"If a good bleeding can bring those Bible-faced Yankees to their senses, the fever of independency should soon abate."
--British General James Grant, after his first few victorious hours in the Battle for New York, 1775
Miracles? What kind of Bible-faced Yankee would talk about miracles these modern days? Our betters know that miracles stopped happening centuries ago. And could even be explained simply enough by today's thinkers. It's said by some moderns that the parting of the Red Sea didn't have to be that big a deal. In some weather, when the wind is just right, and the stars align perfectly, and if you hold your mouth this way, every few decades or so a body might be able to walk across the Red Sea, in some forgotten place, and not get his knees wet. Which, the more ornery among us might point out, would have led to a larger miracle: Pharaoh and his army drowning in knee-deep water.
Was the American Revolution a miracle? Of course not, many would say. It just so happened.
In one battle, the Bible-faced Yankees just so happened to defend a high point in New York City known as, or at least spelled as, Breucklyn. After the first day's fighting out on Long Island, the British just so happened to call a halt to their assault while the Americans were engaging in a highly technical maneuver known in exalted military terms as a dead run. It just so happens that the British didn't know the rebels were in retreat.
It just so happens that with the rebel forces split between Long Island and New York City, vulnerable to losing the war right then and there, and maybe convincing Congress to call off the whole nonsense--and no doubt getting most of the rebel leaders hanged in the process--the weather set in.
It just so happens that in that particular moment, a storm blew up and lasted until night fell, and the rebels could be hidden as they moved. A mighty wind then blew the British fleet to sea. Then, as dawn broke and the remaining rebels tried to make their way to safety, a heavy fog set in.
It just so happened that a general named George Washington coordinated the retreat.
And that was just one miracle in the Revolution. Excuse us: One more improbability. They tended to happen with some frequency during the American Revolution. What would have happened to the Revolution if British Major John André had not been captured and Benedict Arnold's plan to turn West Point over to the redcoats hadn't come to light? How in heaven's name did Henry Knox get all that artillery to the siege of Boston? How did the ragtag American army survive Valley Forge? Then hurricanes and drought drove a reluctant Spain to trade with the upstart Americans during the first two years of the war, which meant vital arms and ammunition would reach the patriots.
What would have happened if somebody else would have been chosen to lead the rebels, someone other than a man named Washington?
The nation celebrated something called Presidents' Day Monday, whatever that means. You could tell because the banks were closed and the mail didn't run. And the kids were out of school. What, exactly, were we celebrating? All presidents? Such as Nixon and Buchanan? Or just the ones we think of as the good presidents? The Lincolns and Jeffersons?
The kids got a three-day weekend, and there's nothing wrong with that. But a president and general and gentleman and founding father named Washington deserves his own day. And his own celebration on his true birthday, Feb. 22.
Well, he wasn't actually born on Feb. 22. It's complicated. When he was born, the date on the calendar said Feb. 11, and his birthday would only become Feb. 22 in 1752, when the English-speaking world finally switched from the old Julian to the current Gregorian calendar, skipping 11 days. (At the time, some folks were inclined to riot about the change. Because the powers that be were taking 11 days from their lives! Who says an uninformed populace is a new phenomenon?)
Much like the calendar in his time, Washington's image would need massaging, too. Not that Gentle Reader didn't already know, but for the record, George Washington wasn't born with an old man's frown and a sword at his side. He wasn't always the man whose picture used to hang in every American classroom. All of us make ourselves to an extent, and nobody more so than George Washington.
Early on, the young man who'd later become the father of his country decided to be an aristocrat. Although his education was sketchy, he was determined to prove himself, even laboriously copying out the rules by which gentlemen conducted themselves. (Not that his spelling would improve much over the years.)
Again and again, his contemporaries would record their impressions of George Washington, either as Mr. Washington, General Washington, or President Washington. And they all tended to note the same characteristics: his grave dignity, his semi-royal presence, his cultivated distance from others. All learned traits.
Washington's legendary gravity was an acquired characteristic, too. If he was a man with a man's impulses, those impulses must be controlled. There was never anything impromptu about his leadership; his governance of the nation would become a reflection of his own self-governance. As if he knew that he had not only his own honor to uphold but that of the infant republic, too.
George Washington a miracle in these modern times? Why not? Is it any less of a miracle to think that Providence gave this nation a Jefferson and Madison and Adams and Hamilton and Franklin and Jay, too? All at the same time. And this group of founders needed somebody to lead them, not by pounding the table and howling at the moon--there were plenty who could cry for liberty or death--but somebody who could lead by just entering a room and sitting down. All this first among equals needed was presence.
Washington's unfinished portrait by Gilbert Stuart is fitting. George Washington only helped start the nation, not complete it. Many more states would be added, many more wars would be fought. Many more people freed (even his own slaves after Martha's death).
When it came time to lay down the burdens of office and return at last to the private life he yearned for years before, President Washington would leave his country one final gift: The Farewell Address. In it, he foresaw the dangers of the divisive passions which could imperil "that very liberty which you so highly prize." His words remain as relevant now as when he uttered them.
First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen, Washington was also first in judgment and maturity, which is why Americans still need to heed his counsel today. And his example.
Editorial on 02/22/2017