George Washington is lauded as a war hero, founding father, and inspiring exemplar. But before that, he was a vain, temperamental, inexperienced, headstrong young man whose blunders cost lives. What can we learn from young Washington?
Of course, America’s first president adorns U.S. currency. The nation’s capital and a state bear his name. His strategic decisions and inspiring leadership helped defeat Britain and form a new nation, free from royal control, governed by the people.
Young Washington illustrates that greatness can emerge from stumbling chaos.
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The cast includes Oscar winner Ben Kingsley (Gandhi), Mary-Louise Parker (The West Wing), Andy Serkis (Animal Farm), Kelsey Grammer (Frasier, Jesus Revolution), and Joel David Smallbone (Unsung Hero).
The mid-18th century North American territorial and political landscape was dominated by the French, British, Spanish, and multiple indigenous tribes, variously allied with the European powers.
Washington originally envisioned a vocation as a gentleman farmer, but his older half-brother Lawrence’s successful military career inspired George to follow suit. Disputes between the British and French over the Ohio territory necessitated communicating British territorial claims to French authorities. Ambitious George Washington, age 21, volunteered, despite lacking significant diplomatic or military experience.
In December 1753, he delivered a letter requesting the French vacate, which the French rebuffed. What followed revealed how inexperience and undeveloped character can produce disaster.
Historian Peter Stark characterizes young Washington as “ambitious, temperamental, vain, thin-skinned, petulant, awkward, demanding, stubborn, annoying, hasty, passionate.” Stark continues that Washington had “not yet learned to cultivate his image or contain his emotions … [he was] a raw young man struggling toward maturity. … Emotional neediness, personal ambition, and mistakes—many mistakes” were his.
The film skillfully portrays his shortcomings and maturation. University of Tennessee historian Christopher Magra explains several of Washington’s early flaws and lessons he learned.
In May 1754, Washington, then 22, and his troops ambushed a French military unit. His Native American allies executed a French commander carrying a diplomatic message asserting France’s territorial claims. Magra says Washington “lacked the ability to manage the volatile intercultural alliances necessary for frontier warfare.”
In pursuing the French, Washington was significantly outnumbered. The French and their Native American allies retaliated and Washington surrendered. Scholars credit this diplomatic failure with igniting the French and Indian War, which lasted seven years and became global.
Gathering reinforcements would have been prudent. Washington’s aggression trumped caution when the latter was needed, sparking a major war.
At his 1754 surrender, he signed a French-language document containing the word “l’assassinat” (assassination), implying he had ordered the French commander’s assassination. (Washington did not read French.) France used this as propaganda. Lesson: Nuances matter in diplomacy. Take time to get it right.
Magra concludes that “the hard lessons Washington learned … in 1754 provided the foundational experience for his later role as commander in chief of the Continental Army.”
As the United States approaches its 250th birthday on July 4, many emphasize prayer and giving thanks for divine protection all these years.
Washington told Congress that “the patronage of heaven” sustained him and his army through the Revolutionary War, and commended “our dearest country to the protection of Almighty God.”
He also advocated religious liberty. In a 1790 letter to the Hebrew congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, he affirmed the U.S. government “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”
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He continued: “May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants. … May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.”
Young Washington grew up, to a nation’s — and a world’s — gain.
Rusty Wright is an author and lecturer who has spoken on six continents. He holds Bachelor of Science (psychology) and Master of Theology degrees from Duke and Oxford universities, respectively.