Famous American Statesmen

Famous American Statesmen

PREFACE

"With the great, one's thoughts and manners easily become great; … what this country longs for is personalities, grand persons, to counteract its materialities," says Emerson. Such lives as are sketched in this book are a constant inspiration, both to young and old. They teach Garfield's oft-repeated maxim, that "the genius of success is still the genius of labor." They teach patriotism – a deeper love for and devotion to America. They teach that life, with some definite and noble purpose, is worth living.

I have written of Abraham Lincoln, one of our greatest and best statesmen, in "Poor Boys Who Became Famous," which will explain its omission from this volume.

S. K. B.

GEORGE WASHINGTON

The "purest figure in history," wrote William E. Gladstone of George Washington.

When Frederick the Great sent his portrait to Washington, he sent with it these remarkable words: "From the oldest general in Europe to the greatest general in the world."

Lord Brougham said: "It will be the duty of the historian, and the sage of all nations, to let no occasion pass of commemorating this illustrious man; and until time shall be no more will a test of the progress which our race has made in wisdom and virtue be derived from the veneration paid to the immortal name of Washington."

At Bridge's Creek, Maryland, in a substantial home, overlooking the Potomac, George Washington was born, February 22, 1732. His father, Augustine, was descended from a distinguished family in England – William de Hertburn, a knight who owned the village of Wessyngton (Washington). He married, at the age of twenty-one, Jane Butler, who died thirteen years afterward. Two years after her death he married Mary Ball, a beautiful girl, of decided character and sterling common-sense. She became a good mother to his two motherless children; two having died in early childhood.

Six children were born to them, George being the eldest. The opportunities for education in the new world, especially on a plantation, were limited. From one of his father's tenants, the sexton of the parish, George learned to read, write, and cipher. He was fond of military things, and organized among the scholars sham-fights and parades; taking the position usually of commander-in-chief, by common consent. This love of war might have come through the influence of his half-brother Lawrence, who had been in battles in the West Indies.

When George was twelve, his father died suddenly, leaving Mary Ball, at thirty-seven, to care for her own five children, one having died in infancy, and two boys by the first marriage. Fortunately, a large estate was left them, which she was to control till they became of age.

While she loved her children tenderly, she exacted the most complete obedience. She was dignified and firm, yet cheerful, and possessed an unusually sweet voice. To his mother's intelligence and moral training George attributed his success in life. She would gather her children about her daily, and read to them from Matthew Hale's "Contemplations, Divine and Moral." The book had been loved by the first wife, who wrote in it, "Jane Washington." Under this George's mother wrote, "and Mary Washington." This book was always preserved with tender care at Mount Vernon, in later years. Such teaching the boy never forgot. When he was thirteen, he wrote "Rules of courtesy and decent behavior in company and conversation," one hundred and ten maxims, which seemed to have great influence over him.

At fourteen, he desired to enter the navy, and a midshipman's warrant was procured by his brother Lawrence. Now he could see the world, and was happy at the prospect. All winter long, the mother's heart ached as she thought of the separation, and finally, when his clothing had been taken on board of a British man-of-war, her affection triumphed, and the lad was kept in his Virginia home; kept for a great work. However disappointed he may have been, his mother's word was law. Those who learn to obey in youth learn also how to govern in later life. George went back to school to study arithmetic and land-surveying. He was thorough in his work, and his record books, still preserved, are neat and exact.

It is never strange that a boy who idolizes his mother should think other women lovable. At fifteen, the bashful, manly boy had given his heart to a girl about his own age, and it was long before he could conquer the affection. A year later he wrote to a friend, "I might, was my heart disengaged, pass my time very pleasantly, as there's a very agreeable young lady lives in the same house; but as that's only adding fuel to fire, it makes me the more uneasy, for by often and unavoidably being in company with her revives my former passion for your Lowland Beauty; whereas, was I to live more retired from young women, I might in some measure alleviate my sorrows, by burying that chaste and troublesome passion in the grave of oblivion."

