Lest we forget as we celebrate over the July 4 weekend, America was born of an age when chivalry and the glory of war were held in immense esteem.
The one leader, who embraced this bygone age – better than any of our Founding Fathers – was George Washington.
The United States can thank the British governors of Colonial America in the 1750s for sowing the seeds of war with France, and allowing young George, referred to by Thomas Jefferson as the greatest equestrian of his day, to prove himself in battle.
Writing home to his younger brother, Jack, during the French & Indian War, George reported that he had enjoyed the “charming” sound of bullets whistling past his ear during his first engagement with a band of Frenchmen.
Several British pundits blamed Washington for having started the conflict, known in Europe as the “Seven Years’ War,” and King George purportedly sneered at George’s boast, insisting the naïve Virginian would “not say that if he had been used to hearing many” musket balls.
The folly of war was not yet apparent to George Washington in his early 20s. Nor would it have been for many of his fellow warriors, for, from cradle to grave, men living under the empire were asked to be brave and face death as a means to an end.
Early on, George had admitted to his own family that he had a “bent to arms.” The notion that war could hold a certain “charm” is firmly grounded in the medieval era of knights in the service of kings and damsels. Indeed, the idea that war itself might be exhilarating is not so counterintuitive for anyone who has experienced the perverse thrill of live fire and the adrenaline rush of a close call. As a war correspondent, myself, I did this for nearly 25 years, though there was a price to pay.
Winston Churchill wrote as a young news reporter for the Daily Telegraph that war offered him a unique window into the human spirit, which he described as “occasions of devotion and self-sacrifice, a cool cynicism and stern resolve,” and a chance to, “participate in moments of wild enthusiasm, or savage anger and dismay.” Churchill clearly believed that there was some wisdom to be gained in war.
Young George was very much a product of a highly competitive Virginia culture that rewarded skills and courage proportional to the needs of the British Empire. A skilled rider, hunter and woodsman, Washington could also display prowess through dance, a sport he referred to as “the gentler conflict.”
America was and is fortunate that Washington still was in full possession of these sporting and chivalric skills as we turned collectively against that same set of British rulers. General Washington’s leadership and daring during the Revolution is still something we can all look upon with a collective sense of awe. For instance, at the battle of Princeton, he turned the tide riding in on his white horse across a field thick with corpses and congealed blood, where his good friend Hugh Mercer had just been bayonetted to death.
Arriving in the heat of the fight, Washington, his battle-hardened Virginia riflemen at his side, swept in front of retreating Continental forces, urging them on. He rode, literally prancing on horseback before a contingent of his own Philadelphia Associators. Witnesses reported that, with added drama, he waved his tri-cornered hat and shouted, “Parade with me my brave fellows! There is but a handful of the enemy, and we will have them directly!”
Still on his horse, Washington, charged to within a hundred feet of British muskets and, face-to-face with his mortal enemy, he shouted again for a fusillade from his men. The general’s aide-de-camp, John Fitzgerald, later told Washington’s step-grandson that, fearing to witness his general shot dead, he “drew his hat over his face,” before removing it moments later to see Washington wreathed in smoke, unscathed and turning the tide of the battle.
George had been right about the British. Their Colonel Mawhood, a pair of terrified cocker spaniels on his heels, had turned to flee at a gallop. Washington lost no time, calling out for a hot pursuit. “It is a fine fox chase, my boys!” he shouted, racing down a gully in the direction of the fleeing redcoats, only to be called off the trail by his own men.
The idea that George also carried foxhunting notions into military battle wasn’t so surprising, but his lively spirit in the face of horror and gore was simply astounding.
Washington’s courage during the Revolution wasn’t what saved him – that was more likely a matter of good fortune or “Providence” as he liked to refer to it. Nevertheless, it was his chivalric sense of self-sacrifice combined with his steely code of honor, which won America’s independence from Great Britain.
In the end, the war also provided Washington with considerable insight. His front row view of human savagery in two wars would leaven his outlook as an elder statesman, and help him steer the nation clear of another war. A worried future president wrote to his French friend the Marquis de Chastellux in 1788 concerned about new rumbles of war in Europe.
He opined, “Your young military men, who reap the harvest of laurels, don’t care (I suppose) how many seeds of war are sown.” In the same missive, implicitly referring to his own past, Washington expressed his wish that an age of “Knight-Errantry and Mad-heroism (to) be at end,” and that “the swords might be turned into plough-shares, the spears to pruning hooks – and, as the Scripture expresses it, the nations learn war no more.”
It is little wonder that upon the occasion of his death, “Light Horse Harry Lee” reminded his fellow Americans in a eulogy that Washington had been “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”
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Philip Smucker is a fellow at the National Library for the Study of George Washington and the author of the just-released book, Riding with George: Sportsmanship & Chivalry in the Making of America’s First President.