Part 2

The lines of social rank among us I judge to have been made early to depend on extent of landed property, so that the owners of these vast estates were like great nabobs, and by having seats and control in the governor’s council and the House of Burgesses obtained large influence. They were at pains to defend their pretensions by a law of primogeniture, which made entails so strict that they could not be broken, as in England, by agreement of father and son, but required to break them, in each case, an act of the Assembly. Families like our own were regarded rather as minor gentry, and were, for a time, owing in a measure to their having but moderate estates, looked down upon by certain of the great proprietors of enormous plantations and numberless slaves.

Whatever may have been the reason, or the reasons, I was more than once made to feel the fact that I was not looked upon as an equal by certain of these gentlemen, and this at an age when men are sensitive to such considerations.

My father, Augustine, has been described as a good planter and a man of energy. I apprehend that he was of a serious tendency, for Lawrence, my brother, once gave me to understand that most of the few books at Wakefield were religious; but whether this was so or not I do not know. Like some of the rest of us, my father had a high and quick temper, which, as he used to say, he had to keep muzzled. I remember being terrified at seeing him in a storm of anger because the clergyman who was to have baptized my sister Mildred was too much in liquor to perform the ceremony.

About the year 1724 he became interested in the mining of iron ore with the Principio Company, in which the venturers were chiefly English. A furnace was opened on his estate in Stafford County. It was confiscated in 1780 as rebel property. He had a contract for hauling the ore from the mines, and later commanded a ship for the taking of iron to England and the fetching back of convict labourers. On this account, I apprehend, he was known as Captain Washington. He was, I have understood, a man of enterprising nature and better informed than most planters of his time.

He was educated at Appleby in England, near Whitehaven. I have often regretted that I never had his opportunities, or those of my brothers, in the way of education. The fact of my being a younger son and my father’s death, and also my mother’s overfondness, may have stood in the way, and on this and other occasions interfered with my own plans or with those of others for me.

I did not take after my mother in appearance, and I had the large frame and strength of my father. In other respects also I was somewhat like him in my mind and character.

When in later years I returned to visit Wakefield I used to fancy I remembered it. This I could not have done, as I was only three years old when, because of the unhealthfulness of the place, my father moved away. The house was burned down on Christmas eve, 1779. It was of wood, with brick foundations, and had eight bedrooms. There was an underground dairy, a great garden with fig-trees and other fruit, and along the shores were wild flowering grapes and laurel and honeysuckle and sweetbrier roses, very fragrant in the spring season. Here in the middle of a great field lie my ancestors and some of the children of my father’s first marriage.

In the year 1735 we moved, as I have said, fifty miles higher up the Potomac to the estate then known as Epsewasson or Hunting Creek. This was given, with other land, by the colony to my great-grandfather and Colonel Spencer for importing an hundred labourers, and was bought by my father in 1726 from my aunt Mildred Gregory, later my godmother. It came afterwards to be called Mount Vernon. It was at that time in Prince William County, which my father represented in the House of Burgesses, as my brother did later. There we remained until 1739.

In this year our house took fire, as was supposed, by the act of one of our slaves, but never surely ascertained. We were then obliged to remove, and this time settled in Stafford, formerly St. George, on the east bank of the Rappahannock, opposite to Fredericksburg.

This residence was a two-story house on a rise of ground, with a fertile meadow sloping gently to the river. It was built of wood and painted red. There, as people well-to-do, we lived until my father’s death, when the division of his estate did somewhat lessen the easiness of our lives; and of these latter years I can recall some more or less distinct remembrances, for here my education began.

IV

While I was a child, my father, as I have said, made many voyages to England and fetched back with him convicts, and perhaps also indentured servants. Often in those days some of the unfortunate people thus sent to the colonies were under sentence for political offences, but many, of course, for crimes. One of these, a convict I was told, was my first schoolmaster. We called him Hobby, which was, I believe, a nickname; but he was named Grove, and was sexton of the Falmouth church, two miles away. Of what our sexton schoolmaster had been convicted I never heard, but of this I am assured, that my father would not have used as a schoolmaster a common thief. I used to ride the two miles to the “field-school,” as they called it, in front of a slave named Peter, and later was allowed a pony, to my mother’s alarm when he would tumble me off, as happened now and then. Hobby was a short man, with one eye, and too good-humoured or too timid to be a good teacher, even of the a-b-c’s and the little else we learned.

My father was kind to this man, and perhaps knew his history. He would even have allowed him the use of the rod, with the aid of which I might have profited more largely, for I am of his opinion that children should be strictly brought up. Hobby, being of a humourous turn, seems to me, as I remember him, to have resembled the grave-digger in the play of “Hamlet.” He sometimes amused and at other times terrified us by tales of London or of his recent life as a sexton. He believed many of the negro superstitions――as that if a snake’s head was cut off the tail would live until it thundered――and was much afraid of having what he called black magic put upon him by the negroes.

