Washington's Birthday Part 20

Two humble beds were spread side by side in the tent and the officers laid themselves down, while Primus seemed to be busy with duties that required his attention before he himself could sleep. He worked, or appeared to work, until the breathing of the prostrate gentlemen satisfied him that they were sleeping, and then seating himself upon a box, he leaned his head upon his hands to obtain such repose as he could.

In the middle of the night Was.h.i.+ngton awoke. He looked about and descried the negro. He gazed at him awhile and then spoke.

"Primus," said he, "Primus!" Primus started up and rubbed his eyes.

"What, General?" said he. Was.h.i.+ngton rose up in his bed. "Primus," said he, "what do you mean by saying that you had straw and blankets enough?

Here you have given up your blankets and straw to me, that I may sleep comfortably, while you are obliged to sit through the night." "It's nothing, General," said Primus! "It's nothing! I'm well enough! Don't trouble yourself about me, General, but go to sleep again. No matter about me, I sleep very good!" "But it is matter, it is matter," said Was.h.i.+ngton. "I cannot do it, Primus. If either is to sit up, I will. But I think there is no need of either sitting up. The blanket is wide enough for two. Come and lie down with me."

"Oh no, General!" said Primus, starting and protesting against the proposition. "No, let me sit here." "I say come and lie down here!" said Was.h.i.+ngton. "There is room for both; I insist upon it."

He threw open the blanket as he spoke, and moved to one side of the straw. Primus professes to have been exceedingly shocked at the idea of lying under the same covering with the commander-in-chief, but his tone was so resolute and determined that he could not hesitate. He prepared himself therefore and laid himself down by Was.h.i.+ngton; on the same straw under the same blanket, the General and the negro servant slept until morning.

An anecdote characteristic of Was.h.i.+ngton is related by Professor McVickar, in his narrative of "The Life of Dr. Bard," who attended Was.h.i.+ngton during a severe illness in 1789.

It was a case of anthrax (carbuncle) so malignant as for several days to threaten mortification. During this period Dr. Bard never quitted him. On one occasion being left alone with him, General Was.h.i.+ngton, looking steadily in his face, desired his candid opinion as to the probable termination of his disease, adding with that placid firmness which marked his address, "Do not flatter me with vain hopes, I'm not afraid to die, and therefore can bear the worst." Dr. Bard's answer, though it expressed hope, acknowledged his apprehensions.

The President replied: "Whether to-night or twenty years hence, makes no difference; I know that I am in the hands of a good Providence."

George Was.h.i.+ngton to his nephew, Bushrod Was.h.i.+ngton:

Remember, that it is not the mere study of the Law, but to become eminent in the profession of it, which is to yield honor and profit.

The first was your choice, let the second be your ambition; that the company in which you will improve most, will be least expensive to you; and yet I am not such a stoic as to suppose that you will, or think it right that you should always be in company with senators and philosophers; but of the young and the juvenile kind let me advise you to be choice. It is easy to make acquaintances, but very difficult to shake them off, however irksome and unprofitable they are found, after we have once committed ourselves to them.

While absent from Mount Vernon Was.h.i.+ngton wrote to his manager:

Although it is last mentioned, it is foremost in my thoughts to desire you will be particularly attentive to my negroes in their sickness, and to order every overseer positively to be so likewise; for I am sorry to observe that the generality of them view these poor creatures in scarcely any other light than they do a draught horse or an ox, neglecting them as much when they are unable to work instead of comforting and nursing them when they lie in a sick bed.

A part of each day was always set apart for meditation and devotion; nor this in time of peace only, for we are told that one day while the Americans were encamped at Valley Forge, the owner of the house occupied by the General, a Quaker, strolled up the creek, and when not far from his mill, heard a solemn voice. He walked quietly in the direction of it and saw Was.h.i.+ngton's horse tied to a sapling. In a thicket near by was the chief, upon his knees in prayer, his cheeks suffused with tears.

