Always warmly hospitable to visitors, Martha made no effort to mask her bottomless sadness and distributed locks of her husband’s hair like so many saintly relics. Sally Foster Otis detected the contradiction when Martha spoke “of death as a pleasant journey which is in contemplation,” while at the same time being “cheerful [and] anxious to perform the most minute civility and unerring in every duty.”⁴⁴ Having buried two husbands, four children, and seven siblings, she saw herself as living on borrowed time. When the Reverend Manasseh Cutler visited, she reminisced about her husband with tremendous affection while “viewing herself as left alone, and her life protracted, until she had become a stranger in the world . . . She longed for the time to follow her departed friend.”⁴⁵

One insuperable problem that shadowed her was the fate of more than 120 slaves designated for freedom by her husband. Because Washington had not consulted her about his will, some scholars have speculated that she did not share his critical views about slavery. Impatient to claim their promised freedom, some of Washington’s own slaves decided to escape at once: the remainder knew that the second Martha died, they could cast off their shackles. Unnerved by the situation, Martha admitted to a confidant that she “was made unhappy by the talk in the [slave] quarters of the good time coming to the ones to be freed as soon as she died.”⁴⁶ For all his thoroughness, Washington had committed this one glaring oversight, thrusting Martha into a nightmarish situation. On a visit to Mount Vernon, Abigail Adams observed Martha’s extreme distress as she confided that “she did not feel as though her life was safe in [the slaves’] hands,” since many of them “would be told that it was their interest to get rid of her.”⁴⁷ A suspicious event may have settled things for Martha. “There had been at least one alarming incident, when Judge Bushrod Washington was urgently called from the circuit court . . . because there had been an attempt to set fire to Mount Vernon,” writes biographer Helen Bryan. “It was widely believed that some of the Mount Vernon slaves were implicated.”⁴⁸ To quiet his aunt’s fears, Bushrod Washington recommended that she get “clear of her negroes” by freeing them at once, and she decided to heed his advice.⁴⁹

A year after George Washington’s death, on January 1, 1801, Martha Washington signed an order freeing his slaves. Even this move did not entirely end her troubles, since at least one dower slave tried to escape by portraying himself as one of Washington’s freed slaves. Many of the emancipated slaves, having never strayed far from Mount Vernon, were naturally reluctant to try their luck elsewhere. Some refused to abandon spouses or children still held as dower slaves and stayed at or near the estate. Following Washington’s instructions, funds were used to feed and clothe the young, aged, and sickly slaves until the early 1830s.

Even though he had received his freedom and an annuity under Washington’s will, Billy Lee stayed on at Mount Vernon, residing in his own house, working as a shoemaker, and emerging as something of a local tourist attraction. He remained a voluble raconteur about the war and its generals, and when one British baronet stopped by, Lee inquired “very earnestly after Lord Cornwallis.” ⁵⁰ Despite his apparent drinking problem, Lee managed to survive until 1810.

Politically, Martha had become a vocal Federalist and kept up her husband’s antipathy to Thomas Jefferson. Even as he sat in the Senate chamber in a chair cloaked in black, Jefferson nursed private grievances against Washington and stayed away from the memorial service for him in December 1799, an action that may have embittered Martha. In private, Jefferson predicted a “resuscitation” of the “republican spirit” because the Federalists would no longer be able to hide behind Washington’s stature and popularity.⁵¹

In early January 1801 Jefferson made a pilgrimage to Mount Vernon to see Martha, a visit with an unspoken political agenda. A few weeks earlier it had become clear in the presidential race that Aaron Burr would tie him in the Electoral College, throwing the race into a House of Representatives dominated by Federalists. Jefferson may have thought a well-publicized trip to Mount Vernon would curry favor with Federalist congressmen. If he did, he got precious little thanks from Martha, who fully shared her husband’s cynicism about Jefferson. A friend recalled, “She assured a party of gentlemen, of which I was one . . . that next to the loss of her husband, [the visit] was the most painful occurrence of her life. He must have known, she observed, that we then had the evidence of [Jefferson’s] perfidy in the house.”⁵²

Taking the high road in his first inaugural address, President Jefferson named Washington as “our first and greatest revolutionary character, whose preeminent services had entitled him to the first place in his country’s love.”⁵³ Martha Washington was not assuaged. “Her remarks were frequently pointed and sometimes very sarcastic on the new order of things and the present administration,” wrote Manasseh Cutler. “She spoke of the election of Mr. Jefferson, whom she considered as one of the most detestable of mankind, as the greatest misfortune our country has ever experienced. Her unfriendly feelings toward him were naturally to be expected from the abuse he offered to Gen. Washington while living, and to his memory since his decease.”⁵⁴

For many years Martha had been plagued by a stomach disorder termed bilious fever, which recurred in early May 1802. This time, despite the careful ministrations of Dr. Craik, it proved fatal. On May 22, 1802, Martha Washington breathed her last, just short of her seventy-first birthday. She died with courage and an uncomplaining acceptance of her fate, which had been her trademarks since her husband rode off to Cambridge to take command of the Continental Army in June 1775, transforming her life forever. “Fortitude and resignation were displayed throughout,” wrote a relative, who said that Martha had called for a clergyman to administer the sacrament. “She met death as a relief from the infirmities and melancholy of old age.”⁵⁵ In accordance with her wishes, her coffin was placed in the dim, gloomy vault next to the illustrious husband whose fortunes she had so intimately shared and whose success she had so conspicuously aided. Finally, after many detours, many wanderings, and many triumphs, George and Martha Washington had come home to rest at Mount Vernon for good.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Any biographer of George Washington must stand in awe of the scholarly feat accomplished by the eminent team of editors at the Papers of George Washington project, which operates out of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. By gathering 130,000 relevant documents from around the globe, they have produced a modern edition of Washington’s papers that eclipses the far more modest edition published by John C. Fitzpatrick back in the 1930s and early 1940s. Whereas Fitzpatrick, in his thirty-nine volumes, limited himself to letters written by Washington, the new edition—sixty volumes of letters and diaries and still counting—includes letters written to him as well as excerpts from contemporary letters, diaries, and newspapers. Expert commentary appears at every step along the way. Strange as it may seem, George Washington’s life has now been so minutely documented that we know far more about him than did his own friends, family, and contemporaries.

I am grateful to the community of Washington scholars for being receptive to a biography written by someone outside their professional ranks. Theodore J. Crackel, editor in chief of the Washington papers, was kind enough to vet the early chapters of the book and give me a sneak preview of two forthcoming volumes. Two of the best Washington scholars agreed to give the manuscript a sharp-eyed and tough-minded critique. Peter R. Henriques, author of Realistic Visionary: A Portrait of George Washington and emeritus professor of history at George Mason University, gave early encouragement to the book and closely reviewed the chapters dealing with Washington’s pre- and post-Revolutionary War years. Edward G. Lengel, senior editor of the Washington papers and author of General George Washington, generously scrutinized the many chapters dealing with the Revolutionary War and gave copious commentary. Caroline Weber, a biographer of Marie-Antoinette and a professor of French and comparative literature at Columbia University, trained her erudite eye on the sections dealing with Washington and the French Revolution. All four scholars rescued me from errors of fact and interpretation and added subtlety and shading to the book. I thank them all sincerely. Any remaining errors are my sole responsibility.