21 Great Leaders: Learn Their Lessons, Improve Your Influence (19 page)

To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian
.

G
EORGE
W
ASHINGTON

Y
ou never really know the strength of your character until it has been tested in a crisis. For George Washington, the supreme test of his character occurred during the Revolutionary War, in the winter of 1777–78 in a place called Valley Forge. After an initial victory in the siege of Boston (March 1776), Washington suffered a string of demoralizing defeats—the Battle of Long Island, the retreat across New Jersey, the Battle of Brandywine, and the unsuccessful assault on the British garrison at Germantown. The British captured Philadelphia, prompting many in Congress to call for Washington’s removal as commander in chief.

In all of 1777, Washington’s forces tasted victory only once, at the Battle of Saratoga, October 7. As winter set in, the war ground to a standstill. Washington led his army of eleven thousand men to Valley Forge, north of Philadelphia, to await the springtime and better fighting weather. Washington’s associate, Prussian-born Major General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, conducted drills and tactical training to sharpen the Continental Army’s fighting skills. During that winter, Washington’s army lost a dozen men per day to disease, hunger, and desertion.

General Washington sent repeated messages to the Continental Congress, requesting food for his troops. Congress, which had moved to York, Pennsylvania, after the British captured Philadelphia, refused to send food. Instead, Congress told General Washington to send his men out to steal from nearby farmers. After all, many farmers were trading beef and corn to the British for gold. By stealing from the farmers, the Continental Army would eat better and cut off provisions to the enemy.

But General Washington refused to steal. First, he considered theft to be a violation of his character and moral principles, which he based on the Bible. Second, while stealing from the farmers might produce a short-term advantage, in the long term it would cause the new American government to be hated by its own citizens.

He told Congress that he not only refused to send men out to steal, but he was warning them that any soldier caught stealing would be hanged. Pulitzer Prize–winning historian James Thomas Flexner wrote, “Congress was more than ever outraged that Washington would not take what the army needed from the inhabitants at bayonet point. The Commander in Chief, had, indeed, more respect for civilian rights than did many legislators.”
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Though Washington’s men often went hungry during the bitter winter months, Dr. Burton W. Folsom of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy observes that his principled stand bore fruit:

George Washington’s character and unyielding principles were rooted in his deep Christian faith. During that bitter winter in Valley Forge, he told his men: “While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest Glory to laud the more distinguished Character of Christian.”
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George Washington was born in Virginia on February 22, 1732, the son of Augustine Washington, a slave-owning tobacco planter, and Mary Ball Washington. Young George grew up on Ferry Farm near Fredericksburg, and he later acquired the plantation on the Potomac River, Mount Vernon, as an inheritance when his older half-brother died.

The most famous anecdote about Washington’s childhood is the legend recorded by Parson Mason Locke Weems, in which the boy Washington is said to have chopped down his father’s favorite cherry tree. When questioned by his father, young George allegedly said, “I can’t tell a lie, Pa; you know I can’t tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet.” George’s father supposedly embraced the boy and praised him for telling the truth.

Evidence suggests that Parson Weems made up the story. In fact, one of Parson Weems’s own grandchildren claimed that the story was based on an incident in which Weems’s own son cut down a favorite rosebush in the garden; the son confessed to the crime—and Parson Weems gave the boy a sound thrashing.
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The truth about Washington’s youthful devotion to character building is far more interesting than any fable about a cherry tree.

By the time Washington was sixteen, he had painstakingly copied, with pen and ink, a document called “110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.” These 110 rules are based on life rules composed in 1595 by French Jesuits. When you read these rules today, some sound quaint and even strange. For example, “In the Presence of Others Sing not to yourself with a humming Noise, nor Drum with your Fingers or Feet.” But many of the rules should never go out of style. Let me give you a sampling with the antique spelling and capitalization intact, followed by my translation in today’s vernacular:

Minneapolis
Star Tribune
columnist Katherine Kersten contrasts the way we raise our children today versus the character-focused way Washington was raised:

From his earliest years, George Washington trained himself to be a man of character. His sterling character became the foundation of his leadership.

In his early years, Washington’s character was tested and refined in battle. In 1753, twenty-one-year-old George Washington was given command of a militia unit. Along with a band of Iroquois warriors, Washington’s unit attacked the French in the Battle of Jumonville Glen—a decisive victory for Washington and his men.

