Washington: A Life

Summary

Washington: A Life is Ron Chernow's single-volume biography of George Washington, published in October 2010 and awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2011. Chernow's central aim is to replace the remote, marble figure of patriotic legend with a man of strong passions, ambition and a fierce temper, held in check by a lifelong discipline of self-command. The book follows Washington from his birth in 1732 in Westmoreland County, Virginia, through a boyhood marked by his father's early death, a demanding mother and the patronage of his half-brother Lawrence and the Fairfax family. As a young surveyor and then a Virginia officer he takes part in the clash at Jumonville Glen and the surrender of Fort Necessity in 1754, survives Braddock's defeat in 1755, and commands the Virginia Regiment, learning hard lessons about frontier war and British condescension. Marriage in 1759 to the wealthy widow Martha Dandridge Custis makes him a great planter; Chernow describes his ceaseless improvement of Mount Vernon, his debts to London merchants, his turn from tobacco to wheat, and the enslaved people whose labour sustained the estate, along with the deaths of Martha's children Patsy and Jacky. Chosen by the Continental Congress in June 1775 to command the army, Washington drives the British from Boston, loses New York in 1776, crosses the Delaware to win at Trenton and Princeton, endures Valley Forge, fights at Monmouth, faces the treason of Benedict Arnold, and with French help traps Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781. Chernow gives great weight to the Newburgh address of March 1783, in which Washington defused an officers' conspiracy, and to his resignation of his commission at Annapolis that December. He then traces Washington's role in calling for a stronger union, presiding over the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and serving two terms as the first president from 1789 to 1797, setting precedents of ceremony, cabinet government and neutrality while Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson divide into rival parties. The Whiskey Rebellion, the Jay Treaty, the escape of Martha's enslaved maid Ona Judge, and the Farewell Address of 1796 are told in detail. The last chapters describe Washington's retirement, his growing unease about slavery, his will providing for the freedom of the people he held after Martha's death, and his death at Mount Vernon on 14 December 1799 after a throat infection treated by repeated bleeding. Throughout, Chernow draws on the modern edition of the Washington Papers and on recent scholarship, and he pays close attention to Washington's health, dental troubles, finances, friendships and public image.

Top Lessons

• Self-command over a strong temper

  Chernow's Washington is not naturally calm; he has a hot temper, deep pride and great ambition. His greatness lies in a discipline of restraint learned over decades, from youthful rules of civility to the poise he kept as president. The book presents character as something built by long practice rather than given at birth.

• Power surrendered

  At Newburgh in 1783 Washington talked down officers tempted to threaten Congress, and at Annapolis he returned his commission; in 1796 he declined a third term. Chernow treats these refusals of power as his most consequential acts, the model that established civilian government in the new republic.

• Perseverance through defeat

  Washington lost more battles than he won, and in 1776 the army nearly dissolved. Chernow shows how he kept the army in being through retreats, desertions and the winter at Valley Forge, and how surprise strokes such as Trenton restored its spirit. The war was won by endurance as much as by brilliance.

• Slavery at Mount Vernon

  Chernow describes Washington as a slaveholder who managed hundreds of enslaved people at Mount Vernon, pursued those who escaped, and over time came to doubt the institution. In his will he provided for the freedom of the people he owned after Martha's death and for the support of the elderly and education of the young. The book sets these facts beside his public life and lets readers see both.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

Chernow's biography gives sustained attention to the health of a man who survived many eighteenth-century diseases. Washington caught smallpox in Barbados in 1751, which left him immune; as commander he ordered the inoculation of the Continental Army in 1777, among the largest public-health measures of the war. He suffered from malaria and dysentery, lost nearly all his teeth and wore painful dentures made of materials including ivory and human teeth, which affected his speech and appearance. His stepdaughter Patsy Custis had epilepsy and died during a seizure in 1773, and the book describes the remedies the family tried. As president he survived a large infected abscess or tumour on his thigh in 1789 and a serious respiratory illness in 1790. His death in December 1799 followed an acute throat infection, often identified as epiglottitis, treated by his physicians with repeated bloodletting that removed a large share of his blood, along with blistering and purges; modern discussions of whether the treatment hastened death remain interpretive. These matters belong to Chernow's narrative and should be checked against his notes and the cited medical histories.

• Youth: voyage to Barbados (1751)

  Washington contracts smallpox while accompanying his ailing half-brother Lawrence, who died of tuberculosis soon after.

• The planter years (1773)

  Patsy Custis's epilepsy and death in a seizure at Mount Vernon.

• The war years (1777)

  The decision to inoculate the Continental Army against smallpox.

• Throughout, especially the presidency

  Washington's dental losses, dentures and the pain they caused.

• The first term (1789-1790)

  The thigh abscess or tumour and the respiratory illness that twice put the new president's life in danger.

• Final chapter (December 1799)

  The throat infection, the physicians' repeated bleeding and other remedies, and Washington's composed death.