Years afterwards, the son of this "Lowland Beauty," General Henry Lee, became a favorite with Washington in the Revolutionary War; possibly all the more loved from tender recollections of the mother. General Lee was the father of General Robert E. Lee of the Confederate Army, in the Civil War.

At sixteen, the real work of Washington's life began. Lord Fairfax of Virginia desired his large estates beyond the Blue Ridge to be surveyed, and he knew that the youth had the courage to meet the Indians in the wilderness, and would do his work well.

Washington and a friend set out on horseback for the valley called by the Indians Shenandoah, "the daughter of the stars." He made a record daily of the beauty of the trees – every refined soul loves trees almost as though they were human – and the richness of the soil, and selected the best sites for townships. In his diary he says, "A blowing, rainy night, our straw upon which we were lying took fire, but I was luckily preserved by one of our men awaking when it was in a flame." For three years he lived this exposed life, sleeping out-of-doors, gaining self-reliance, and a knowledge of the Indians, which knowledge he was soon to need.

Trouble had begun already in the Ohio valley, between the French and English, in their claims to the territory. No wonder a sachem asked, "The French claim all the land on one side of the Ohio, the English claim all the land on the other side – now, where does the Indians' land lie?"

Virginia began to make herself ready for a war which seemed inevitable. She divided her province into military districts, and placed one in charge of the young surveyor, only nineteen, who was made adjutant general with the rank of major. Thus early did the sincere, self-poised young man take upon himself great responsibilities. Washington at once began to make himself ready for his duties, by studying military tactics; taking lessons in field-work from his brother Lawrence, and sword exercise from a soldier. This drill was broken in upon for a time by the illness and death of Lawrence, of whom he was very fond, and whom he accompanied to the Barbadoes. Here George took small-pox, from which he was slightly marked through life. The only child of Lawrence soon died, and Mount Vernon came to George by will. He was now a person of wealth, but riches did not spoil him. He did not seek ease; he sought work and honor.

Matters were growing worse in the Ohio valley. The Virginians had erected forts at what is now Pittsburg; and the French, about fifteen miles south of Lake Erie. Governor Dinwiddie determined to make a last remonstrance with the French who should thus presume to come upon English territory. The way to their forts lay through an unsettled wilderness, a distance of from five hundred to six hundred miles. Some Indian tribes favored one nation; some the other. The governor offered this dangerous commission – a visit to the French – to several persons, who hastened to decline with thanks the proffered honor.

Young Washington, with his brave heart, was willing to undertake the journey, and started September 30, 1753, with horses, tents, and other necessary equipments. They found the rivers swollen, so that the horses had to swim. The swamps, in the snow and rain, were almost impassable. At last they arrived at the forts, early in December. Washington delivered his letter to the French, and an answer was written to the governor.

On December 25, Washington and his little party started homeward. The horses were well-nigh exhausted, and the men dismounted, put on Indian hunting-dress, and toiled on through the deepening snow. Washington, in haste to reach the governor, strapped his pack on his shoulders, and, gun in hand, with one companion, Mr. Gist, struck through the woods, hoping thus to reach the Alleghany River sooner, and cross on the ice. At night they lit their camp-fire, but at two in the morning they pursued their journey, guided by the north star.

Some Indians now approached, and offered their services as guides. One was chosen, but Washington soon suspected that they were being guided in the wrong direction. They halted, and said they would camp for the night, but the Indian demurred, and offered to carry Washington's gun, as he was fatigued. This was declined, when the Indian grew sullen, hurried forward, and, when fifteen paces ahead, levelled his gun and fired at Washington. Gist at once seized the savage, took his gun from him, and would have killed him on the spot had not the humane Washington prevented. He was sent home to his cabin with a loaf of bread, and told to come to them in the morning with meat. Probably he expected to return before morning, and, with some other braves, scalp the two Americans; but Washington and Gist travelled all night, and reached the Alleghany River opposite the site of Pittsburg.

