LADY WASHINGTON’S POPULARITY WITH THE TROOPS, PAGES 134, 135
Lady Washington’s popularity with the troops, which Josiah comments on, is a subject usually ignored. Just as generals did not always lead from the front as Washington did, wives of generals did not always share the suffering of those under their husband’s commands. This was certainly true of British generals’ wives ensconced back in London. Yet by all accounts, this five-foot-tall, plump but attractive lady who loved the good life of a Virginia plantation not only was adept at putting people from all backgrounds at ease but she shared in and tried to alleviate the soldiers’ suffering.
One observer gave this account of Lady Washington, once described as “a one-woman relief agency,” at Valley Forge:
I never in my life knew a woman so busy from early morning until late at night as was Lady Washington, providing comforts for the sick soldiers. Every day, excepting Sunday, the wives of the officers in camp, and sometimes other women, were invited to Mr. Potts’ [house] to assist her in knitting socks, patching garments and making shirts for the poor soldiers when material could be procured. Every few days she might be seen, with basket in hand, and with a single attendant, going among the huts seeking the keenest and most needy sufferers, and giving all the comforts to them in her power. (See Helen Bryan, Martha Washington, 226, 227.)
For the officers’ wives and neighboring ladies, Lady Washington used a log cabin as a sewing center during the day and a pretend drawing room with candles at night. There she conducted singing sessions over meals of potatoes and pieces of salt fish. No wonder regiments competed for her praise and troops greeted her arrival with “God bless Lady Washington.”
When men were later clothed with French aid, Martha loved to listen to fifes and drums parading. Like veterans and their wives of many eras, Lady Washington later looked back with nostalgia on army camp life. (See Helen Bryant, Martha Washington, 222.)
GEORGE WASHINGTON AND RELIGION, PAGES 136-37
There seems to be an industry devoted to proving George Washington’s religiosity, or lack thereof. The most thoughtful effort is the book by theologians Michael and Jana Novak, Washington’s God. Washington was a very private person and did not write of his personal beliefs.
If we mean by “Christian” a twenty-first-century evangelical who writes or speaks of Jesus or Jesus Christ, Washington does not qualify as a religious Christian, for his voluminous letters contain no such references. Yet Washington went way beyond the eighteenth-century Deists who believed that God may have created the world but ignored how the world functioned. Washington was quick to attribute Revolutionary War successes to both human initiative and divine intervention. Unlike Jefferson, Washington not only did not disparage Jesus or organized religion but praised the constructive role that the church could play, as shown in the building of the chapel for worship at Newburgh and his encouragement of religious services in the army. As the Novaks conclude, Washington’s serving as an Anglican church vestryman, while at the same time expressing irritation at the formality of Anglican services, probably showed a typical eighteenth-century Episcopalian who wanted to perform his religious and civic obligations but did not like to wear his religion on his sleeve.
More important than Washington’s personal religious beliefs for the future of his country was his concern about what official attitude the new country should take toward religion and its various organized manifestations. The observation of Josiah and his fellow aides that Washington believed his role as the new country’s leader required him to attend many different church services and reach out to different religious groups has been attested to over and over. (See Ron Chernow, Washington, 132; Barry Schwartz, George Washington: The Making of an American Symbol, 85.)
Today, we look back on this period and, with the benefit of hindsight, assume that slavery was the main obstacle to the stabile growth of the new democracy. Our forefathers, however, may have seen things differently. My own readings convince me that, based on hundreds of years of religious persecution both before and after the new Americans came here, religious fratricide—not slavery or even, after the Revolution, a British reconquest—was seen as the chief threat to the new republic. How Washington conducted himself, including his attendance at various church services, reflected his desire to meet this threat.
In this regard, the oft-quoted Washington letter to the Hebrew congregation at Newport, Rhode Island, is quite instructive. For years, people of different religious beliefs had, if failing to establish their own church, sought toleration from the established church in their colony. Thus the Baptists sought toleration from the established Anglicans in Virginia, the Anglicans sought toleration from the established Puritans in Massachusetts, the Roman Catholics sought toleration from established churches outside of Maryland, the Jews sought toleration from established churches everywhere, etc. That was the European custom where monarchs ran established churches and tolerated this group and denied toleration to another one. While states still had established churches in the early nineteenth century, Washington was very proud that the federal government officially exercised religious toleration toward every group and, in doing so, went further than any European monarch. As you will notice from his letter to the Newport Hebrew congregation below, however, Washington had given considerable thought to the nature of toleration and concluded that religious toleration was not sufficient but that true religious liberty required that America should go much further:
The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
In this letter, Washington sets out a different standard for religious liberty, i.e., that the Jews (or any other group) deserved more than mere toleration; so long as they behaved as good citizens, they were welcome and deserved protection. This attitude toward religion set Washington apart, even from many of the other Founding Fathers.