I did not learn much from Hobby and preferred to be out of doors. My father considered, I believe, that, as I was a younger son and must in some way support myself, I should be well trained in both mind and body, and had he lived the chance of the former might have been bettered. The latter was often made difficult by my mother, who was unhappy when I was subject to the risks to which all lads of spirit are exposed. I remember that, when later my father was teaching me to leap my pony, the pony refused over and over, and this being near to the house, my mother ran out, and at last had a kind of hysterick turn. My father sat still on a big stallion and took no notice of her entreaties. At last I got the pony over, and he fell with me. I jumped up and was in the saddle in a moment. My father said that was ill ridden, I must try it again; and upon this my mother ran back to the house, crying out I would be murdered. But my father was this manner of man; he hated defeat, while my mother was ever desirous of keeping me out of danger, because it made her uncomfortable; and this was strange, for I have never been able to see that she was greatly pleased when I was successful, or was much moved by what the great Master allowed me to attain in later years.

My elder brothers, Lawrence and Augustine, were both at different times sent to England for education at Appleby School, near Whitehaven, when I was a child. Lawrence had the family liking for enterprises and martial employment. I was eight years old, and he of age, when Lawrence served with Admiral Vernon and General Wentworth in the disastrous attack on Cartagena. I remember as a boy the interest this expedition caused in our neighbourhood. It was said that Harry Beverley and other Virginians captured by the Spaniards had been made to work as slaves, and this stirred up much feeling among us. The ex-Governor Spottiswood, although an aged man, would have gone as a major-general, but died suddenly at Temple Farm, near Yorktown, where forty-two years later Lord Cornwallis met me to sign the capitulations.

Lawrence was away two years. The letters wrote by him to my father were full of interest, and, as I remember, were the means of arousing in me, who was but a little lad, the liking for warfare, of which we all had a share.

I can remember how, as we sat about the hearth at evening, my father read aloud to us these letters, and explained to me the military terms used, and why, for want of foresight, the gallantry of soldiers and sailors served only to give opportunity for loss of life. This was especially in connection with the last letter we received, after the dismal failure of the attack on Cartagena. He wrote:

HONOURED AND DEAR FATHER: What with dissensions between the General Wentworth and Admiral Vernon, who was, as we think, not to blame, we have come away, leaving the Spaniards to crow, and our Colonel Gooch ill at Jamaica. When I am to have another dose of glory I pray to have better doctors.

We were to storm Fort _Lazaro_――which must mean Lazarus――at night. But we were too long getting there, or the guides treacherous, and the ladders too short and no sufficient breach. This _Lazarus_ fort was too much alive, but we were actually on the rampart when Colonel Grant was killed, and we were driven back in sad confusion, and half of us, a good thousand, killed or wounded for want of forethought. I came off with no more hurt than to be so spent that I had no breath to curse the folly for which so many brave men died. The climate was worse than the dons, and we took ship with our tails between our legs and some two thousand shaking with agues and racked with fever.

When I heard this I jumped up and said I wished I could have been there, upon which my father laughed and said I was better off where I was, and my mother that I had better go to bed.

I was at that age when lads of spirit are apt to ask questions, and concerning these my father was always patient, and encouraged a reasonable curiosity; but, on the other hand, my mother disliked this habit of curiosity, and when my father talked of Indian wars and of my brother’s fine conduct at Cartagena she was sure to say I should never go to war. My father would reply that it was sometimes the business and also the duty of a gentleman, and then there was no greater pleasure than to hear over and over how Sir Henry Washington, said to be of our family, defended Worcester in the civil war in England.

In those days all the world was at war, and with us there was always the dread of Indian outbreaks. It was no wonder that I and other little fellows at Hobby’s school played at soldiering. A lad named William Bustle, a fat, sturdy boy, was commander of the Indians, and in the woods we imitated the red men and the frontier farmers, and passed from tree to tree throwing stones, or, in winter, snowballs, with mock scalping and much pulling of hair, which was worn long. This was interfered with one winter because Bustle hit me in the eye with a snowball in which was a stone, a thing not considered fair. My mother wished Bustle punished. My father said I must take care of my own quarrels, and this I did, for, being then ten years old, and very strong, as soon as I went back to school I gave Bustle a good beating. In fact, I was of unusual strength, and because of my violence of temper felt no hurt, and would not listen when Bustle called, “Enough.” My mother’s uncertain discipline and her too affectionate weakness did me great harm. For if my father punished me on account of disobedience or outbursts of temper, my mother was sure to interfere, or to coddle and pity me, a thing I greatly disliked. I never learned much self-control until a later day, which, in its place, I shall call to mind.

