| 1732 | Washington born February 22, Westmoreland County, Virginia |
| 1743 | Father, Augustine Washington, dies |
| 1752 | District adjutant general of Virginia militia, Major; inherits Mount Vernon |
| 1753 | Envoy from Governor of Virginia to French army on the Ohio |
| 1754 | Victorious commander in first battle of French and Indian War, Colonel |
| 1755 | Volunteer aide to British General Braddock; appointed Commander in Chief of Virginia militia, Colonel |
| 1758–74 | Elected to Virginia House of Burgesses |
| 1759 | Marries Mrs. Martha Dandridge Custis, widow of John Custis (by whom she is mother of two children) |
| 1774–75 | Elected to First and Second Continental Congresses |
| 1775–83 | General and Commander in Chief of the Army of the United Colonies; field commander mostly in middle colonies |
| 1775–76 | Commands in victory at Boston |
| 1776 | Fortifies New York city, loses battle of Long Island, evacuates New York, eventually retreats to New Jersey and across Delaware River to Pennsylvania; recrosses for victory at Trenton |
| 1777 | Commander in victory at Princeton; retreats after battles of Brandywine, Germantown; winter at Valley Forge |
| 1778 | Commander in victory at Monmouth; winter at Middlebrook |
| 1779–80 | British shift war to the south; Washington plans with French allies, skirmishes with British in middle colonies |
| 1781 | Abandons plan against New York, conceives and commands victorious Yorktown campaign |
| 1783 | Resigns commission to Congress, retires to Mount Vernon |
| 1784–86 | Hosts interstate conference on Potomac navigation, promotes further conferences on trade, taxes |
| 1787 | Elected President of Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia |
| 1789–97 | First President of the United States |
| 1789 | Unanimous vote by electoral college; Inauguration; appoints cabinet; tours New England (except Rhode Island) |
| 1790 | Policies as to defense, finance, and foreign affairs; visits Rhode Island |
| 1791 | Plans Washington, D.C., with L’Enfant; tours southern states |
| 1792 | First of two vetoes (apportionment of House); unanimous choice of electoral college for President |
| 1793 | Second Inauguration; Neutrality Proclamation; requests recall of French ambassador Genêt; Jefferson resigns as Secretary of State to lead opposition party |
| 1794 | Appoints John Jay special ambassador to Britain; suppresses Whiskey Rebellion; Hamilton resigns as Secretary of the Treasury |
| 1795 | Submits Jay Treaty to Senate for ratification |
| 1796 | Rejects House request for Jay Treaty documents; refuses third term, issues Farewell Address |
| 1797 | Attends Inauguration of President Adams; retires to Mount Vernon |
| 1798 | At Adams’s insistence, appointed Lieutenant General and Commander in Chief as war threatens with France |
| 1799 | Dies of severe cold, December 14; buried in family vault at Mount Vernon, December 18 |
| 1802 | Martha Washington dies and is buried in family vault at Mount Vernon |
JUST AS THE second edition of his Life of Washington was appearing in 1832, John Marshall wrote to his Philadelphia publishers Cary & Lea: “If I could engage in reducing The Life of Washington to a single volume for schools (I do not know of what size) I would attempt it without any view to profit.” A year later he reported: “I have at length completed an abridgment of the Life of Washington for the use of schools. I have endeavored to compress it as much as possible. . . . After striking out every thing which in my judgment could be properly excluded the volume will contain at least 400 pages.” Cary & Lea did publish the abridgment, but only in 1838, three years after Marshall died.
For this Liberty Fund republication we have eliminated some of the editorial apparatus of the original publisher, but have made no substantive changes to Marshall’s own text. We have kept editorial additions to a minimum. We have changed the subtitle chosen by the publishers in 1838 (“written for the use of schools”) in favor of a more concise indication that Marshall had produced a refined, not merely simplified, version of his larger work. (This single-volume Life was republished in the 1850s without a subtitle.) As to the text itself, a few changes in wording and punctuation have been duly noted. Spelling in general has not been changed, although some proper names have been varied to accord with modern usage; such changes have not been noted.
We have added features to clarify the order and events of the work. In addition to supplying portraits of Washington and Marshall and a new foreword, we divided the work into three parts in a new table of contents. Simple chapter titles have replaced a densely analytical table of contents, partly because the analytical summaries were repeated at the head of each chapter, where we retain them. We also added a list of maps, a list of the principal events of Washington’s life, a listing of further reading and editorial sources (Appendix A), five of Washington’s key speeches and writings, including the Farewell Address (Appendix B), and an index.
The editors’ footnotes are numbered, while Marshall’s few footnotes are marked by asterisks. Notes have been supplied only to clarify technical words, mostly military, or words now obscure, and to supply essential historical and biographical information not likely to be obvious to today’s reader.
While no maps appeared in the first twenty printings of this single-volume Life (1838 to 1849), nor in the edition published from 1857 to 1859, both editions of the full Life published under Marshall’s supervision (1804–7, 1832) included maps of the important battles and campaigns of the Revolutionary War. For this Liberty Fund edition we have supplied new maps for several important battles and campaigns.
We would like to acknowledge the assistance and support provided by Boston College and Middlebury College, specifically Patricia Gray and the Reference staff at Starr Library, Middlebury College, and Richard Saunders and Emmie Donadio of the Middlebury College Museum; the Valley Library and staff at Oregon State University, Corvallis; Thomas Schneider, for help in proofreading; and Charles Hobson, editor of The Papers of John Marshall, for unpublished copies of letters in which Marshall mentions an edition for schools (May 5, 1832 and June 13, 1833).
Commander in Chief of the Revolution
“The Favorite Soldier of Virginia”: Early Years; the French and Indian War (1732 to 1759)
Birth of George Washington.—His mission to the French General of Ohio.—Is appointed Lieutenant of a Colonial regiment.—Surprises Monsieur Jumonville.—Capitulation of fort Necessity.—Appointed Aid-de-camp to General Braddock.—Defeat and death of that General.—Appointed to the command of a Colonial regiment.—Distress of the frontiers.—Expedition against fort Du Quêsne.—Defeat of Major Grant.—Fort Du Quêsne evacuated.—Colonel Washington resigns.—His marriage.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, the third son of Augustine Washington, was born on the 22d of February, 1732, near the banks of the Potomac, in the county of Westmoreland, in Virginia. His father married Miss Butler, who died in 1728; leaving two sons, Lawrence and Augustine. In 1730, he intermarried with Miss Mary Ball, by whom he had four sons, George, John, Samuel, and Charles;