freshment, and dispersed with the greatest good order and
regularity. The remains of the provisions were distributed among
the blacks. Mr. Peter, Dr. Craik, and Dr. Thornton tarried here all
night.[1]

[Footnote 1: From notes by T. Lear, Ford, XIV, 254-55.]

The Committee appointed by Congress to plan a suitable memorial
for Washington proposed a monument to be erected in the city of
Washington, to be adorned with statuary symbolizing his career as
General and as President, and containing a tomb for himself and for
Mrs. Washington. The latter replied to President Adams that "taught by
the great example which I have so long had before me, never to oppose
my private wishes to the public will, I must consent to the request
made by Congress, which you have had the goodness to transmit me,
and in doing this, I need not say, I cannot say, what a sacrifice of
individual feeling I make to a sense of public duty." The intended
monument at the capital was never erected. Martha Washington lies
beside her husband where she wished to be, in the family vault at
Mount Vernon. From her chamber window in the upper story of the Mount
Vernon house she could look across the field to the vault. She died
in 1802, a woman of rare discretion and good sense who, during forty
years, proved herself the worthiest companion of the founder of his
country.

I have wished to write this biography of George Washington so that
it would explain itself. There is no need of eulogy. All eulogy is
superfluous. We see the young Virginia boy, born in aristocratic
conditions, with but a meagre education, but trained by the sports and
rural occupations of his home in perfect manliness, in courage, in
self-reliance, in resourcefulness. Some one instilled into him moral
precepts which fastened upon his young conscience and would not let
him go. At twenty he was physically a young giant capable of enduring
any hardship and of meeting any foe. He ran his surveyor's chain far
into the wilderness to the west of Mount Vernon. When hardly a man
in age, the State of Virginia knew of his qualities and made him
an officer in its militia. At only twenty-three he was invited to
accompany General Braddock's staff, but neither he nor angels from
heaven could prevent Braddock from plunging with typical British
bull-headedness into the fatal Indian ambush. He gave up border
warfare, but did not cease to condemn the inadequacy of the Virginia
military equipment and its trainin