My sister Betty, who afterwards married Fielding Lewis, was, next to my half-brother Lawrence and my brother Jack, most dear to me. Samuel had some of the weaknesses of my mother, and Charles, in later days, some worse ones of his own. In after life Samuel was often in debt, and was married five times, being extravagant in this as in all other ways. Mildred was sadly affected from birth and died young. It was unfortunate for me that while I was a child my half-brothers were sent from home and put in charge of the plantations of Wakefield and of Mount Vernon, which had been rebuilt and given the name of the admiral whom Lawrence much admired.

V

In 1742 Lawrence came from Cartagena, and meant to continue in the service, but, after our sudden way, he fell in love with Anne, the daughter of William Fairfax of Belvoir, our neighbour, the cousin and agent of my lord of that name, and this, luckily for my own character, ended his desire for a military life. I too well recall the event which delayed his marriage. I was at this time, April 17, 1743, being eleven years old, on a visit to my cousins at Choptank, some thirty miles away. We were very merry at supper, when Peter, who was supposed to look after me, arrived with the news of my father’s sudden illness. It was the first of my too many experiences of the ravage time brings to all men. I heard the news with a kind of awe, but without realizing how serious in many ways was this summons. I rode home behind Peter, and found my mother in a state of distraction. She led me to the bedside of my father, crying out, “He is dying.” The children were around him, and he was groaning in great pain; but he kissed us in turn, and said to me, “Be good to your mother.” I may say that throughout her life I have kept the promise I made him as I knelt, crying, at his bedside. He died that night, and I lost my best friend.

My mother for a month talked of him incessantly, and after that very little, except to say, “If your father were alive I should be more considered.” I do not know why I, too, was averse to speaking of him, and yet I loved him above all people. But concerning such matters children are puzzled, and unable to express themselves, nor have I ever been other than shy in saying what I feel in the way of affection, whereas on paper I do not suffer this shyness, nor feel the reserve which occasioned Colonel Trumbull to say to me once that I was often unjustly regarded as cold because of my difficulty of being outspoken concerning my regard for those dear to me. I am little better of it to-day.

My father had much land and little money. As was usual in Virginia, he left to his elder sons the larger share. To Lawrence he gave his interest in the iron-works, with Mount Vernon and two thousand five hundred acres, also the resident slaves and the mill, and, in case of his failure to leave a child lawfully begotten or such child dying under age, this property was “to go to and remain” to me. To Augustine he left Wakefield; to me his farm on the Rappahannock and one moiety of his land on Deep Run, with ten negro slaves. Samuel, John, and Charles were also given land and slaves, and Betty four hundred pounds.

My mother was to have my estate for her use until I was of age, and with whatever else was left her, and her own sixteen hundred acres, might have sufficed with economy; but that virtue she found difficult to practise, and was never a prudent or managing woman. She soon felt her children to be a heavy burden upon an estate which was none too large, and complained, as was common for her to do all her life, that she was poor, and this even when I was assured that she was comfortably cared for. I never knew a more affectionate mother. She was said to have been foolishly fond of her children, and I was more than once brought to feel that her love of us did interfere with good judgment. Certainly whatever were her opinions,――and we did not often agree,――these differences never lessened my love for her, as differences often do. As she grew old her peculiarities were more and more notable. With very many good qualities, she was hard to satisfy, and this did not cease until the end of her life, for she could not be restrained from borrowing money and accepting gifts from those who were not her relations. Indeed, I once had to write her that while I had a shilling left she should never want, but that I must not be viewed as a delinquent, or be considered by the world as unjust and an undutiful son. But so was she made, and even her doctor, Thornton, wrote to me in her last illness, in which his cousin, Dr. Rush, was also consulted, that he “had every day a small battle with her.”

VI

My father died in April, 1743, and Lawrence was married to Miss Fairfax in June of that year. It was fortunate for me that my brother’s wife, Anne Fairfax, soon shared the constant affection felt for me by her husband Lawrence.

Austin, as we usually called Augustine, also embarked into the matrimonial state as the husband of Anne Aylett of Westmoreland, who brought him a large property.

The next three years of my young life were important. I learned very soon from my mother that, when of age, I would have a moderate estate and insufficient. It is a happy thing that children have no power to realize what money means to their elders, else I might have been set against Lawrence and thought my father unjust. As I did not understand my mother’s complaints of poverty, they had no effect upon me. After my father’s death, and in the absence of my elder brothers, the house and farm soon showed the want of a man’s care, and we lads enjoyed at this time almost unlimited freedom. My older brothers saw it, and felt that I, at least, might suffer, being of an age and nature to need discipline and to be guided. In fact, I delighted to skip away from my man Peter, and find indulgence in roasting ears of Indian corn in the forbidden cabins of the field-slaves, or in coon-hunts at night, when all the house was asleep. When my pranks were discovered my mother was sometimes too severe in her punishments, or else only laughed.

