 2:256.

100 “I will cheerfully do” and all other quotes on this and the following page:
Ibid., 2:376.

102 “a very great somebody”:
Fields, 164.

102 “I don't doubt”:
Ibid.

103 “great regard and affection”; “defense of our rights”; “these troubled times”; “not to grace”; “best compliments”; “that their sentiments”:
Flexner, 2:58-59.

103 “I left [Philadelphia]”:
Fields, 164.

103 “Mesdames Washington, Custis, and Gates”:
Flexner, 2:59.

103 “particular instructions and advice”:
Ibid., 2:409.

104 “This is a beautyfull country”:
Fields, 164.

104 “I am still determined”:
Ibid., 224.

104 “Every person seems” and “God knows how long”:
Ibid., 164.

105 “the distance is long”:
Ibid., 167.

106 “that Medusa”:
Charles Lee as quoted in George A. Billias,
George Washington's Generals and Opponents
(New York: Da Capo Press, 1994), 81.

107 “Quaker-preacher”:
John F. Stegeman and Janet A. Stegeman,
Caty: A Biography of Catherine Littlefield Greene
(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1977), 22-23.

108 “with that politeness”:
Lyman H. Butterfield, ed.,
Adams Family Correspondence
(Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1963), 1:385.

108 “in every point of View”:
PGWRWS
, 3:1.

108 “Old Sow”:
Mark M. Boatner III,
Encyclopedia of the American Revolution
(Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1994), 588.

109 “our navey” and quotes in the following paragraph, ending with “many Tories”:
Fields, 166-67.

110 “to see the Deserted lines”:
Adams Family
, 1:385.

111 “Mrs. Washington is still here”:
PGWRWS
, 4:173.

112 “begen to think” and “I thank god”:
Fields, 172.

113 “the strapping Huzze”:
Ibid., 170-71.

114 “mortifying, as it deprives me”:
Flexner, 2:197.

114 “Old Man” and “They are very happy”:
Richard K. Showman, ed.,
The Papers of General Nathanael Green
, 12 vols. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 2:54.

115 “politeness and attention” and all other quotations on this page:
Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society
(July 1933): 152.

117 “they have been exceeding good”:
Fields, 174.

117 “she was the greatest favorite” and all other quotations on this page:
Ibid., 174-76.

118 “Several general officers”:
Stanley J. Idzerda, ed.,
Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution: Selected Letters and Papers, 1776-1790
, 5 vols. (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977), 1:225.

119 “motherly care”:
John F. Reed,
Valley Forge: Crucible of Victory
(Monmouth Beach, N.J.: Philip Freneau Press, 1969), 34.

119 “I hope and trust”:
Fields, 177-78.

120 “Assemblies, Concerts, Comedies”:
Jared Brown,
The Theatre in America During the Revolution
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 45-47.

120 “we are in a dreary kind of place”:
John C. Fitzpatrick, ed.,
The Writings of George Washington
, 39 vols. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1931-1944), 10:414.

121 “The rations they have consumed”:
Dennis P. Ryan, ed.,
A Salute to Courage: The American Revolution as Seen Through Wartime Writings of Officers of the Continental Army and Navy
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), 186-87.

121 “The Generals apartment”:
Fields, 177-78.

121 “her presence inspired fortitude”:
Reed, 34.

122 “In the midst of all our distress”:
Gilbert Chinard, ed.,
George Washington as the French Knew Him: A Collection of Texts
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1940), 14, 16.

123 “camp followers”:
Holly A. Mayer,
Belonging to the Army: Camp Followers and Community During the American Revolution
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 199).

124 “We arriv'd at about ½ past one” and quotes on the following page:
Elaine Forman Crane, ed.,
The Diary of Elizabeth Drinker
(Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1994), 74-76, 82.

125 The Quaker prisoners:
A story based on the memoirs of a Hessian major, often circulated since, incorrectly credits Martha Washington with intervening to liberate Henry Drinker and the other prisoners, thereby earning the gratitude of the entire Quaker community. The prisoners' release was already under way, however, and Martha had no influence with the state government. Far from being grateful, Elizabeth Drinker declined to join her friends Phebe Pemberton and Molly Pleasants, her companions at Valley Forge, to call on the general's lady when she returned to Philadelphia later that year. Carl Leopold Baurmeister as quoted in Flexner 2: 285; Crane, 74-76, 82.

125-6 “most perfect confederation”; “a profusion”; “I was never present”:
Flexner, 2:290-91.

126 “when we arose”:
Crane, 77.

128 “Ms. Bet has grown very much”:
Fields, 179.

128 “my letters doe not come”:
Ibid., 180.

129 “Speculation, peculation”:
Flexner, 2:336.

129 “I have lately been several times”:
William Spohn Baker,
Itinerary of General Washington from June 15, 1775, to December 23, 1783
(Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1892), 149.

130 “infinitely more pain than pleasure”:
Flexner, 2:336.

