Essay --

â€Å"Washington the General, the President and the Abolitionist† On a cold, frosty day in Westmoreland County, Virginia a baby boy was born to Augustine Washington and Mary Ball on February 22, 1732. This baby was named George and was their first child of five to come. From the age of three he lived at many different plantations on tributaries of the Potomac river. At the age of 11, George tragically lost his father and was under his mother’s management which he did not like. Living with many relatives he eventually found a sanctuary at his half-brother Lawrence’s plantation known as Mount Vernon. After the age of approximately 15 he began showing a deep interest in mathematics and eventually through Lawrence’s influence became a successful surveyor. In 1751 Washington made his first and last trip outside the colonies to Barbados with Lawrence to cure him of tuberculosis. When they were there George very quickly contracted smallpox. Although he survived the illness he was left with permanent facial scars and immunity to a dis ease that will ravage his troops in the near future. In 1752, Lawrence, who had served as Washington's mentor, tragically passed away. Washington eventually inherited Lawrence's estate, Mount Vernon, his militia office and there Washington learned how to become an officer and a farmer. In 1753 Virginia Governor Robert Dinwiddie sent 21-year-old Washington to warn French troops stationed north of modern day Pittsburgh Pennsylvania that they were trespassing in territory that was claimed by Virginia. The French ignored the warning, and the flopped. On the brighter side, when Washington returned, Governor Dinwiddie told a Williamsburg printer by the name of William Hunter to publish his report as The Journal of Maj... ...per his request Washington was remembered from then on as the â€Å"Father of the United States† because of his incredible leadership and his ability to bring an entire country together after a war of independence. In Washington’s farewell address he said that his successors should keep the highest standards for domestic policies and minimally involve in foreign policies. To this day in memoriam the document is read in the U.S. Senate for his birthday in February. In the House of Burgesses Thomas Jefferson Spoke of Washington and said, â€Å"On the whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in a few points indifferent; and it may truly be said, that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great, and to place him in the same constellation with whatever worthies have merited from man an everlasting remembrance.† (Thomas Jefferson)