Posted on 12/14/2005 6:44:05 PM PST by marblehead17
"A citizen, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen".From the eulogy delivered before Congress by Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee.
(Excerpt) Read more at federalreview.com ...
Good Luck Iraq. I look forward to seeing the purple fingers.
And there's an anniversary of interest tomorrow as well -- Bill Of Rights Day.
I am readin "His Excellency" by Ellis right now. A good read.
The founders have to be turning over in their graves from all of BS they are witnessing from above.....
I would like to edit the web address I posted. Is there a way to do that?
Get David McCullough's 1776. You won't regret it.
The Washington Family Coat of Arms
Thanks, scott says. I will invoke the ping list for the anniversary of The General's death.
Actually I redd that over Thanksgiving. It was good and I couldn't get enough of old George. So, I read this one next.
I like both ... but this is interesting as it details the 20 years after the Revolution. And the birth of the Republican party in Jefferson and Madison.
Your George Washington has severe amblyopia. Most accounts say it was slight, though.
BTTT
Lets see here. Am I missing something. Was not "Light Horse Harry Lee" the father of Robert E. Lee?
The Death of George Washington, 1799
George Washington finished his second term as the first President of the United States in 1797. Weary of the political infighting surrounding the presidency, he longed for the peace of retirement to his beloved Mount Vernon. Unfortunately, his solitude lasted less than three years as he died on December 14, 1799 at age 67.
Death of a Founding Father
George Washington Custis was the son of John Custis, the son of Martha Washington from her first marriage to Daniel Custis. George Washington Custis was thus Martha Washington's grandson. His father - John - served as an aide to George Washington and died from camp fever during the Battle of Yorktown in 1781. Washington immediately adopted the six-month-old Custis and his sister Eleanor as his own children. Custis lived at Mount Vernon and became the darling of the household.
Custis was nineteen at the time of Washington's death. He describes the scene:
"On the morning of the thirteenth, the general was engaged in making some improvements in the front of Mount Vernon. As was usual with him, he carried his own compass, noted his observations, and marked out the ground. The day became rainy, with sleet, and the improver remained so long exposed to the inclemency of the weather as to be considerably wetted before his return to the house. About one o'clock he was seized with chilliness and nausea, but having changed his clothes, he sat down to his indoor work - there being no moment of his time for which he had not provided an appropriate employment.
At night on joining his family circle, the general complained of a slight indisposition, and after a single cup of tea, repaired to his library, where he remained writing until between eleven and twelve o'clock. Mrs. Washington retired about the usual family hour, but becoming alarmed at not hearing the accustomed sound of the library door as it closed for the night, and gave signal for rest in the well-regulated mansion, she rose again, and continued sitting up, in much anxiety and suspense. At length the well-known step was heard on the stair, and upon the general's entering his chamber, the lady chided him for staying up so late, knowing him to be unwell, to which Washington made this memorably reply: 'I came so soon as my business was accomplished. You well know that through a long life, it has been my unvaried rule, never to put off till the morrow the duties which should be performed today."'
Having first covered the fire with care, the man of mighty labors sought repose; but it came not, as it long had been wont to do, to comfort and restore after the many and earnest occupations of the well-spent day. The night was passed in feverish restlessness and pain...The manly sufferer uttered no complaint, would permit no one to be disturbed in their rest on his account, and it was only at daybreak he would consent that the overseer might be called in, and bleeding resorted to. A vein was opened, but no relief afforded. Couriers were dispatched to Dr. Craik, the family, and Drs. Dick and Brown, the consulting physicians, all of whom came with speed. The proper remedies were administered, but without producing their healing effects; while the patient, yielding to the anxious looks of all around him, waived his usual objections to medicines, and took those which were prescribed without hesitation or remark. The medical gentlemen spared not their skill, and all the resources of their art were exhausted in unwearied endeavors to preserve this noblest work of nature.
The night approached - the last night of Washington. The weather became severely cold while the group gathered nearer to the couch of the sufferer, watching with intense anxiety for the slightest dawning of hope. He spoke but little. To the respectful and affectionate inquiries of an old family servant, as she smoothed down his pillow, how he felt himself, he answered, 'I am very ill.' To Dr. Craik, his earliest companion-in-arms, longest tried and bosom friend, he observed, 'I am dying, sir - but am not afraid to die.' To Mrs. Washington he said, 'Go to my desk, and in the private drawer you will find two papers - bring them to me.' They were brought. He continued -'These are my Wills -preserve this one and burn the other,' which was accordingly done. Calling to Colonel Lear, he directed - 'Let my corpse be kept for the usual period of three days.'
The patient bore his acute sufferings with fortitude and perfect resignation to the Divine will, while as the night advanced it became evident that he was sinking, and he seemed fully aware that 'his hour was nigh.' He inquired the time, and was answered a few minutes to ten. He spoke no more - the hand of death was upon him, and he was conscious that 'his hour was come.' With surprising self-possession he prepared to die. Composing his form at length, and folding his arms on his bosom, without a sigh, without a groan, the Father of his Country died. No pang or struggle told when the noble spirit took its noiseless flight; while so tranquil appeared the manly features in the repose of death, that some moments had passed ere those around could believe that the patriarch was no more."
References:
Custis, George Washington Parke, Recollections of Washington (1860).
