During his presidency he made a tour through the Southern States. His arrangement for the same furnishes a remarkable illustration of the order and punctuality for which he was known from boyhood. Thinking that the heads of the several State departments might have occasion to write to him, he wrote out his route thus:
"I shall be, on the eighth of April, at Fredericksburg; the eleventh, at Richmond; the fourteenth, at Petersburg; the sixteenth, at Halifax; the eighteenth, at Tarborough; the twentieth, at Newtown;" and thus on to the end, a journey of nineteen hundred miles.
Custis says: "His punctuality on that long journey astonished every one. Scarcely would the artillery-men unlimber the cannon when the order would be given, 'Light your matches; the white chariot is in full view!'" Washington rode in a white chariot.
His industry, which had become proverbial, enabled him to perform a great amount of work. General Henry Lee once said to him:
"Mr. President, we are amazed at the amount of work you are able to accomplish."
"I rise at four o'clock, sir, and a great deal of the work I perform is done while others are asleep," was Washington's reply.
At the same time his thoroughness and method appeared in everything. Mr. Sparks says:
"During his presidency it was likewise his custom to subject the treasury reports and accompanying documents to the process of tutelar condensation, with a vast expenditure of labor and patience."
Another biographer says: