As America celebrates its 250th birthday, it only seems right to pay reverence to the gentleman farmer from Mount Vernon who helped make this nation great. This, of course, refers to the “father of his country,” George Washington. He was a highly respected and beloved general, who took a ragtag outfit and turned them into a well-oiled military machine. He was a great albeit reluctant president who always preferred peace and tranquility to the dog-eat-dog world of politics.Washington exemplified Thomas Carlyle’s “great man” theory as an American hero for his time. He wasn’t perfect — no one is, of course — but he strove for perfection. He served his country with honor, dignity, grace, courage, and, when need be, a strong hand.Historian and author H.W. Brands’s new biography of Washington, American Patriarch, is an exquisite examination of this towering presence of early America. The book relies heavily on Washington’s vivid pen-and-ink analyses, including personal letters and journal entries. Readers will walk away with firsthand accounts of what this gentle giant in American politics saw, heard, witnessed, and experienced in his incredible life.
Born into a Virginia family where his father and grandfather “became land rich,” the road that Washington traveled wasn’t necessarily heading to Damascus. He was an “eldest son,” Brands writes, “but of his mother rather than his father. He wasn’t first in line of inheritance, but neither would he be left out. He wouldn’t become the face of the family. He might become a planter, but first he’d have to do something else.” This could have involved studying in England, but his father had died when he was 11 and he remained at home. Washington did have a “facility” for mathematics, which aided his abilities in “surveying land,” though whether or not it would have helped him chop down a cherry tree remains unclear.
