Little
Hatchet, it may be well to say that Washington was a very typical
Southern gentleman in his foibles as well as in his virtues. Though his
temper was in large matters under strict control, it was occasionally
formidable and vented itself in a free and cheerful profanity. He loved
good wine, and like most eighteenth-century gentlemen, was not sparing
in its use. He had a Southerner's admiration for the other sex--an
admiration which, if gossip may be credited, was not always strictly
confined within monogamic limits. He had also, in large measure, the
high dignity and courtesy of his class, and an enlarged liberality of
temper which usually goes with such good breeding. There is no story of
him more really characteristic than that of his ceremoniously returning
the salute of an aged Negro and saying to a friend who was disposed to
deride his actions: "Would you have me let a poor ignorant coloured man
say that he had better manners than I?" For the rest the traditional
eulogy of his public character is not undeserved. It may justly be said
of him, as it can be said of few of the great men who have moulded the
destinies of nations, that history can put its fingers on no act of his
and say: "Here this man was preferring his own interest to his
country's."

As a military commander Washington ranks high. He had not, indeed, the
genius of a Marlborough or a Napoleon. Rather he owed his success to a
thorough grasp of his profession combined with just that remarkably
level and unbiassed judgment which distinguished his conduct of civil
affairs. He understood very clearly the conditions of the war in which
he was to engage. He knew that Great Britain, as soon as she really woke
up to the seriousness of her peril, would send out a formidable force of
well-disciplined professional soldiers, and that at the hands of such a
force no mere levy of enthusiastic volunteers could expect anything but
defeat. The breathing space which the incredible supineness of the
British Government allowed him enabled him to form something like a real
army. Throughout the campaigns that followed his primary object was not
to win victories, but to keep that army in being. So long as it existed,
he knew that it could be continually reinforced by the enthusiasm of the
colonials, and that the recruits so obtained could be consolidated into
and imbued with the spirit of a disciplined body. The moment it ceased
to exist Great Britain would have to deal