George Washington was born into a moderately wealthy family, who owned several plantations in northern Virginia. His father, Augustine, had ten children, six with Mary Ball, of which George was the eldest, and four by a previous marriage. When the eleven-year-old George's father died, he was left in the custody of his eldest half brother, Lawrence, whom he loved and admired.

George's early education was adequate, though far from exceptional. He was tutored and attended school on an irregular basis from ages seven to fifteen, but had no formal education beyond grammar school. George's exposure to the well-mannered intellectual atmosphere created by Lawrence compensated for the youngster's limited book learning. He also received an education in the outdoor occupations of Virginia. In his early teens he was already a skilled woodsman, tobacco planter, and surveyor. When George was sixteen, he joined the first of several survey expeditions that he would make to the Virginia frontier.

In 1751 George took the only overseas trip of his life to Barbados with Lawrence, who was suffering from tuberculosis and thus hoping that the Caribbean climate would relieve his condition. There George contracted a mild case of smallpox, which left him scarred. Lawrence died in July 1752, after he and George returned to the colonies.

The following November, Washington began his frontier military career as a major in the Virginia militia. His first assignment was to inform the French commander at Fort Le Boeuf in Pennsylvania that unless the French evacuated the Ohio Valley they risked war. The French refused to budge, ensuring hostilities with the British.

After returning from the mission Washington was promoted to lieutenant colonel with the help of influential friends. In early 1754 he marched west with 160 recruits to reinforce British troops at the fork of the Ohio and Monon galiela rivers. During this journey his men fired what many historians regard as the first shots of the French and Indian War. The nervous recruits ambushed a detachment of thirty French soldiers, killing ten, including their commander, Coulon de Jumonville. The attack gained Washington a measure of infamy because Jumonville was on a diplomatic mission to the British. Six weeks later Washington's force was besieged and defeated at Fort Necessity. Before allowing his men to return to Virginia, the French forced Washington to sign a statement written in French, which he did not understand. In it he admitted te being an assassin. Washington's reputation was damaged by the episode, especially among British military officers. Upon returning to Virginia, Washington resigned his commission.

In December 1754 Lawrence's last living child died, and Washington inherited the right to rent Lawrence's estate at Mount Vernon from his late half brother's remarried widow, Ann Lee. In 1761, when Mrs. Lee died, he inherited Mount Vernon outright.

Washington returned to military service in the spring of 1755 when he was appointed aide-de-camp to Maj. Gen. Edward Braddock. After several years of service in the French and Indian War, in which he achieved the rank of colonel, Washington resigned in 1758 to run for the Virginia House of Burgesses. He served there for nine years. He was not known as a dynamic or creative legislator, but he gained the admiration of his colleagues and firsthand knowledge of representative government.

Revolutionary War

As tensions mounted between the British and the colonies, Washington became increasingly involved in the patriot cause. In 1769 he helped lead a movement to establish restrictions on the importation of British goods throughout the colonies. And in 1774 he attended the First Continental Convention in Philadelphia as a delegate from Virginia. Afterward, he returned to Virginia and began training militia forces using his own money. On June 16, 1775, Washington accepted a commission from the Second Continental Convention as the commanding general of the Continental army. Patriot leaders hoped the choice of a military leader from a southern state would unite the colonies behind the rebellion that already had begun in New England.

As a general, Washington's inspirational and administrative abilities were more exceptional than his military knowledge. He made several tactical blunders during the war, including the ill-considered deployment of part of his army in an exposed position on Long Island in 1776, which resulted in the loss of five thousand troops and the British occupation of New York City. Yet despite his lack of experience in commanding large forces, Washington did show flashes of strategic brilliance. The celebrated triumphs of his army at Boston, Trenton, Princeton, and Yorktown demonstrated his superior generalship. Nevertheless, Washington's skill at maintaining morale, inspiring loyalty, and holding his army together, as exemplified during the harsh winter of 1777-1778 at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, was more crucial to the success of the revolution than his tactical abilities.

After the decisive defeat of the British at Yorktown in 1781, discontent within the Continental army became the primary threat to the young nation. Many soldiers believed that Congress had not compensated them adequately or recognized their service to the nation. In May 1782 Washington angrily rejected an idea proposed by one of his officers that he allow himself to be crowned king. In March 1783 a more serious threat to Republican government emerged. Many officers were considering using the army to depose Congress and set up their own government. Washington addressed an assembly of his officers on March 15 in Newburgh, New York, where he persuaded them to give up their plan and support Congress.

With the war officially ended by the Treaty of Paris, signed on September 8, 1788, Washington retired to Mount Vernon. Remanaged his plantation until 1787, when he agreed to accept an appointment as one of Virginia's delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. His presence lent legitimacy to the convention, and its delegatas unanimously elected him presiding officer. After a long summer of debate during which Washington said little, the convention agreed on a new constitution. Washington and his fellow delegates signed the document on September 17, 1787.