Unfortunately, the river was not frozen as they had hoped, but was full of broken ice. All day long they worked to construct a raft, with but one hatchet between them. After reaching the middle of the river the men on the raft were hurled into ten feet of water by the floating ice, and Washington was saved from drowning only by clinging to a log. They lay till morning on an island in the river, their clothes stiff with frost, and the hands and feet of poor Gist frozen by the intense cold. The agony of that night Washington never forgot, even in the horrors of Valley Forge.

Happily, the river had grown passable in the night, and they were able to cross to a place of safety. He came home as speedily as possible and delivered the letter to Governor Dinwiddie. His journal was sent to London and published, because of the knowledge it gave of the position of the French. The young soldier of twenty-one had escaped death from the burning straw in surveying, from the Indian's gun, and from drowning. He had shown prudence, self-devotion, and heroism. "From that moment," says Irving, in his delightful life of Washington, "he was the rising hope of Virginia." And he was the rising hope of the new world as well.

The polite letter brought by Washington to the governor had declared that no Englishmen should remain in the Ohio valley! Dinwiddie at once determined to send three hundred troops against the French, and offered the command to Washington. He shrunk from the charge, and it was given to Colonel Fry, while he was made second in command. Fry soon died, and Washington was obliged to assume control. He was equal to the occasion. He said, "I have a constitution hardy enough to encounter and undergo the most severe trials, and, I flatter myself, resolution enough to face what any man dares, as shall be proved when it comes to the test."

The test soon came. In the conflict which followed he was in the thickest of the fight, one man being killed at his side. He wrote to his brother, "I heard the bullets whistle, and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound." Years afterward, he said, when he had long known the sorrows of war, "If I said that, it was when I was young."

At Great Meadows, below Pittsburg, he was defeated by superior numbers, and obliged to evacuate the fort, but the Virginia House of Burgesses thanked him for his bravery.

The next year, England sent out General Braddock, who had been over forty years in the service, a fearless but self-willed officer, to take command of the American forces. Washington gladly joined him as an aide-de-camp. They set out with two thousand soldiers, toward Fort du Quesne (Pittsburg). The amount of baggage astonished Washington, who well knew the swamps and mountains that must be crossed, but Braddock could not be influenced. He remarked to Benjamin Franklin, "These savages may indeed be a formidable enemy to raw militia, but upon the king's regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible they should make an impression." How great an "impression" savages could make upon the "king's regular and disciplined troops" was soon to be shown.

The march was exceedingly difficult. Sometimes a whole day was spent in cutting a passage of two miles over the mountains. Washington urged that the Virginia Rangers be put to the front, as they understood Indian warfare. The general haughtily opposed it, and the regulars in brilliant uniforms, bayonets fixed, colors flying, and drums beating, swept over the open plain to battle, July 9, 1755.

Suddenly there was a cry, "The French and Indians!" The Indian yell struck terror to the hearts of the regulars. They fired in all directions, killing their own men. A panic ensued. Braddock tried to rally his men; even striking them with the flat of his sword. Five horses were killed under him. At last a bullet entered his lungs, and he fell, mortally wounded. Then the men fled precipitately, falling over their dead comrades. Out of eighty-six officers, twenty-six were killed and thirty-six wounded. Nearly half of the whole army were dead or disabled. The Virginia Rangers covered the retreat of the flying regulars, and thus saved a remnant. Braddock, bequeathing his horse and servant, Bishop, to Washington, died broken-hearted, moaning, "Who would have thought it!.. We shall better know how to deal with them another time." Washington tenderly read the funeral service, and Braddock was buried in the new and wild country he had come to save.

Washington escaped as by a miracle. He wrote his brother, "By the all-powerful dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, though death was levelling my companions on every side of me." Through life, this man, great in all that mankind prize, loved and believed in the Christian religion. Agnosticism had no charms for him.

