If the great awakening prepared the American people emotionally for Revolution and
Independence the process was actually detonated by the first world war in human history. And,
curiously enough, it was an American who struck the spark igniting this global conflict. George
Washington (1732-99) was born on the family estate, Wakefield, in Westmoreland County,
Virginia. Much of America's history was written in his antecedents. His founding ancestor was a
clergyman expelled from his Essex living for drunkenness, who landed in Virginia in 1657 and
married the prosperous Anne Pope. He was Washington's great-grandfather, remembered by the
Indians as 'towntaker,' Caunotaucarius. Washington's father, Augustine or Gus, was a blond
giant, living evidence of the fact that men grew taller in America than in England-though Gus
sent his eldest son Lawrence, Washington's adored half-brother, to school in Appleby, England,
to give him a bit of class. Gus had a large family and was only a moderately successful planter.
He died when Washington was eleven, leaving 10,000 acres in seven parcels, with a total of
forty-nine slaves. The core of it was Ferry Farm with 4,360 acres and ten slaves, in which his
mother was left a half-interest and which she decided to keep and run. The Washingtons were so
characteristic of the modest gentry families who carried through the Revolution that it is worth
detailing the inventory of Gus's possessions on the eve of it. He had little plate-one soup spoon,
eighteen small spoons, seven teaspoons, a watch, and a sword, total value £125 1os. The
glassware was worth only £5 12s. The chinaware, which included two teasers, was valued at a
mere £3 6s. There was a fine looking-glass in the hall, a 'screwtoire' (escritoire), two tables, one
armchair, eleven leather-bottomed chairs, three beds in the parlour, an old table, three old chairs,
an old desk, window curtains, and in the hall two four-poster beds with two more in the back
room. In the chamber above the parlor were three old beds-making a total of thirteen beds in all
(Gus had ten children by two wives). There were six good pairs of sheets, ten inferior ones, and
seventeen pillow-cases, thirteen table-cloths and thirty-one napkins. Thirteen slaves were
attached to the house, but only seven of them were able-bodied. These were the material
circumstances in which Washington was nurtured.
Like his father, George Washington was big, six feet two. He had enormous hands and feet,
red or auburn hair, a huge nose, high forehead, wide hips, narrow shoulders, and he used his
height and bulk to develop an impressive presence which, with his ability to stay calm in
moments of crisis, was the key to his ability to rule men, both soldiers and politicians.' He
always took trouble with his appearance. He never wore a wig, which he thought unbecoming,
but he dressed and powdered his hair carefully and tied it with a neat velvet ribbon called a
solitary. He broke his teeth cracking nuts and replaced them by false ones of hippopotamus ivory
and was self-consciously aware that they fitted badly. He would not venture on an expedition
into the woods, as a young man, without nine shirts, six linen waistcoats, seven caps, six collars,
and four neckcloths. His instincts were aristocratic and in time became regal. He rejected the
new American habit, growing throughout the 18th century, of shaking hands with all and sundry,
and instead bowed. He did not hesitate to use his physical strength to exert his will: he laid his cane over many of [his] officers who showed their men the example of running.' He could throw stones an immense distance and liked to demonstrate this gift to impress. His mother was a strong woman and he esteemed her. His father meant nothing to him. About 17,000 of Washington's letters have survived, and the father is mentioned in only two of them. He was, from an early age, his own father-figure. Unlike his half-brother, Washington had only the most elementary education. His envious and critical Vice President John Adams was to write:That Washington was not a scholar was
certain. That he was too illiterate, unread, unlearned for his station is equally past dispute."