From journals kept during some of his expeditions we see that he was a clear observer and an accurate reporter; far from bookish, but a careful penman, and conscious of the obligation laid upon him to acquire at least the minimum of polite knowledge which was expected of a country gentleman such as he aspired to be.
Here is an extract in which he describes the squalid conditions under which he passed some of his life as a woodsman and surveyor.
We got our suppers and was lighted into a Room and I not being so good a woodsman as ye rest of my company, striped myself very orderly and went into ye Bed, as they calld it, when to my surprize, I found it to be nothing but a little straw matted together without sheets or any thing else, but only one thread bare blanket with double its weight of vermin, such as Lice, Fleas, etc. I was glad to get up (as soon as ye light was carried from us). I put on my cloths and lay as my companions. Had we not been very tired, I am sure we should not have slep'd much that night. I made a Promise not to sleep so from that time forward, chusing rather to sleep in ye open air before a fire, as will appear hereafter.
Wednesday 16th. We set out early and finish'd about one o'clock and then Travelled up to Frederick Town, where our Baggage came to us. We cleaned ourselves (to get rid of ye game we had catched ye night before), I took a Review of ye Town and then return'd to our Lodgings where we had a good Dinner prepared for us. Wine and Rum Punch in plenty, and a good Feather Bed with clean sheets, which was a very agreeable regale.
The longest of Washington's early expeditions was the "Journey over the Mountains, began Fryday the 11th of March 1747/8." The mountains were the Alleghanies, and the trip gave him a closer acquaintance than he had had with Indians in the wilds. On his return, he stayed with his half-brother, Lawrence, at Mount Vernon, or with Lord Fairfax, and enjoyed the country life common to the richer Virginians of the time. Towns which could provide an inn being few and far between, travellers sought hospitality in the homes of the well-to-do residents, and every one was in a way a neighbor of the other dwellers in his county. So both at Belvoir and at Mount Vernon, guests were frequent and broke the monotony and loneliness of their inmates. I think the reputation of gravity, which was fixed upon Washington in his mature years, has been projected back over his youth. The actual records are lacking, but such hints and surmises as we have do not warrant our thinking of him as a self-centred, unsociable youth. On the contrary, he was rather, what would be called now, a sport, ready for hunting or riding, of splendid physical build, agile and strong. He liked dancing, and was not too shy to enjoy the society of young women; indeed, he wrote poems to some of them, and seems to have been popular with them. And still, the legend remains that he was bashful.
From our earliest glimpses of him, Washington appears as a youth very particular as to his dress. He knew how to rough it as the extracts of his personal journals which I have quoted show, and this passage confirms:
I seem to be in a place where no real satisfaction is to be had. Since you received my letter in October last, I have not sleep'd above three or four nights in a bed, but, after walking a good deal all the day, I lay down before the fire upon a little hay, straw, fodder, or bearskin, which ever is to be had, with man, wife, and children, like a parcel of dogs and cats, and happy is he who gets the berth nearest the fire. There's nothing would make it pass off tolerably but a good reward. A doubloon is my constant gain every day that the weather will permit my going out, and sometimes six pistoles. The coldness of the weather will not allow of my making a long stay, as the lodging is rather too cold for this time of year. I have never had my clothes off but lay and sleep in them, except the few nights I have lay'n in Frederic Town.[1]
[Footnote 1: Hapgood, p, 11.]
Later, when Washington became master of Mount Vernon, his servants were properly liveried. He himself rode to hounds in the approved apparel of a fox-hunting British gentleman, and we find in the lists of articles for which he sends to London the names of clothes and other articles for Mrs. Washington and the children carefully specified with the word "fashionable" or "very best quality" added. Still later, when he was President he attended to this matter of dress with even greater punctilio.
One incident of this early period should not be passed by unmentioned. Admiral Vernon offered him an appointment as midshipman in the navy, but Washington's mother objected so strongly that Washington gave up the opportunity. We may well wonder whether, if he had accepted it, his career might not have been permanently turned aside. Had he served ten or a dozen years in the navy, he might have grown to be so loyal to the King, that, when the Revolution came, he would have been found in command of one of the King's men-of-war, ordered to put down the Rebels in Boston, or in New York. Thus Fate suggests amazing alternatives to us in the retrospect, but in the actual living, Fate makes it clear that the only course which could have happened was that which did happen.