Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 2.djvu/67

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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

and frustrated. The winter of 1778 wit- nessed the miseries of Valley Forge, and here Washington displayed his best quali- ties, holding together a disheartened force which could be only meagjely fed and clothed by means of forced levies. Lady Washington was present, living at the home o^ Isaac Potts, a Quaker preacher, where she gathered other soldiers' wives, who bus- ied themselves making garments for the soldiers. Washington lived with his officers and men, sharing all their discomforts. It was here that Baron von Steuben rendered efficient aid by perfecting the organization of the army and systematically drilling it. On May 11, 1778, Sir Henry Clinton with 10,000 men began his march from Philadel- phia to New York, and Washington broke camp at \'alley Forge and went in pursuit, encountering the enemy at Monmouth, New Jersey. Owing to the misconduct of Gen- eral Lee, the Americans fell into disorder. At this juncture Washington met Lee, whom he rebuked with all the indignation of his nature, then rallied his troops and drove Cornwallis from the field. In July, 1778, the French fleet appeared, and Washington communicated his plans of attack to Ad- miral D'Estaing, but the latter, pleading injuries to his ships by a severe storm, sailed for the West Indies, having effected nothing. In 1779 Washington went before Congress with a plea for good money for payment of the troops, the Continental cur- rency being practically worthless. Later (1781), in consequence of nonpayment for many months, a Connecticut regiment mutinied, a portion of the Pennsylvania line rebelled, and the New Jersey line became disaffected. These ills were cured in a de- gree; and Washington, though a man of

tender sympathies, felt obliged to hang two of the New Jersey ringleaders. While bus- ied with the immediate operations of his own troops, Washington was directing the operations of the army in the south, and with consummate skill. As a result of his combinations, simultaneous attacks were planned against the British in New York, Yorktown and Charleston. Washington in person led 2000 Continentals and 4000 French from West Point to Yorktown, a distance of four hundred iniles, and invested Cornwallis, who surrendered October 19, 1 78 1, this virtually ending the war.

On December 4, 1783, Washington took leave of his officers in a banquet at Fraun- ce*s Tavern, in New York. He then re- turned to Mount Vernon, and busied him- self with the rehabilitation of his estate, and in promoting the settlement of the west, his principal interest in the latter un- dertaking being to enable the officers and men who had followed him during the long struggle for independence, to secure homes for themselves. On May 2, 1787, at the convention assembled at Philadelphia to amend the articles of confederation and union, Washington was unanimously chosen its president, and in February, 1789, the electoral college under the new constitution elected him first president of the United States. He received official notice of his election, April 14, 1789, at Mount Vernon, and set out on his journey to New York, great public assemblages greeting him all the way through Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and he was inaugurated April 30, Chancellor Livingston administer- ing the oath of office, following it with the exclamation, "Long live George Washing- ten, president of the United States." Wash-

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