The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 / Commander in Chief of the American Forces During the War / which Established the Independence of his Country and First / President of the United States

General Washington
From the full length portrait by John Trumbull at Yale University
This portrait is one of 54 canvasses the artist presented to Yale University in return for an annuity of $1,000. Washington was in his forty-third year and it is considered the best likeness of him at the outbreak of the Revolution. The canvas depicts him, six feet two inches in height, with brown hair, blue eyes, large head and hands, and strong arms.
THE CITIZENS' GUILD OF WASHINGTON'S BOYHOOD HOME FREDERICKSBURG, VA. 1926
In his will George Washington bequeathed to his favorite nephew, Bushrod Washington, his personal letters, private papers and secret documents accumulated during a lifetime of service to his country. When the bequest became known, many of the literary men of the country were proposed for the commission to write the authorized life of our First President.
Bushrod Washington's choice fell upon John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. To him he handed over all the precious papers left him by his distinguished relative. George Washington and Marshall's father, Thomas Marshall, were boyhood companions, so John Marshall knew the Father of His Country as a neighbor and friend from his earliest youth, and served under him in the Revolution.
If it be true that it takes a great man to interpret the life of a great man then Bushrod Washington made no mistake in the selection of a biographer. For Marshall, under the influence of Washington, came to be nearly as great a man as the character whose life and achievements held his deepest thought for nearly a quarter of a century. Certainly his services to his country rank close to Washington's. Marshall's sympathetic understanding of his subject, his first-hand knowledge of events with his remarkable powers of expression qualified him to produce the masterpiece that has come down to us.
Seven years were spent in preparing the first edition, published in 1804-07. The work was based chiefly on Washington's own diaries and letters and secret archives and it told not simply the epic story of this great life but the truth about the birth of our nation. Marshall later spent fifteen years revising the first edition, verifying to the last detail every chapter, page and paragraph of his monumental work.