Washington returned to Mount Vernon temporarily broken in health, and his fond mother, who was living at the old homestead, wrote begging that he would not again enter the service. In reply he said, "Honored Madam," for thus he always addressed her, "if it is in my power to avoid going to the Ohio again, I shall; but if the command is pressed upon me by the general voice of the country, and offered upon such terms as cannot be objected against, it would reflect dishonor on me to refuse it; and that, I am sure, must and ought to give you greater uneasiness than my going in an honorable command."

Braddock's defeat electrified the colonies. Governor Dinwiddie at once called for troops, and Washington was made "commander-in-chief of all the forces raised or to be raised in Virginia." For two years he protected the people in the attacks of the Indians; his heart so full of pity that he wrote the governor, "I solemnly declare, if I know my own mind, I could offer myself a willing sacrifice to the butchering enemy, provided that would contribute to the people's ease." No wonder that such self-sacrifice and unselfishness won the homage of the State, and later of the nation.

In May, 1758, the condition of the army was such, the men so poorly clad and paid, that the young commander decided to go to Williamsburg to lay the matter before the council. In crossing the Pamunkey, a branch of the York River, he met a Mr. Chamberlayne, who pressed him to dine, more especially as a charming lady was visiting at his house. He accepted the invitation, and there met Martha Custis, a widow of twenty-six, two months younger than himself; a bright, frank, agreeable woman, with dark eyes and hair, below the middle size, a contrast indeed to his striking physique, six feet two inches tall, blue eyes, and grave demeanor.

Martha Dandridge, with amiable disposition and winning manners, had been married at seventeen to Daniel Parke Custis, thirty-eight, a kind-hearted and wealthy land-owner. For seven years they lived at "The White House," on the Pamunkey River, where he died, leaving two children, John Parke and Martha Parke Custis. Mrs. Custis had come to visit the Chamberlaynes, and now was to meet the most popular officer in Virginia.

The dinner passed pleasantly, and then Bishop, the servant, brought Colonel Washington's horse and his own to the gate at the appointed hour. But Colonel Washington did not appear. The afternoon seemed like a dream, for love takes no account of time. The sun was setting when he rose to go, but Major Chamberlayne urged his guest to pass the night. Probably he did not need to be urged, for the most sublime and beautiful force in all the world now controlled the fearless Washington. The next morning he hastened to Williamsburg, transacted his business, returned to the home of Martha Custis, where he spent a day and a night, and left her his betrothed.

The commander went back to camp with a new joy in living. The army was now ordered against Fort du Quesne, under Brigadier-General Forbes of Great Britain; Washington leading the Virginia troops. He seized a moment before leaving to write to Mrs. Custis, which letter Lossing gives in his interesting lives of Mary and Martha Washington: —

"A courier is starting for Williamsburg, and I embrace the opportunity to send a few words to one whose life is now inseparable from mine. Since that happy hour when we made our pledges to each other, my thoughts have been continually going to you as to another self. That an all-powerful Providence may keep us both in safety is the prayer of your ever faithful and

"Ever affectionate friend,"G. Washington."

The army marched again over the field where the bones of Braddock's men were bleaching in the sun, and approached the fort, only to find that the French had deserted it after setting it on fire, and retreated down the river. Washington, who led the advance, planted the British flag over the smoking ruin of what is now Pittsburg, so called from the illustrious William Pitt. With the French driven out of the Ohio valley, Washington, having served five years in the army, resigned, and married Martha Custis, January 6, 1759. Every inch a soldier he must have looked in his suit of blue cloth lined with red silk, and ornamented with silver trimmings; while his bride wore white satin, with pearl necklace and ear-rings, and pearls in her hair. She rode home in a coach drawn by six horses, while Colonel Washington, on a fine chestnut horse, attended by a brilliant cortége, rode beside her carriage.

The year previous, 1758, Washington had been elected a member of the Virginia Assembly. When he took his seat, the House gave him an address of welcome. He rose to reply, trembled, and could not say a word. "Sit down, Mr. Washington," said the speaker; "your modesty equals your valor, and that surpasses the power of any language I possess." Beautiful attributes of character, not always found in conjunction; valor and modesty!