Presidency

Washington was the inevitable choice of his nation to be the first presidant under the new Constitution. He alone had the nonpartisan reputation needed to transcend sectional and ideological conflicts, so that the United States would have time to establish effective government institutions and gain the trust of the people. In early 1789 presidential electors unanimously electad Washington president. After a triumphant overland journey from Mount Vernon to New York City, during which he was met by cheering crowds at every stop, Washington took the oath of office in New York on April 80,1789.

During Washington's first term Congress passed the Bill of Rights, and the states that had not yet ratified the Constitution did so. In an attempt to inspire confidence in the federal government and to establish a spirit of national unity, Washington toured the northern states in late 1789 and the southern states in the spring of 1791. Mindful of the problems caused by the weakness of the federal government under the Articles of Confederation, Washington was careful throughout his presidency to assert the primacy of the federal government over the states.

Washington was usually differential toward Congress; he believed that the president should veto a bill only if it were unconstitutional. He often made decisions after listening to his two most important and eloquent advisers, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, debate an issue. Secretary of War Henry Knox, Attorney General Edmund Randolph, and Postmaster General Samuel Osgood completed the cabinet. Although Washington endeavored to avoid any partisanship, he usually agreed with Hamilton on important issues. In particular, he backed Hamilton's plans to have the federal government assume the wartime debts of the states and to establish a national bank. After much debate Congress passed both measures, and Washington signed the debt assumption bill in 1790 and the bank bill in 1791.

Washington's primary goal in foreign policy was maintaining the neutrality of the United States in the war between France and Great Britain. Washington believed that the young nation had to avoid alliance entanglements if it were to survive and remain united during its early years. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson urged that the United States aid France, which had helped the colonies defeat the British in the revolutionary war, but Washington rejected Jefferson's counsel. The president issued a neutrality proclamation on April 22, 1793, which declared that the United States would be "friendly and impartial" toward the belligerents. Jefferson's disputes with Washington's policies led him to resign at the end of 1793. The following year Congress passed the Neutrality Act of 1794, which endorsed Washington's policy of neutrality. In 1795 Washington signed the Jay Treaty with Great Britain. The agreement, which had been negotiated in London by Chief Justice John Jay, increased commerce between the two nations and settled several disputes. The treaty was highly unpopular, however, with pro-French Democratic-Republicans who attacked Washington for concluding what they perceived as a pro-British agreement.

In 1794 Washington faced a domestic crisis when a rebellion broke out in western Pennsylvania over the federal tax on whiskey. Washington believed that he had to put down the rebellion quickly to avoid the impression that the federal government was weak. Thus, he ordered the governors of Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and Virginia to supply the federal government with fifteen thousand militia and rode to Pennsylvania to oversee their preparations personally. The show of force was sufficient to quell the Whiskey Rebellion, and Washington never had to lead the militia into battle.

During his presidency Washington strove to avoid partisan politics; he believed that political factions could destroy the unity of the young nation. Thus, in his famous Farewell Address published on September 17, 1796, he cautioned against excessive partisanship as well as foreign influence and permanent alliances. But despite his efforts to prevent the development of parties, before his presidency had ended two factions had already emerged in American politics: the Federalists, with whom Washington most closely identified, led by Alexander Hamiliton and Vice President John Adams, and the Democratic-Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson and House member James Madison.

Retirement

In 1796 Washington refused to consider running for a third term. He bad been wounded during bis second term by criticism from the Democratic-Republican press over the Jay Treaty and other issues and was anxious to return to the quiet life of a gentleman farmer at Mount Vernon. He spent the last years of his life managing his estate and entertaining friends. In 1799, when war seemed imminent with France, President John Adams asked Washington to accept an appointment as lieutenant general and commander in chief of the army. Washington accepted on the condition that he would not have to take active command of the forces except in an emergency. War with France was averted, and Washington's retirement was not disturbed. On December 12,1799, after riding about his estate on a cold day, he suddenly fell ill, probably with pneumonia. His condition deteriorated rapidly, and he died on Decernber 14 at Mount Vernon.

Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis on January 6, 1759. Martha was a wealthy widow, who added fifteen thousand acres to Washington's estate. The couple had no children, but they raised Martha's two surviving children from her previous marriage. Martha's daughter, Patsy, died in 1773 as a teenager, and when her son John died in 1781, George and Martha assumed custody of his two children.

Thomas Jefferson, looking back on Washington's life in 1814, wrote:

"His mind was great and powerful without being of the very first order; his penetration strong, though not so acute as that of a Newton, Bacon, or Locke; and as far as he saw, no judgement was ever sounder. It was slow in operation, being little aided by invention or imagination, but sure in conclusion....

Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence, never acting until every circumstance, every consideration, was maturely weighed.... His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known".