Everywhere the army went, Lady Washington organized local ladies into sewing and knitting groups—small brigades fighting the relentless wear and tear of the war. Our army suffered from shortages of clothing throughout the war, but the holes in what clothing the men wore were promptly attended to by Lady Washington and her female volunteers. Needless to say, Lady Washington was exceedingly popular with the troops. One regiment even called itself “Lady Washington’s Dragoons.”
I always marveled at how and why Lady Washington stayed with the General for most of the war. Unlike the General, I don’t believe she had ever traveled beyond Virginia and Maryland before. She certainly could not have enjoyed staying in our camps during the freezing winters, but I never heard her complain, not even when she suffered from jaundice in 1781 and the Washingtons returned a gift of fruit sent under a flag of truce by the widow of a British paymaster. I would not have dreamed of asking my Prescilla to join me during those times. I sometimes wondered if Lady Washington even enjoyed those interminable dinners she hosted for our officers and visiting dignitaries. You would never know from the way she guided the conversation, generally with the purpose of creating bonds between junior officers and spouses from different regions. She was more articulate than the General at such affairs. He would occasionally stammer, which led some visiting foreigners to believe that Lady Washington was the brighter of the two. I can’t imagine she enjoyed camp life, but I was told that she enjoyed listening to military music. She seemed to turn up whenever the fifers played. Having learned chess from my fellow aide, Benjamin Walker, she enjoyed playing the game.
Often I wanted to ask Lady Washington her reaction to camp life. But I never could. It might have seemed impertinent, and besides, I always thought there was a big gulf between us, much more so than the gulf between the General and me. I looked on her as a Virginia plantation mistress, and I knew that her upbringing and attitudes on everything from women to food to manners to slavery were far different than mine. She was no Abigail Adams when it came to publicly expressing opinions on the events of the day. Yet, like the General, she had an instinct for the democratic gesture, as when she invited the workmen fixing their quarters in the winter of 1777 to have lunch with her. Sometimes I thought her personality was more inscrutable than the General’s; she seemed to play a role set out for her by either the General, herself, or both. I have heard the spouses of presidents lately referred to as “First Ladies.” Lady Washington acted as First Lady years before we had presidents.
A little later, when I opened the door to ask the General about honoring Virginia’s Governor Harrison’s request to ship some hard French currency (the General being the American leader entrusted by the French to handle the proceeds of their loan), I found the General staring out the window at the snowy slope leading down to the Hudson River. Perhaps he was praying for guidance, but while praying, meditation, and Bible reading were much favored by Lady Washington, the General never seemed to join her. I have read that the General was a Deist, but if that means someone who believes in a God who leaves the world alone, that does not describe the General. He was always talking about Providence, the Almighty, the Great Disposer of Events, and the Divine Ruler who intervened in the affairs of man and whom he believed had intervened many times during the War for Independence. From the fog that had shrouded the movement up Dorchester Heights outside Boston, to all the British bullets at close range that had missed the General, to the winds that had foiled Cornwallis’s escape at Yorktown, the General believed that thanks was due the Ruler of the Universe.
I believe he saw himself acting as the servant of Providence, although he certainly believed in individual responsibility. Often he would recite the line from Cato, “’Tis not in mortals to command success, but we’ll do more . . . we’ll deserve it.”
This is not to say that the General was a Christian in the sense that Patrick Henry or Samuel Adams was, or I am. Unlike Lady Washington, who prayed daily, the General never prayed outside a church to my knowledge. Nor did I ever see a letter of his that invoked the name of Jesus. But then again, the General did not write essays to disprove the divinity of Our Savior the way Jefferson did. He did serve on the vestries of two Anglican churches near his home in Virginia, but this was as much a civic as a religious duty. Back in those days of established state churches, serving on a church vestry meant directing the building of roads, ferries, and bridges.
With religion as with so many other endeavors, it was hard to separate the General’s private life from his public one. We aides used to joke among ourselves as to which church service the General was going to attend any given Sunday. One time it was Roman Catholic, another it was Dutch Reformed, another it was Baptist. I have Jewish friends in Philadelphia who tell me the General wrote letters to many different Hebrew congregations, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the General attended Hebrew services too.
I suspect, however, that the General’s wide-ranging church attendance was due less to a thirst for religion and more to a desire as the nation’s leader to draw Americans of different faiths together. In Massachusetts, I saw the General stop our troops from burning an effigy of the Pope on Guy Fawkes Day.
The General certainly believed in religion as a force for good in public life. The hall where the meeting was to be held on Saturday was built primarily as a chapel because the General wanted to encourage religious devotion. He fulminated against alcoholism, gambling, and swearing among the troops, but since he partook of both liquor and gambling, I suspect his tirades were more directed at excesses that would undermine the army than based on religious principle.
Once, he issued an edict against swearing, but he soon realized the hopelessness of enforcing such an edict. Despite what Parson Weems has written in his glorified account of the General’s life, I can assure you that the General did swear, albeit on very rare occasions such as when he saw his officers fleeing the British in New York and strove to stop their flight.
After dealing with Governor Harrison’s request, I stood there looking at the General and wondering what he was thinking. He turned from the window, sat down at his desk, picked up a pen, and began scratching away on a piece of paper. I hesitantly asked if he needed my help. He was not in a good mood, for he did not answer my question but grimaced and waved me away with a brusque swing of the hand. Generally, he would stand when I entered the room. After all, Rule 28 of his Rules of Civility instructed him, “If anyone comes to speak to you while you are sitting, stand up although he be your inferior.” Not today.