You Never Forget Your First

 You Never Forget Your First: a Biography of George Washington

Alexis Coe (2020, Viking)

People have been writing admiringly about George Washington since before he died; it's reasonable to wonder what can usefully be added to the shelf. You Never Forget Your First stands out for several reasons.

First, it's concise. The text is just a little over two hundred pages; the notes and index add only another fifty-five. Alexis Coe read Joseph Ellis, Richard Brookhiser, Ron Chernow, and all the rest of the doorstops with studiously dull titles: "George Washington: A Biography. George Washington: A Life. George Washington: a President....With titles this stodgy, presidential biographies will always appear as if they are for men of a certain age, intended to be purchased on Presidents' or Father's Day."`

Second, as the title suggests, it's refreshingly cheeky. For instance, Coe dubs the (invariably male) authors of the standard biographies 'the Thigh Men', because they seem so attached to Washington's physical stature and prowess. Their books frequently feature covers with a head-to-toe portrait of Washington, showing his manly thighs.

By no coincidence, perhaps, they are at pains to make some explanation of the fact that Washington had no children of his own. In all likelihood, if he was sterile, it followed from some illness in his early life. In fact, Coe says, "Washington's lack of heirs gave him a distinct political advantage; it comforted people to know that he had no bloodline to preserve, no power-hungry scion to worry about." He clearly had a paternal relationship to his wife Martha's two young children. Martha's son Jacky left four children, two of whom George and Martha took in, in turn. And, after all, he is reputed to have fathered a whole country; what more do you want?

As Washington's first significant female biographer in many decades, Coe makes some corrections to the character of his mother, Mary. Coe cites –in a handy chart!–Chernow's many descriptions of her as shrewish, anxious, and demanding. "For the Thigh Men, Mary's histrionics begin when she declines to enlist her fourteen-year-old son in the navy and continue to the very ends with her griping about elder care."

Considering both the actual epistolary evidence at hand, and Mary's economic and social circumstances, Coe gives us a much fuller view. Her husband died when George, her eldest, was only eleven, so a certain anxiety might be justified; to keep and raise small children, and see her daughter married well, was not an easy job. It was also one she'd have precious little help with, unless she chose to marry again. Her objection to making George a midshipman was that it was more likely to thwart his career than to advance it, and in that she was quite right.

Instead, he learned surveying, in which his horsemanship and his head for math were great advantages. It gave him a chance to see new land first and bid on it early. He sought a position in the Virginia militia. "Despite having no military experience, he worked his connections and ultimately got the job–along with its annual salary of one hundred pounds." He made a name for himself in the French and Indian War of the 1750's - indeed, he partly precipitated it, by killing a French diplomat with whom he was meant to be negotiating.

He moved from the Virginia militia to the British army, serving with Brigadier General Edward Braddock in the Ohio territories, and becoming a hero in the battle of Fort Duquesne–which the French actually won. Still, there were clearly limits to how far a colonial subject could advance in the British forces; he resigned his commission and went back to his land. He married Martha (and her fortune) in 1759, and enjoyed a good decade as a gentleman farmer at Mount Vernon, keeping horses and dogs, and raising cattle, fowl, and bees. (He liked butter and honey with his breakfast hoecakes.)

Coe does not let us forget that Washington's wealth depended on enslaved people. Coe describes their miserable housing, their poor diet, and their general mistreatment, often by way of ironic contrast with Washington's revolutionary zeal for liberty. In his will, Washington directed Martha to free his slave, which she duly did in 1801, shortly before she died. Her own slaves, however, she willed back to her grandchildren. Coe has a heart-breaking breakdown, again in chart form, of the known families who were broken up by this development.

You could certainly give this book to a Dad; you could also give it to a feisty or bookish teenager. (If it's banned from school libraries, it will be for all the best reasons.) But we can all stand a fresh look at Washington's special skills, in diplomacy and espionage even more than in battle. We owe him a lot, all in all. 

 

Any Good Books, December 2022