Nothing was assured or certain in the house, now that the hand of wise and strong government was gone.

We were taught the catechism as a preparation for Sundays, and my mother read the Bishop of Exeter’s sermons or Matthew Hale’s “Commentaries, Moral and Divine.” I still have this book. It belonged originally to my father’s first wife, Jane Butler, and below her name my mother wrote her own, “Mary Ball.” At this time she was much given to Puritanical views, which were beginning to be felt in Virginia, owing largely to the want of better clergymen in the Established Church. She would have the servants up late on Saturday to cook, that there might be no labour on Sunday. In consequence, the blacks fell asleep in church. My mother would then get up in mid-service, and go where they sat, and poke them awake with her fan.

At this period my great personal strength and endurance were constant temptations to forbidden enterprises on land or water, and it was at this time of my life that I discovered a certain pleasure in danger. I find it difficult, not having the philosophical turn of mind, to describe what I mean; but of this I became aware as time went on, that, in battle or other risks, I was suddenly the master of larger competence of mind and body than I possessed at other times.

When, on one occasion, the learned Dr. Franklin desired to be excused if he asked whether in battle I had ever felt fear, I had to confess that in contemplating danger I was like most men, but that immediate peril had upon me the influence which liquor has upon some, making them feel able for anything. He said yes, but as to the influence of drink, that was a mere delusion; whereas he understood, and here he begged to apologize, that, in great danger in battle and when the ranks were breaking, I had seemed to possess powers of decision and swift judgment beyond those I could ordinarily command. I said it was true, that danger seemed to lift me in mind and body above my common level, and that it was the satisfaction this gave which made danger agreeable; not, be it said, the peril, but the results.

I apprehend him to have been correct, for in battle I have often felt this, as at Monmouth, at Princeton, and elsewhere. In general, my mind acts slowly, and I have been often painfully aware of it when in council with General Hamilton, Mr. Jefferson, or General Knox. General Wayne was fortunate in this quickening of the mind in danger. He once said to Colonel Humphreys of my staff that he disliked danger, but liked its effects upon himself when it came.

Certainly I had my share of risks at the time I now speak of. No one controlled my actions, and old Peter, in whom my father had greatly trusted, now allowed me, in general, to do as pleased me. The river and the forests afforded game, but the riding of half-broken horses was what most I liked. My joy in the horse and his ways was the mere satisfaction in conquest and in the training of a strong brute; but it made me a good horseman, and helped, though I knew it not then, to prepare me for the years when I was to be so much in the saddle.

We had at this time a slave named Sampson, who possessed great control over animals. He was old in our service, and very black. He was said to be a Mandingo negro, and to do very well if kindly treated. The blacks of this tribe incline to take their own lives if what they feel to be disgrace falls upon them, and this man, for whom my father had a great liking, never had been whipped. He had charge, under the overseer, of the stables, the brood-mares, and the training of horses for saddle or harness.

I was at this time more about the stables than was allowed under my father’s rule, and did, in fact, much as I liked out of school hours. It so happened that once, on a Saturday, there being no school, I was very early at the stables, and, as there was no one to hinder, made the groom saddle a hunter we had. On this I made my appearance at a meet for fox-hunting, four miles from home, to the great amusement of the gentry. They asked me if I could stay on, and if the horse knew he had any one on his back. However, the big sorrel carried me well, and knew his business better than I did. I saw two foxes killed, and this was my first hunt; but as I rode home my horse went lame, and, to save him, I dismounted and led him. Towards noon, when we were come to the farm stable, I found the overseer, with a whip in his hand, swearing at Sampson, and making as if about to beat him. I ran up behind them and snatched away the whip. The overseer turned and, seeing me, said he meant to punish Sampson for letting me take a horse which was sold to go to Williamsburg. When he knew the horse was lame, he was still more angry; but I declared I was to blame, and no one else, and said he should first whip me. He said no more, except that my mother would say what was to be done. I think he made no report of me, and certainly my mother said nothing. When the overseer had walked away, the old servant thanked me, and said no one had ever struck him, and that it would be his death. This seemed strange to me, a boy, for the slaves were whipped like children, and thought as little of it. Sampson said to me that I was like my father, that when I was angry I became red and then pale, and that I must never get angry with a horse.

After this interference Sampson took great pains with me and taught me many useful things about horses. Although I became a good horseman, I never had his strange gift of managing dogs or other creatures. Indeed, he was the only black man I ever saw who could handle bees, for these industrious little insects have a great enmity to negroes.