When the news of Braddock's defeat and the dreadful slaughter of his army reached Fredericksburg the anxious mother was forced to wait twelve days before she could be assured of her son's safety. In a long, calm letter he tells her of all his dangers and his own wonderful escape, with four bullets through his coat and two horses shot under him. He tells her, too, of an illness which confined him in a wagon for more than ten days; how he was not half recovered at the time of the fight; how he must halt and rest often upon his way home to Mount Vernon, which he could scarce hope to leave before September; how he was, "Honored Madam," her most dutiful son.
She drove to Mount Vernon to meet him, and warmly entreated him to leave the service forever, urging the loss of health and fortune should he remain in it. He had no answer then, but after she was at home she received his final word.
"Honored Madam: If it is in my power to avoid going to Ohio again, I shall; but if the command is pressed upon me by the general voice of the country, and offered upon such terms as cannot be objected against, it would reflect dishonor upon me to refuse it, and that, I am sure must, or ought, to give you greater uneasiness than my going in an honorable command. Upon no other terms will I accept it."
The code of manners which ruled Virginia in the eighteenth century forbade familiarity or the discussion of personalities. Washington's letters to "Honored Madam," as he always addressed his mother, relate mainly to important public events. Nothing is told of his ups and downs, which he seems to have had in common with ordinary mortals; of the envious slanderers who strove to undermine him in the estimation of the governor; still less of his repulse by the father of Miss Mary Cary who curtly refused him his daughter's hand for the reason that she was "accustomed to riding in her own carriage" and therefore above Virginia's young major. Bishop Meade says that this lady, afterwards the wife of Edward Ambler, was in the throng of applauding citizens when Washington passed through Williamsburg at the head of the American army. He recognized her, and gallantly waved his sword to her, whereupon she fainted. Nobody knows that she ever wished to accept Major Washington. Had he waited until 1753, her prudent father could have urged no objection to the handsome young lover. In 1752 Lawrence Washington died, directing in his will, in case of the demise of his wife without issue, the estate at Mount Vernon should become the property of his brother George. Within the year the young major received this legacy.
He seems to have been—for him—very faithful to an early dream. If he cherished, as he doubtless did, hopes of winning his "Lowland Beauty," she now put an end to his dream by marrying, in 1753, Henry Lee of Stafford; and it may be remembered that it was in this year, and only one month before her marriage, that he sought the governor's permission to bear a message of remonstrance to the Chevalier de St. Pierre. Like a wise soldier he knew when he was defeated and retreated accordingly.
MOUNT VERNON.
He did not marry until 1759; but it is not to be supposed that his heart was breaking all these six years for Miss Mary Cary or for the lovely Lucy Grymes, the "Lowland Beauty." Do we not know of Miss Mary Philipse, whose father's manor-house may still be seen on the Hudson? Washington Irving thinks she could not have refused him, that he "rode away" before he had "made sufficient approaches in his siege of the lady's heart to warrant a summons of surrender."
However this may be, all went well with the parties to the drama in Virginia. The "Lowland Beauty" was the wife of one of Virginia's honored sons, and the mother of "Light-horse Harry" Lee. Perfect happiness was only waiting a few necessary preliminary events to crown the young soldier's life with joy, in the person of the fascinating widow, Martha Custis, who, according to old Bishop Meade (who relished an innocent bit of gossip), resembled Miss Cary as one twin-sister does another. He resigned his position as commander-in-chief of the Virginia forces, and reasonably looked forward to a life of calm content in his home on the right bank of the Potomac.