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Not Even a Smile. Dr. Freeman, though no debunker, is too conscientious a historian to duck any ugliness that must out. Young Washington is proof enough of that. He himself is aware that the first two volumes add few cubits to George Washington's stature. In the Virginia of Washington's day, writes Dr. Freeman, "One verb told the story . . . grab, grab, grab." Washington's father and grandfather had been successful grabbers in a relatively small way. Father Augustine (he was called Gus) could afford to send two of his sons to school in England, though George got his meager schooling at home. When he died in 1743, Gus Washington left over 10,000 acres and 49 slaves. To eleven-year-old George went Ferry Farm, the family home, 2,180 acres, and ten slaves. To wealthy Virginians like the Fairfaxes and the Carters that estate was small potatoes, but George was soon to prove a more accomplished land grabber than most. If he wasted any time in boyish nonsense, Freeman found no record of it: "No surviving record of his youth credits him with a laugh, even with a smile."
Freeman proves, contrary to schoolbook accounts, that George didn't survey the Lord Fairfax estates at 16. He went along for the ride with young George William Fairfax (whose wife, Sally, he later fell in love with). Washington helped out but actually the two youngsters got tired of it and quit before the job was over.
"My Poor Resistless Heart." From the money young Washington made at surveying, he bought more land, and took to gambling at cards. He accompanied his sick brother Lawrence on a trip to Barbados and picked up a case of smallpox which marred his face for life, but also made him immune to the disease that periodically sliced through his ranks during the Revolution.
In his journals he left some embarrassingly bad verse addressed to girls who rebuffed him. To Frances Alexander in 1748:
From Your bright sparkling Eyes, I was
undone;
Rays, you have more transparent than
the sun . . .
Ah! woe's me that I should love and
conceal,
Long have I wish'd, but never dare
reveal.
Even though severly Loves Pains I feel;
And his very next entry:
Oh Ye Gods why should my Poor Resistless Heart
Stand to oppose thy might and Power,
At Last surrender to cupid's feather'd
Dart . . .
He was 20 when Betsy Fauntleroy, 16, got him to the point where he popped the question. Betsy turned him down cold, not once but twice; and not even a letter to her father helped. Not until Washington began to wrestle with his hopeless passion for the married Sally Fairfax is there any sign of another serious love affair.
Excuse the Hanging. When his half brother, Lawrence Washington, died in 1752, George lost the friend who had influenced him most. By Lawrence's will he eventually got Mt. Vernon; the Virginia Council and Governor Dinwiddie also gave him a job as adjutant and the rank of major which Lawrence had held in the militia. Two years later, the serious, acquisitive money seeker became the watchdog of a 350-mile frontier harried by French and Indians.