Observers noted the companionable relationship between George and Martha Washington. As Nathanael Greene informed his wife, “Mrs. Washington is excessive fond of the General and he of her . . . They are happy in each other.”⁶⁹ Mercy Warren saw how Martha’s gentle affability could “soften the hours of private life or . . . sweeten the cares of the hero and smooth the rugged pains of war.”⁷⁰ Washington seemed more relaxed in Martha’s presence, and they loved to share a humorous moment. One day eighteen-year-old Joseph White went to receive orders from Washington. He had adopted the fictitious rank of an officer, and Washington immediately detected the imposture. “Pray, sir, what officer are you?” he asked. The young man claimed to be an assistant adjutant in the artillery regiment. “Indeed,” responded Washington, “you are very young to do that duty.” “I told him I was young,” White recalled, “but was growing older every day.” He said that Washington had “turned his face to his wife and both smiled.”⁷¹

Long a wealthy woman, Martha adapted to the austere camp life and looked askance on lavish consumption. Soon after her arrival, she was invited to a fancy dress ball at a local tavern, which local radicals protested as inappropriate in wartime. Four representatives met with her and requested that she boycott the event. One recalled that Martha reacted with “great politeness” and sent her “best compliments” to the protesters, assuring them “that their sentiments on this occasion were perfectly agreeable unto her own.”⁷² The ball was canceled on the spot. While Martha Washington could have ducked the issue, saying she would consult her husband, she showed confidence in her judgment and ingratiated herself to the men. At first Washington balked at Martha’s suggestion that they celebrate their Twelfth Night anniversary, but he finally submitted and allowed a gala celebration to be held. Before long Martha took out her needles and was knitting stockings for the soldiers.

Since Washington had a good deal of entertaining to do, Martha oversaw the social side of headquarters. For morning visits, she offered oranges and wine to guests and heartier fare for midafternoon meals. At these gatherings, Washington experienced relief from his burdensome labors and enjoyed his favorite Madeira wine combined with the camaraderie of several pretty young women. A particular favorite was the fetching Caty Greene, wife of Nathanael. Washington’s fondness for the young brunette was only enhanced that February when she gave birth to a boy christened George Washington Greene. A woman of stunning good looks, the sociable Caty was coy and high-spirited. Henry Knox dismissed her as superficial, but Washington didn’t seem to care. Even as local gossips whispered about her flirting with the commander in chief, he seemed enchanted by her company and teased her good-naturedly about her “Quaker-preacher” husband.⁷³ Inasmuch as Martha was fond of the younger woman, Caty could hardly have enjoyed an illicit romance with the general.

It is testimony to Martha’s social versatility that she won over women who were far more intellectual than she. Mercy Otis Warren, a prolific bluestocking who wrote poems, plays, and histories, called on Martha, and they immediately became fast friends. As Warren reported to Abigail Adams, “I took a ride to Cambridge and waited on Mrs. Washington at 11 o’clock, where I was receiv[e]d with that politeness and respect shown in a first interview among the well bred and with the ease and cordiality of friendship of a much earlier date.”⁷⁴ Washington knew the shortcomings of Martha’s education, and when she corresponded with intellectual women such as Mercy Warren, he or a secretary would draft her replies. There’s no evidence that Martha objected to this practice and may even have felt that it spared her embarrassment.

During the long Cambridge winter, the Washingtons perceived the mythical stature that the hopeful populace was foisting upon them. A man named Levi Allen wrote to Washington, hailing him as “our political father,” and in 1778 an almanac described him as the “father of his country.”⁷⁵ A couple called the Andersons named their twins George and Martha, while three ships were christened for the general’s wife. A town in western Massachusetts renamed itself Washington. In January 1776 Washington set eyes on a fictitious engraving of himself, printed in London, by an artist who falsely claimed to have based it on an actual sitting with him. With wry amusement, Washington noted drily that the artist had created “a very formidable figure of the Commander in Chief, giving him a sufficient portion of terror in his countenance.”⁷⁶

By far the most sparkling tribute came from the pen of a young woman, Phillis Wheatley, who resided in Boston and honored Washington with a flattering ode mailed to him in late October 1775. In polished couplets reminiscent of Alexander Pope, she burnished Washington’s image: “Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side, / Thy ev’ry action let the goddess guide. / A crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine, / With gold unfading, Washington! Be thine.” The youthful poetess lauded America as “the land of freedom’s heaven-defended race!” which was the more remarkable given that Phillis Wheatley was a twenty-two-year-old slave.⁷⁷ Seized in Africa at age seven or eight, she had been sold to John Wheatley, a Boston tailor, as a personal slave for his wife. The Wheatleys recognized the girl’s gifted nature, schooled her in Scriptures and ancient classics, and allowed her to live with the family. In 1773 she published in London a collection of verse, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. The frontispiece showed an arresting picture of Wheatley in which her personality leaps out. She looks smart and self-assured, with her chin supported by her fingers and her quill poised above the page as she stares coolly into the distance. The volume made her the most celebrated black person in America.

Not until mid-December did Wheatley’s poem come to Washington’s attention, and he didn’t find time to reply until late February. His cordial, respectful letter is little short of astonishing for a large Virginia slave owner replying to a young woman in bondage. This was the same Washington who had recently reviled Lord Dunmore as diabolical for promising freedom to defecting slaves. Washington started his note by saying that he should have replied sooner. “But a variety of important occurrences, continually interposing to distract the mind and withdraw the attention, I hope will apologize for the delay and plead my excuse for the seeming, but not real, neglect. I thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of me in the elegant lines you enclosed. And however undeserving I may be of such encomium and panegyric, the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your great poetical talents.”⁷⁸ He concluded with an invitation: “If you should ever come to Cambridge or near headquarters, I shall be happy to see a person so favour[e]d by the Muses and to whom nature has been so liberal and beneficent in her dispensations. I am with great respect your obed[ien]t humble servant.”⁷⁹ This is the sort of exquisite letter that, once upon a time, Washington might have reserved for the eyes of a duchess. Few incidents in the early days of the war suggest how powerfully Revolutionary ideals were transforming George Washington as his reaction to Phillis Wheatley.

Washington considered publishing the poem, but feared it might be misinterpreted as a mark of vanity. Also the poem, with its imagery of crowns and thrones, had some uncomfortable overtones. Nevertheless Washington appears to have received Phillis Wheatley at his Cambridge headquarters in March with a “very courteous reception,” and through Joseph Reed, the poem found its way into print in April.⁸⁰ It didn’t seem to bother Washington that Wheatley was a slave, and it evidently didn’t bother Wheatley that Washington was a substantial slave owner. Certainly there were Mount Vernon slaves whom Washington knew intimately and some to whom he spoke in a friendly manner, such as Billy Lee, but he had never met any black person on such terms of social equality. That Washington appreciated Wheatley’s poetry and received her warmly showed his great potential for growth. Once again he had displayed a striking capacity to adapt to new circumstances, even though he still had an immense distance to travel on the slavery issue.