Washington [129]
For many years Martha’s attachment to her son had been problematic for George Washington, but he now found solace in the thought that Jacky might care for her. On June 19 he informed Jacky of his appointment and told him that “my great concern upon this occasion is the thoughts of leaving your mother under the uneasiness which I know this affair will throw her into.” He asked Jacky if he and his bride Nelly could stay full time at Mount Vernon, “when I think it absolutely necessary for the peace and satisfaction of your mother.”34 That same day Washington wrote to his brother-in-law, Burwell Bassett, and inquired whether he and Martha’s sister, Anna Maria, could visit Mount Vernon or take Martha into their home. Although he had assured Martha that he would “return safe to you in the fall,” he now told Bassett, much more candidly, that “I have no expectations of returning till winter and feel great uneasiness at [Martha’s] lonesome situation.”35 Washington noted that he had exchanged his Mount Vernon coach for his riding horses as he traded peacetime paraphernalia for wartime matériel. Again he expressed his inadequacy for the job. “I can answer but for three things: a firm belief in the justice of our cause; close attention in the prosecution of it; and the strictest integrity. If these cannot supply the places of ability and experience, the cause will suffer.”36
BEFORE LEAVING FOR BOSTON, Washington gathered the stage props for his command performance as top general. He bought five horses and a handsome four-wheeled open carriage, called a phaeton, the first charges to his expense account. He collected five books on military strategy. To spruce up his military apparel, he covered his black leather pistol holders with rich fabric, enhancing their beauty. In all likelihood, he employed the same red and white colors for this upholstery as he used for the servants’ livery at Mount Vernon. Washington also ordered a new uniform, having decided to retain for the Continental Army the colors of the Fairfax Independent Company. For his tailor, he outlined a uniform consisting of “a blue coat with yellow buttons and gold epaulettes (each having three silver stars) . . . in winter, buff vest and breeches; in summer, a white vest and breeches of nankeen.”37
When Washington was named commander in chief, he found himself in an anomalous situation: he was the only person officially on the rolls of the Continental Army; technically, he had been chosen to march at the head of a nonexistent army to fight an undeclared war. Nevertheless he began to assemble the top-flight team of personal aides he would refer to as his military “family.” During the war Washington would develop intimate attachments to several dashing young men of intelligence and sensibility. En route to Boston, he was escorted by Joseph Reed of Philadelphia, a Trenton native educated at Princeton and trained in law at the Middle Temple in London. Smart, courteous, and charming, Reed had a long face with blue eyes and a kindly expression. John Adams praised him as “very sensible,” “amiable,” and “tender.”38 As a member of Washington’s military escort to Boston, Reed fell under the general’s spell and couldn’t resist his insistence that he stay on as his secretary. As Reed remembered, Washington had “expressed himself to me in such terms that I thought myself bound by every tie of duty and honor to comply with his request to help him through the sea of difficulties.”39 For his first