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35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Goin' South......, November 3, 2003
This review is from: General Washington's Christmas Farewell: A Mount Vernon Homecoming, 1783 (Hardcover)
Don't be put-off by the cheesy title of this book. Yes...it's obviously a marketing ploy meant to tie in to the holiday season. In any case, Mr. Weintraub has crafted an interesting book. We follow Washington from West Point to Mount Vernon, as he tries to get home for Christmas. Most notably, he stops in New York City, Philadelphia, and Annapolis. In NYC he says farewell to his officers. He also puzzles his subordinates by going to visit a bookseller who is a known Tory sympathizer. (Unknown to Washington's underlings, the man was part of the commander-in-chief's network of spies who kept Washington informed of the goings-on in British occupied NYC.) In Philadelphia, amongst other things, Washington orders some new spectacles from the noted scientist David Rittenhouse. In Annapolis, Washington returns his commission to Congress, thus making formal his resignation from public service and return to private life. The book is only about 175 pages and can easily be read in a day or two. However, Mr. Weintraub manages to provide a lot of information. Some of it is interesting on a "serious" level - for example, we see Washington at the start of the journey insisting that his departure from public life will be permanent. He made several speeches on the way home, and he constantly stressed that Congress needed strong legislative powers so that it could hold the bickering colonies together. By the time he reached Annapolis, Washington had come to the conclusion that it was going to be an extremely difficult process to turn a loose confederation, which no longer had the "glue" of battling a common enemy , into a true nation. Washington was not being an egomaniac, just realistic, when he came to understand that he was the only person who could be a unifying force. Therefore, when he gave the speech in Annapolis in which he resigned his commission as commander-in-chief he changed the language so as to leave the door open for a later return to public service, if such a thing proved to be necessary...which it did. Washington was remarkably unambitious for someone who was held in such awe. He was, indeed, the man who could have been king. (In his own day, everyone wanted to touch him, as though he were holy. Many years later, people had relics - as though he were a saint. Lincoln had a splinter of Washington's coffin contained in a gold ring he wore. McKinley had several strands of Washington's hair.) We owe Washington an eternal debt that he turned his back on dictatorship. On the lighter side, we see Washington the man, warts and all. We see him losing his temper, we see his pride in his dancing ability, his love of fine wine, etc. We also get to hear about his expense account, where it seems as though he put down every possible item, down to the last pound, shilling, and pence. (He even included tips he had given out to people who had waited on him.) I especially enjoyed the little personal touches that Mr. Weintraub included - such as letting us know that the 6'4" Washington slept in a 6'6" bed. The author also tells us about the time that Washington fired a Mount Vernon gardener for getting drunk. Then, when the man expressed remorse and wanted his job back, Washington agreed....but he made the man sign a contract specifying that he could only get looped at certain times of the year. For example, he was allowed 4 days of drunkenness around Christmas! The book, on rare occasions, becomes tedious when Mr. Weintraub gives us excerpts from speeches delivered during the various "farewell" dinners. But, for the most part, this book will hold your interest with its nice balance between the public and the private Washington.
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Washington Astonishes the World, February 23, 2004
This review is from: General Washington's Christmas Farewell: A Mount Vernon Homecoming, 1783 (Hardcover)
Eight years of warfare finally over, in 1783, George Washington wanted to go home for Christmas. It seems the most unsurprising of desires. Washington's army had defeated that of the British Empire, and the thirteen American colonies which had declared themselves independent in 1776 had fought to make the independence real rather than merely declared. Washington saw his job as complete, and he wanted nothing more than to resign his commission and become again a Virginia gentleman farmer. The very idea was inconceivable to many. To give up all power, to become a mere citizen when he could quite easily have become king, was simply not the way the game of power was played. We are accustomed to veneration of the Father of Our Country, so Washington's service and humility might not seem so remarkable to us. But in _General Washington's Christmas Farewell: A Mount Vernon Homecoming, 1783_ (Free Press), Stanley Weintraub has, if not made us surprised at Washington's desire for retirement, then made us feel the wonder that Washington's contemporaries felt about it, and has invited us to admire a particularly likable aspect of Washington the man. Weintraub's small, concentrated book follows Washington as he proceeds south into New York City, to Annapolis, Maryland, where Congress was in session and could accept his resignation, and finally to his home. Everywhere he went, citizens who already knew him as Father of His Country were eager to see him. He would leave one village to go to the next, only to find that riders had preceded him to alert the next village to prepare for celebration. There were fireworks and dancing; Washington was an enthusiastic dancer and the ladies eagerly sought their turn with him. Many citizens wrote their compliments to him, and he had an aide to write replies. There was longwinded oratory. There were bad commemorative verses. Manliness at the time did not include an aversion to tears, and many manly tears were shed; an observer of the final farewell wrote, "And many testified their affectionate attachment to our illustrious Hero and their gratitude for his Services to his country by a most copious shedding of tears." Barrels of ale and wine were drunk, as in each gathering thirteen toasts (for the thirteen colonies) were dutifully and gleefully swallowed down. The world was astonished at Washington's self-removal from the national stage. When King George III was told in 1783 that Washington declined further power and wanted only to return to his farm, he declared, "If Washington does that, he will be the greatest man in the world." Washington would have been astonished that we have developed a governmental system where people are politicians as a lifetime occupation and profit handsomely thereby. He clearly believed in his life outside of public service, and in his privacy. His modesty is evident in that we know almost nothing of his 1783 Christmas itself. He did successfully return on Christmas Eve, but his "family Christmas remained private and almost entirely unrecorded." It was his business, and his family's, and he had gloriously, successfully, and merely temporarily, become a private man again.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Captivating and Charming, December 20, 2005
This is a wonderful retelling of George Washington's return to Mount Vernon at the end of the Revolution. It humanizes Washington like few books ever have. Mr. Wintraub even manages to build up suspense as you wonder whether ex-General Washington makes it home in time for Christmas.
This is the second Christmas-themed history by Mr. Weintraub, the other being SILENT NIGHT, about the informal truce in 1914. Each time, Mr. Weintraub brings out the significance of seemingly minor events. It is truly masterful.
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