Maybe. I know Robert E. Lee was somehow related to Washington, but thought it was via his wife. When I have a chance, I'll check it out.
Since we're talking about the passing of Washington, thought it was appropriate to dig up this: a site about his last will and testament.
http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/will/
The intro page on the site reads:
George Washington prepared his will alone, without, as he attested, any "professional character" being "consulted" or having "any Agency in the draught." He dated the will, the work of many "leisure hours," the "ninth day of July" in 1799, probably the date that he finished making the final copy. And he put his name at the bottom of all but one of its twenty-nine pages. Six months later, on the day that he died, he instructed Mrs. Washington to destroy an earlier will (see Tobias Lear's Narrative Accounts of the Death of George Washington, printed below). His executors presented the new will for probate within a month, on 10 January 1800, to the Fairfax County Court, in whose custody it remains. A few days thereafter the will was printed in Alexandria. It then circulated throughout the country in pamphlet form.
The lucid and powerful prose of the text of the will displays at its best the distinctive style of writing that Washington had developed through the years. Over a span of more than half a century he had composed thousands of letters and other documents, as a private man with extensive business interests and familial and social ties, as a military leader for more than thirteen years, and, after the Revolution, as a great public figure in his own country and abroad. The contents of the will reveal much about both Washington's character and his views as well as about his diverse and valuable property, real and chattel, acquired over a lifetime. Most notable of the will's provisions, perhaps, are the instructions that he gave for freeing his slaves and for the support thereafter of the helpless children and the old and infirm among them. The extraordinary care and precision with which he spelled out how and under what conditions his land and other possessions should be distributed among the numerous members of his extended family, among his old friends, and among various dependents, provide further insight into the workings of his mind and the impulses of his heart. The language of Washington's will and its contents combine to make it a document of particular importance among his papers.
Washington made the will at a time when he was emerging from the near despondency into which he had been cast by the spectacle of the American body politic seemingly being rent asunder by conflicting views of the ongoing revolution in France. In the early summer of 1799, he was also becoming less concerned with his responsibilities as commander in chief of the army and turning back with renewed vigor to the personal concerns on which he had been focusing since his return to Mount Vernon in March 1797. The main thrust of Washington's efforts during the time left to him after his presidency was directed to putting his house in order, to doing what needed to be done to make his beloved Mount Vernon a harmonious and fruitful enterprise. Upon his arrival home in 1797, he was faced with dilapidated buildings to be repaired, worn-out soil to be made fertile, unproductive labor to be properly utilized, cropping plans to be devised and carried out, and money for all this to be sought, and perhaps found, through the sale of his western landholdings. The writing of the will was a way of taking stock of what had been done. He was determining where he stood not so much to wind things up as to consider what lay ahead. The provision in the will leaving one of the outlying farms at Mount Vernon to the newly-wed Lewis couple and another to the two orphan sons of George Augustine Washington, now the wards of Tobias Lear, plays directly into Washington's decision, confirmed a few months later, to assume the direct, personal management of the farming operations at Mount Vernon, but of four (and ultimately three) farms instead of five. The will was written by a man filled not with forebodings of death but with thoughts of the future, as Washington's letters and actions in the months following attest.
Instead of only the usual widow's portion, Mrs. Washington was to retain during her lifetime possession of virtually all of her husband's property and be the beneficiary of the profits derived from it. At her death the farms at Mount Vernon and other landed and personal property named in the will would go to the heirs in accordance with the terms of the will. Washington appended to the will a Schedule of Property, printed here as an Enclosure, in which he lists and describes all of his landed property and other assets not specifically bequeathed to individual heirs. He provided that, upon his wife's death, his executors would sell all of these assets and distribute the proceeds among his heirs in the manner that he specified. Washington named as executors of his will his wife Martha, her grandson, George Washington Parke Custis, and five of his nephews: William Augustine Washington, Bushrod Washington, George Steptoe Washington, Samuel Washington, and Lawrence Lewis. It was the prerogative of the Fairfax County Court to appoint the appraisers of the estate. It named as appraisers Washington's neighbor Thomson Mason, his secretary Tobias Lear, Thomas Peter who was married to one of Martha Washington's granddaughters, and William H. Foote, the nephew of Lund Washington's widow, Elizabeth Foote Washington. A room-by-room appraisal of the articles at Mount Vernon was made, probably in 1800. It was not until 1810 that the appraisers filed their report in the office of the clerk of the Fairfax County Court (Appendix II, in Prussing, Estate of George Washington, 401-48). The executors held public sales of some of the livestock at Mount Vernon before Martha Washington's death in 1802, and they began selling the remainder of the listed property at sales shortly thereafter (Appendix III, ibid., 449-59). Final settlement of the estate was not achieved until 21 June 1847. For a comprehensive analysis of George Washington's will and a full account of the settlement of his estate, see Eugene E. Prussing, The Estate of George Washington, Deceased (Boston, 1927); see also The Last Will and Testament of George Washington and Schedule of his Property, edited by John C. Fitzpatrick, n.p., 1960.
Yes indeed. Light Horse Harry Lee was General Robt. E. Lee's father. General Washington loved LH Harry. You can still see the house REL was raised in in Alexandria, VA.
Robert E. Lee was the son of General "Lighthorse" Harry Lee, and he married a granddaughter of Martha Washington. I think Arlington, their plantation (it was hers, not his) was originally part of the Mt. Vernon property.
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