In 1755, Washington was an aide to General Edward Braddock of England. During an expedition into the Ohio Valley to expel the French, Braddock’s party was ambushed by French soldiers and Indian warriors. Braddock was mortally wounded, and his forces were scattered. Without regard to his own safety, Washington rallied his men so that they could retreat safely. Washington’s brave exploits in the French and Indian War elevated his reputation for leadership.

Washington was assigned command of the Virginia Regiment, a force of a thousand soldiers. He and his men fought twenty battles over ten months, losing a third of their complement. Though the regiment suffered heavy losses, Washington’s reputation as a military leader grew.

In 1758, Washington retired from the regiment and did not return to the military until the Revolutionary War, seventeen years later. His experience taught him valuable lessons in leadership, military discipline, logistics, organization, and battlefield tactics. Those insights would prove invaluable during the war for American independence.

In 1759, Washington married the widow Martha Dandridge Custis, who was twenty-eight years old and a woman of considerable wealth. He became a father to Martha’s two children by her late first husband. They lived on Washington’s Mount Vernon estate, near Alexandria.

On December 16, 1773, a group called the Sons of Liberty touched off the Boston Tea Party. This action produced a chain of events leading to the battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts, April 19, 1775, which initiated the Revolutionary War. Two months later, Congress created the Continental Army, and John Adams nominated Washington to be commander in chief. In response, Washington humbly replied, “I this day declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with.” Yet he agreed to accept the position because of the unanimous support of the Congress. Refusing any compensation, Washington immediately went to work, forming the various state militias into a cohesive and disciplined Continental Army.
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Though Washington won fame for exploits in the French and Indian War, he was even more widely known as a man of
character
. Historian David McCullough explained, “He was chosen because they knew him; they knew the kind of man he was; they knew his character, his integrity…. He was a man people would follow. And as events would prove, he was a man whom some—a few—would follow through hell.”
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George Washington’s reputation for character and integrity was so widespread that even British newspapers—which were hostile toward most leaders of the rebellion—actually
praised
the personal character of George Washington. Historian Troy O. Bickham of Missouri State University explains:

While leading the American forces during the Revolutionary War, George Washington lost many battles—in fact, he lost far more battles than he won. Though he sometimes retreated, he never surrendered. When a battle went badly, he always had an escape route so that his men could make a strategic retreat, regroup, then come back and fight another day.

He battled the British relentlessly, all the way to the final battle, the Siege of Yorktown, Virginia. There he forced General George Cornwallis to surrender on October 19, 1781. The Revolutionary War was over. America was free. On September 3, 1783, Great Britain signed the Treaty of Paris, officially recognizing the United States of America as a sovereign nation.

On December 4, at Fraunces Tavern in New York, Washington bade his officers farewell. Two days before Christmas, he resigned his commission as commander in chief of the Continental Army; then he returned home, planning to live out his days as a gentleman farmer at Mount Vernon. But his peaceful retirement would not last long.

The electoral college unanimously elected Washington as America’s first president in 1789. He took the oath of office on the balcony of Federal Hall in New York.

Washington was careful to avoid any trappings reminiscent of European royalty. He insisted on a simple, unpretentious title for the position: “Mr. President.” When Congress approved a substantial salary for the position, Washington initially declined to accept, but Congress convinced him to take the money to avoid any suggestion that public service was only for the rich.
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After two terms, Washington declined to run for a third. His example was so influential that all of his successors obeyed the customary two-term limit until Franklin D. Roosevelt broke that tradition in 1940.

In Washington’s Farewell Address to the Nation, September 19, 1796, he said that American liberty and prosperity rested on a foundation of strong faith in God and good moral character. “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,” he said, “religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of man and citizens.”
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Most of the customs we associate with the presidency today bear the imprint of George Washington’s character. His towering personal integrity echoes across the years, setting a standard that we the people measure all our leaders against. When we hear that a president has plotted Nixonian crimes or exhibited Clintonian immorality in the Oval Office, we are repulsed, because that behavior defiles the standard of character set by Washington.

As constitutional scholar Thomas Sowell reminds us, “Presidents of the United States lacking character and integrity have inflicted lasting damage on the office they held and on the nation…. The nation as a whole is stronger when it can trust its President.”
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