130 “During the course of his short stay”:
Baker, 151.

130 “Mrs. Washington combines”:
James Thatcher,
Military Journal of the American Revolution
(Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1892), 160-61.

132 In an almost certainly apocryphal:
James Rivington, a Tory editor, went on to claim that the thirteen stripes around the tomcat's tail suggested the flag's stripes to Congress. It is unlikely that there is any truth to the tale, but it has been quoted as fact frequently and recently. James Rivington in the
Royal Gazette
, quoted in Mary Gay Humphreys,
Catherine Schuyler
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897), 173.

133 “some rice powder”:
Fields, 182. Rice powder was a common cosmetic; it was transcribed incorrectly by Fields as “nice” powder.

134 “I suffered so much last winter”:
Ibid., 183.

134 “the offering of the ladies”:
Cokie Roberts,
Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation
(New York: William Morrow, 2004), 128.

138 “I hope you will keep Lord Cornwallis”:
Writings of George Washington
, 23:110.

138 “An elegant seat and situation”:
Flexner, 2:446.

138 “her great Age”:
Fields, 187.

138 “the General tho in constant Fatigue”:
Ibid.

139 “a summary return”:
Writings of George Washington
, 23:253.

139 A messenger was sent:
As an adult, Elizabeth Custis claimed that she accompanied her mother and grandmother to her father's bedside, but it seems unlikely that a five-year-old would have been brought into contact with a man dying of a possibly communicable disease. “Self Portrait by Eliza Custis,”
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
53 (April 1945).

140 “I would have wrote”:
Flexner, 2:471-72.

140 “I shall attempt to stimulate”:
Writings of George Washington
, 23:346.

141 “parties of pleasure”:
Ibid., 24:495.

142 “Time passed heavily”:
Flexner, 2:497.

142-3 “disapprobation of such disorderly proceedings”; “Gentlemen, you will”:
Don Higginbotham,
The War of American Independence
(New York: Macmillan, 1971), 409-11.

143 “exceedingly unwell”:
Writings of George Washington
, 22:230.

143 “I was quite at home”:
Baker, 306-7.

144 “before the weather and roads shou'd get bad”:
Writings of George Washington
, 27:188.

145 “to postpone the visit”:
Flexner, 2:517.

146 “You took the advantage of Me”:
Fields, 178-79.

147 “My pritty little dear Boy”:
Ibid., 206.

147 “little family . . . prattling about me”:
Ibid., 193.

148 “My dear sister”:
Ibid., 175.

148 “her Major”:
PGWCFS
, 1:250.

149 “Poor young fellow!”:
Ibid., 2:147.

149 “Clerk or Secretary” and “& occasionally to devote”:
DGW
, 4:158.

151 “the character of a Gentleman”:
DGW
, 4:338.

151 “everything that is benevolent & good”:
Tobias Lear to William Prescott, March 4, 1788. Manuscript, Massachusetts Historical Society; photostat, PS-636/A-I, MVLA.

151 “It's astonishing”:
“An Account of a Visit Made to Washington at Mount Vernon, by an English Gentleman, in 1785, from the Diary of John Hunter,”
The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography
17 (1893): 76, 78, 81.

152 “simple dignity”:
Durand Echeverria, ed. Jacques Pierre Brissot de Warville,
New Travels in the United States of America
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964), 343.

152 “Doubtless, that lady's independency of spirit”:
Katherine Anthony,
First Lady of the Revolution: Mercy Otis Warren
(New York: Doubleday, 1958), 126.

153 “introducing a Lady”:
Fields, 196.

153 “I was, as you may well suppose”:
PGWCFS
, 6:227-28.

155 “but not perfectly recovered” and “She is a child to me”:
Fields, 201.

155 “Civilities & attention to me”:
Ibid., 198-99.

156 “I do most truly sympathize”:
Ibid., 201.

157 “Secure as he was in his fame”:
Flexner, 3:110-11.

157 “Mrs. Washington is become too Domestick”:
Writings of George Washington
, 29:210.

158 “God grant I may not be disappointed”:
PGWCFS
, 5:321.

158 “The only stipulations”:
Ibid., 5:365.

159 “We have not a single article”:
Fields, 205.

159 “About ten o'clock”:
DGW
, 5:445.

159 “grow old in solitude”:
Fields, 223.

161 “I was unable to attend to any business”:
PGWPS
, 2:248.

161 “on other days”:
Ibid., 2:247.

162 “He tosses up such a number”:
Ibid., 2:248.

162 “Madam Washington”:
Ibid., 2:248-49.

163 “to gratify him”:
Ibid., 2:134.

163 “The House he is in” and all quotations on this and the following page:
Fields, 215-17.

165 “Cut deeper, cut deeper.”:
Stephen Decatur Jr.,
Private Affairs of George Washington
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1933), 28.

166 “being confined to a lying posture”:
PGWPS
, 4:1.