Washington [22]
In his seemingly inexorable rise in the world, Washington proved no less resourceful in the social sphere. In September 1752 a new Masonic lodge was convened in Fredericksburg, and two months later Washington was inducted as one of its first apprentices. Within a year he progressed swiftly through the ranks to become a Master Mason. We don’t know how Washington reacted to the fraternal group’s arcane rituals and occult signs. Still a relatively young movement, Freemasonry had been founded in London in 1717, drawing its symbols from the squares and compasses of masons’ guilds. While American Masons preached the Enlightenment ideals of universal brotherhood and equality, they discarded the anticlerical bent of their European brethren. Washington believed devoutly in the group’s high-minded values. He attended lodge meetings sporadically, came to own two Masonic aprons, walked in Masonic processions, and was even painted in full Masonic regalia during his second term as president. Repeatedly throughout his career, he paid tribute to the movement. “So far as I am acquainted with the principles and doctrines of Free Masonry,” he said toward the end of his life, “I conceive it to be founded in benevolence and to be exercised only for the good of Mankind.”50 On another occasion, he stated that the purpose of Freemasonry was to “enlarge the sphere of social happiness” and “to promote the happiness of the human race.”51 Whatever credence he gave to Masonic ideals, the young George Washington, a born joiner, was likely drawn to the group as a convivial place to hobnob and expand his social contacts.
What strikes one most about the twenty-year-old George Washington was that his sudden remarkable standing in the world was the result not so much of a slow, agonizing progress as of a series of rapid, abrupt leaps that thrust him into the topmost echelons of Virginia society. The deaths of those he loved most dearly had, ironically, brightened his prospects the most. Quite contrary to his own wishes, the untimely deaths of his father and his half brother had endowed him with extraordinary advantages in the form of land, slaves, and social status. Every misfortune only pushed him further along his desired path. Most providential of all for him was that Lawrence Washington had expired on the eve of the French and Indian War, a conflict in which George’s newfound status as district adjutant would place him squarely at the forefront of a thunderous global confrontation.
CHAPTER THREE
Wilderness Mission
THROUGHOUT HIS CAREER, George Washington had the imposing face and virile form that suited a commanding leader. His most delicate feature was a complexion fair enough to sunburn easily; to shield him from sunlight in later years, he rode around Mount Vernon with an umbrella fastened to his saddle bow. The mild, deep-set eyes, of a pale grayish blue, seemed to glow with an inner fire whenever he grew excited. When Gilbert Stuart painted them a more brilliant blue, he explained that in a hundred years they would fade to the right color.
Washington’s hair was reddish brown, and contrary to a common belief, he never wore a wig. The illusion that he did so derived from the powder that he sprinkled on his hair with a puffball in later life. He wore his long hair tied up in a black ribbon, knotted at the nape, in an arrangement called a queue. However formal it looks to modern eyes, the style was favored by military officers. Pulling the hair back also broadened the forehead and lent him an air of martial nobility. Once his hair was drawn into a queue (or sometimes a silk bag) behind him, the side hairs were fluffed out into twin projecting wings, furthering the appearance of a