For three months Washington remained at the home of his wife, to attend to the business of the colony; becoming also guardian of her two pretty children, four and six years of age, whom he seemed to love as his own. When he took his bride to Mount Vernon to live, he wrote to a relative, "I am now, I believe, fixed in this spot with an agreeable partner for life; and I hope to find more happiness in retirement than I ever experienced in the wide and bustling world."

For seventeen years he lived on his estate of eight thousand acres, delighting in agriculture, and enjoying the development of the two children. The years passed quickly, for affection, the holiest thing on earth, brought rest and contentment. He or she is rich who possesses it. To have millions, and yet live in a home where there is no affection, is to be poor indeed.

He was an early riser; in winter often lighting his own fire, and reading by candle-light; retiring always at nine o'clock. He was vestryman in the Episcopal Church, and judge of the county court, as well as a member of the House of Burgesses. So honest was he that a barrel of flour marked with his name was exempted from the usual inspection in West India ports.

Into this busy and happy life came sorrow, as it comes into other lives. Martha Parke Custis, a gentle and lovely girl, died of consumption at seventeen, Washington kneeling by her bedside in prayer as her life went out. The love of both parents now centred in the boy of nineteen, John Parke Custis, who, the following year, left Columbia College to marry a girl of sixteen, Eleanor Calvert. While Washington attended the wedding, Mrs. Washington could not go, in her mourning robes, but sent an affectionate letter to her new daughter.

The quiet life at Mount Vernon was now to be wholly changed. The Stamp Act and the oppressive taxes had stirred America. When the taxes were repealed, save that on tea, and Lord North was urged to include tea also, he said: "To temporize is to yield; and the authority of the mother country, if it is not now supported, will be relinquished forever; a total repeal cannot be thought of till America is prostrate at our feet." Mrs. Washington, like other lovers of liberty, at once ceased to use tea at her table.

When the First Continental Congress met at Philadelphia, September 5, 1774, Washington was among the delegates chosen by Virginia. He rode thither on horseback, with his brilliant friends Patrick Henry and Edmund Pendleton. When they departed from Mount Vernon, the patriotic Martha Washington said: "I hope you will all stand firm. I know George will… God be with you, gentlemen."

To a relative, who wrote deprecating Colonel Washington's "folly," his wife answered: "Yes; I foresee consequences – dark days, and darker nights; domestic happiness suspended; social enjoyments abandoned; property of every kind put in jeopardy by war, perhaps; neighbors and friends at variance, and eternal separations on earth possible. But what are all these evils when compared with the fate of which the Port Bill may be only a threat? My mind is made up, my heart is in the cause. George is right; he is always right. God has promised to protect the righteous, and I will trust him." Blessings on the woman who, in the darkest hour, knows how to be as the sunlight in her hope and trust, and to be well-nigh a divine embodiment of courage and fortitude! Truly said Schiller: "Honor to women! they twine and weave the roses of heaven into the life of man."

Congress remained in session fifty-one days. When the results of its labors were put before the House of Lords, the great Chatham said: "When your lordships look at the papers transmitted to us from America; when you consider their decency, firmness, and wisdom, you cannot but respect their cause, and wish to make it your own. For myself, I must declare and avow that, in the master states of the world, I know not the people, or senate, who, in such a complication of difficult circumstances, can stand in preference to the delegates of America assembled in General Congress at Philadelphia."

When Patrick Henry was asked, on his return home, who was the greatest man in Congress, he replied: "If you speak of eloquence, Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina is by far the greatest orator; but if you speak of solid information and sound judgment, Colonel Washington is unquestionably the greatest man on that floor." Wise reading in all these years had given Washington "solid information," and "sound judgment" was partly an inheritance from noble Mary Washington.

People all through New England were arming themselves. General Gage, who had been sent to Boston with British troops, said: "It is surprising that so many of the other provinces interest themselves so much in this. They have some warm friends in New York, and I learn that the people of Charleston, South Carolina, are as mad as they are here." He was soon to possess a more thorough knowledge of the American character.