During the Revolutionary War, General Was.h.i.+ngton's army was reduced at one time to great straits, and the people were greatly dispirited. One of them who left his home with an anxious heart one day, as he was pa.s.sing the edge of a wood near the camp, heard the sound of a voice. He stopped to listen, and looking between the trunks of the large trees he saw General Was.h.i.+ngton engaged in prayer. He pa.s.sed quietly on, that he might not disturb him; and on returning home, told his family, "America will prevail," and then related what he had heard and seen.

THE ABUSE OF WAs.h.i.+NGTON

BY THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON

On the last day in office Was.h.i.+ngton wrote to Knox comparing himself to "the weary traveler who sees a resting-place, and is bending his body to lean thereon. To be suffered to do this in peace," he added, "is too much to be endured by some." Accordingly on that very day a Philadelphia newspaper dismissed him with a final tirade, worth remembering by all who think that political virulence is on the increase:

"Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation" was the exclamation of a man who saw a flood of blessedness breaking in upon mankind. If ever there was a time that allowed this exclamation to be repeated, that time is the present. The man who is the source of all our country's misery is this day reduced to the rank of his fellow-citizens, and has no longer the power to multiply the woes of these United States. Now more than ever is the time to rejoice. Every heart which feels for the liberty, and the happiness of the people must now beat with rapture at the thought that this day the name of Was.h.i.+ngton ceases to give currency to injustice and to legalize corruption.... When we look back upon the eight years of Was.h.i.+ngton's administration, it strikes us with astonishment that one man could thus poison the principles of republicanism among our enlightened people, and carry his designs against the public liberty so far as to endanger its very existence. Yet such is the fact, and if this is apparent to all, this day they should form a jubilee in the United States.

PROVIDENTIAL EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF WAs.h.i.+NGTON

BY IRVING ALLEN

From _The Independent_

At this season of the anniversary of Was.h.i.+ngton's birth, it seems especially appropriate to recall certain singular circ.u.mstances in the life of the greatest of Americans--events remarkable in themselves in whatever light they may be viewed; whether, in accordance with the tenets of modern Spiritism and, to a certain extent, in harmony with the doctrines of Swedenborg and his followers in human affairs of departed spirits; or if, on the other hand, we adopt the simple teachings of the Sacred Scriptures, and acknowledge the truth with men and their affairs.

Authentic history records no less than six marvelous instances in which the life of Was.h.i.+ngton was saved under circ.u.mstances seemingly little less than miraculous. The first of these wonderful escapes from impending peril occurred during the period of Was.h.i.+ngton's sole recorded absence from the American continent--when he accompanied his brother Lawrence, then fatally ill with consumption, to the Barbadoes.

_Smallpox_

They sailed in September of 1751, George being then in the twentieth year of his age. Before the brothers had been a fortnight in the island the younger, the future hero of the Revolution, was attacked with smallpox in its "natural" and virulent form. This disease was not then the fangless monster with which we are familiar, but was terrific in its a.s.saults and almost invariably fatal; yet Was.h.i.+ngton recovered in something less than three weeks, and retained through his life but slight marks of the malady.

One of General Was.h.i.+ngton's biographers well says, in reference to this incident, in the life of the first President, that, "it may well be doubted whether in any of his battles he was in equal danger. If the disease entered an army, it was a foe more to be dreaded than embattled hosts.... But it belongs to that cla.s.s of diseases of which, by a mysterious law of our nature, our frames are, generally speaking, susceptible but once.... Thus it came to pa.s.s, that, in the morning of his days, Was.h.i.+ngton became (humanly speaking) safe from all future danger from this formidable disease."

The reader of American history will remember that the smallpox appeared among the British troops in Boston in the fall of 1775; that it ravaged our army in Canada in the following spring; that it prevailed the same year at Ticonderoga, and in 1777 at Morristown. Regarding this last occasion of its appearance, Was.h.i.+ngton said, in a letter to Governor Henry, of Virginia, where vaccination was not permitted:

You will pardon my observation on smallpox because I know it is more destructive to the army than the enemies' sword and because I shudder whenever I reflect upon the difficulties of keeping it out.

