Washington [449]
The southern tour turned into a marathon as the cavalcade crossed the Georgia pine barrens. The “abominably sandy and heavy” roads wore down the horses, including Prescott.48 The journey was a heroic labor for Washington, who had to deal with the hazards of the road coupled with the tiring social demands. From Georgia, he wrote to Tobias Lear that he was so busy in each town that it “scarcely allowed me a moment I could call my own.”49 He pushed on to Augusta, where the local newspaper stated that the presidential ball was attended by “the largest number of ladies ever collected at this place.”50 The presidential connoisseur estimated the female turnout at between “60 and 70 well dressed ladies.”51 While there, Washington also engaged in more serious business, meeting with Governor Edward Telfair and handing him dispatches for the Spanish governor of East Florida, warning him to stop providing a safe haven for runaway American slaves.
In late May Washington began the journey northward and used the opportunity to tour scenes from the Revolutionary War that he had watched from afar, including Camden and Guilford Court House. He exhibited mounting irritation with the attention bestowed on him—only between towns did he have some modicum of privacy. To his annoyance, the North Carolina governor sent an escort for him. “On my approach to this place [Guilford],” he wrote, “I was met by a party of light horse, which I prevailed on the governor to dismiss and to countermand his orders for others to attend me through the state.”52
In undertaking this lengthy trip, Washington had wanted to learn the state of public opinion directly rather than by hearsay. Most of all, he hoped to ascertain whether the South was as discontented as legend claimed. In his diary, he professed pleasure with what he saw, convinced that the people “appeared to be happy, contented and satisfied with the gen[era]l government under which they were placed. Where the case was otherwise, it was not difficult to trace the cause to some demagogue or speculating character.”53 Contrary to reports that the South would resist the whiskey tax, Washington found general approval for it. In writing to Catharine Macaulay Graham, he cited the “prosperity and tranquillity under the new government” and added that “while you in Europe are troubled with war and rumors of war, everyone here may sit under his own vine and none to molest or make him afraid.”54 Clearly Washington’s picture of the southern mood was overly rosy; perhaps local politicians didn’t care to deliver upsetting news to a heroic president on a jubilant tour. Within a year the country would be hopelessly divided over Washington’s policies, and the primary locus of discontent would be centered in the southern states.
On June 11 the presidential caravan arrived at Mount Vernon, giving Washington two weeks of rest before he returned to Philadelphia. After a rocky start, the tour had unfolded with miraculous precision, and Washington was relieved that it had proceeded without “any interruption by sickness, bad weather, or any untoward accident.”55 In a major logistical feat, he had arrived at each town on the exact date set on his itinerary. The three-month trip had also been a tonic to his health. Escaping from his office and filling his lungs with fresh air, he had put on weight and wiped away the gaunt look of the previous year. Not only had his health improved, but he told one correspondent that “my happiness has certainly been promoted by the excursion.”56 The trip ended in a fitting spirit on July 6, when he rode into Philadelphia to the sound of cannon and the ringing of church bells and set eyes on Martha for the first time in nearly four months.
No sooner had Washington returned than a tumor reappeared on his thigh, in exactly the spot as the one excised in June 1789. It threw the government into a state of general gloom. “The president