General George Washington: A Military Life

General George Washington: A Military Life * Edward G. Lengel * New York: Random House, 2005 * xlii, 450 pp. * $29.95

Over the years, historians' assessments of George Washington's military abilities have ranged from wildly laudatory to scathingly derogatory. Since World War II, writers have tended to place Washington's military career in the larger context of his life's work. They downplay his importance as a soldier and see his contributions to politics as being more important to the formation of the American republic. Edward G. Lengel believes the time has come to take another look at Washington's military career. Not since General Henry B. Carrington published Washington the Soldier (1899) has anyone attempted a military study of Washington, and, says Lengel, the gathering together of Washington papers at the University of Virginia in the past few years justifies this effort. An associate professor of history at the university and associate editor of The Papers of George Washington, Lengel is in an excellent position to write authoritatively about Washington materials, "many of which are as yet unstudied and unpublished." He notes that "a staggering two-thirds of Washington's total correspondence, tens of thousands of documents, concern military affairs" (p. xii).

Lengel does not believe that Washington was a particularly great soldier, certainly not in the same league as Marlborough, Frederick the Great, Napoleon, or Robert E. Lee. But, he says, Washington was the quintessential American soldier, an amateur who learned on the job as he fought the French in the Seven Years' War and the British in the War for American Independence. Washington did not excel at any of an officer's tasks. He had under his commands men who were better strategists, tacticians, administrators, and politicians. Also he was a flawed human being, manifesting many characteristics that were not admirable. As a young man he was more ambitious than his merits warranted; as an old man at Mount Vernon he betrayed the trust of a loyal friend and colleague, Henry Knox, by ranking Knox below Alexander Hamilton and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney in army command. Although brave, Washington once fled a battlefield for his life. Amazingly patient in holding out for months, despite all odds, against the British during the War for American Independence, he sometimes rushed headlong into impetuous military actions that endangered the Continental army, and by extension the patriot cause. A kind and generous man with his friends and family, he was cruel, sarcastic, spiteful, and vindictive against such perceived "enemies" as Horatio Gates and Thomas Conway.

Despite his shortcomings, and the prejudices and flaws he shared with his fellow Americans, says Lengel, Washington was the indispensable man during the War for American Independence. For he also was unique in possessing "all the qualities his country required" to achieve independence, "and in perfect combination" (p. xii). He was dedicated to the principles for which America fought, and he unwaveringly adhered to civilian authority over the military. He paid careful attention to his soldiers, doing all within his power to ease their burdens. He was meticulous as an administrator and a careful student of politics. He cultivated good relations with governors and legislators, who learned to trust his judgment. Most importantly, he went far beyond the vast majority of his fellow Americans in perceiving that the infant United States was not merely a collection of independent states and various interests drawn together by necessity to fight a common enemy. The new republic was instead "a nation of free men and women with a collective destiny." These things made Washington great and gave him the right to be called "the savior of his country" (p. 370).

Lengel's study is the most thorough and authoritative treatment thus far of Washington's military contributions. Based upon the author's deep immersion in both primary sources and secondary literature, it takes its place alongside those books that are essential for any collection of early American historical writings.

Reviewed by Paul David Nelson, professor of history at Berea College. He is the author of eight books on the War for American Independence, including his latest, Francis Rawdon-Hastings, Marquess of Hastings: Soldier, Peer of the Realm, Governor-General of India (2005).

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