This was the tremendous peril from which Was.h.i.+ngton was comparatively safe after his twentieth year. "If," says a very eminent writer, "to refer this to an overruling Providence be a superst.i.tion, I desire to be accounted superst.i.tious."

_The Journey to Venango_, 1753

The next imminent danger to which Was.h.i.+ngton was exposed, and from which his escape was well-nigh miraculous, was on the occasion of his historic expedition to the headquarters of the French Governor at Venango, in 1753. The journey itself, in the winter season, of five or six hundred miles through an unsettled country, most of it constantly traveled by natives at enmity with the English, was one continued story of danger and escape. It was but two years after this trip of Was.h.i.+ngton's to Venango that English soldiers--surrendered prisoners of war--were tortured to death by the savage natives within sight of Fort Duquesne.

On his return from the fulfillment of his mission, Was.h.i.+ngton traversed the forest with a single companion and an Indian guide. Just at nightfall, on one of the days of their perilous journey, their savage attendant suddenly turned, and at a distance of but fifteen paces fired on Was.h.i.+ngton, happily without evil result.

After this alarming experience the two companions pursued their way alone, footsore and weary, through the woods, with the sure knowledge that the savages were on their trail. Reaching the Alleghany River on a night of December, they found it enc.u.mbered with drifting ice, and only to be crossed by means of a raft which, with only "one poor hatchet,"

cost them an entire day's labor to construct. When crossing the river, Was.h.i.+ngton, while using the setting pole, was thrown violently into the water at a depth of ten feet, and saved his life by grasping a log. They spent the night, in their frozen clothing, on a little island on which, had they been forced to stay till sunrise, they would, beyond question, have fallen into the hands of the Indians; but the intense cold which froze the feet of Was.h.i.+ngton's companion, also sealed the river and enabled them to escape on the ice.

_Another Mission_

The year following the mission to Venango (1754) Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton was sent in command of a small force in the same direction; but by reason of the greatly superior strength of the enemy, the expedition resulted in a calamitous retreat. By a singular coincidence, the compulsory evacuation of the English stronghold--"Fort Necessity," as it was called--occurred on the _Fourth of July_, 1754--a date afterward made forever glorious in great measure by the inestimable services of the young commander of this earlier and ill-fated military expedition. But such were the ability, energy, and power evinced by its youthful commander, that the disaster resulted in his own greatly enhanced reputation as a born leader of men.

_Braddock and Was.h.i.+ngton_

In the following year (1755) a gigantic effort was made by England to recover lost ground, and to repair the military misadventures of 1754.

The history of Braddock's disastrous expedition is familiar to every schoolboy in the land. At this period, Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton had retired from the army in disgust at the unjust regulations which gave undue preference to officers holding commissions from the Crown over abler men--some of them their seniors of the same rank--in the service of the provinces. He was, however, at length induced--in great measure from motives of the purest patriotism, and partly, no doubt, from his strong leaning toward a military career--to accept a position on the staff of the commanding General, Braddock, a soldier of courage and large experience, but, as events afterward proved, a haughty, self-willed, and pa.s.sionate man.

During the pa.s.sage of Braddock's forces through the Alleghany Mountains, Was.h.i.+ngton was attacked by so violent and alarming a sickness that its result was for a time extremely uncertain; on his partial recovery the General caused him to move with the heavy artillery and baggage. In this position Was.h.i.+ngton remained two weeks, returning to the General's headquarters on the eighth of July, the day preceding the fatal battle of the Monongahela.

On the morning of this day--forever and sadly memorable in American annals--Was.h.i.+ngton mounted his horse, weak and worn by sickness, but strong in hope and courage. These are his own words uttered in other and better days: