INTRODUCTORY NOTE

For the past century all we have known of the George Washington manuscripts has been the less than fifty per cent of them that have been published since his death. The first extensive publication was by Jared Sparks, president of Harvard College, in 1834-1837, in twelve volumes, and the second by Worthington C. Ford, in 1889-1893, in fourteen volumes. Sparks printed upwards of twenty-five hundred letters and documents; Ford, by eliminating many that Sparks printed, and including new material, added about five hundred to the total, so that both Ford and Sparks together have published from three to four thousand only of Washington's letters. (An actual count of the total number of letters and documents written or signed by Washington has never been made, but a conservative estimate would place the number at from eight to ten thousand.) Neither of these editions is satisfactory, though they have been for years the available basis of our knowledge of George Washington. Ford's work was hampered by the exigencies of commercial restrictions. Sparks suffered from an editorial hypnosis to which it is unnecessary now to call attention, as his peculiar theory of editing aroused controversy at the time and has been thoroughly discredited. It is hopelessly at variance with accepted canons of historical ethics. A comparison of the textual exactness of this Bicentennial Edition with any of the important letters printed in Sparks

will make the matter clear. Fifty-two years after Sparks came Ford's new edition of Washington's Writings, free from Sparks's editorial tampering with the original text. This edition, though but two volumes more than Sparks's, because of a closer adherence to the originals, a judicious selection, and inclusion of additional material, became at once the standard. Practically all of the published biographies of Washington have been based upon this less than fifty per cent of Washington's writings and not upon research in his surviving manuscripts. The lives of Washington by John Marshall, Jared Sparks, Washington Irving, and Worthington C. Ford are about the only biographies that have been prepared from Washington's original papers. A number of valuable studies of special phases of Washington's activities have been published in recent years, based upon painstaking research among the original records; but, in general, the numerous lives of our First American are the product of a complacent examination of the letters printed by Sparks and Ford.

The present publication of WASHINGTON'S WRItings by the United States Bicentennial Commission on the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of George Washington is a fulfillment of the fundamental purpose of the Commission to develop a clearer understanding, realization, and knowledge of George Washington by making available all of his essential writings, unhampered by the commercial limitations necessarily existent in all private publishing enterprises. Practically all of the letters printed by Sparks and Ford are included herein, and corrected by the original texts.

All of Washington's general orders of the Revolutionary War are included in this Bicentennial Edition. Only a small number of the orders have been heretofore published, in widely separated places, and this complete publication of them

chronologically with the letters presents a clearer picture of the military side of the Revolution.

Extra care has been taken where these originals are in Washington's handwriting, and such documents are starred (*). Where letters are in draft form and in the writing of a secretary, alterations made by Washington therein are duly noted. Strict adherence to the original text has disclosed new and valuable information as to Washington's character upon which it is not the province of the editor to enlarge; but he ventures to call attention to one of many interesting developments: In a number of the Colonial-period letters, dealing with various military difficulties, tobacco shipments and sales, will be found an intensity of feeling which interferes with Washington's clarity of expression, while the letters devoted to less moving subjects are not so drivingly reckless of syntax.

Few established facts of history will be greatly disturbed by this comprehensive publication, but the new information as to Washington's personality, found in these hitherto unpublished letters, and bringing those formerly published into exact textual accord with the originals, discloses how far afield biographers of Washington have wandered. Even in so small a point as spelling, this publication will furnish instructive study to those who wish to follow Washington's progressive improvement, not only in etymology but in syntax as well. Criticism of Washington's spelling, like other criticism of the man, is due to lack of knowledge of the facts. The worst spelling will be found in the Colonial letters, but even a superficial examination of the letters of his contemporaries will show that Washington, while no better a speller, was often no worse than his friends. Governors of Virginia, such as Dinwiddie and Fauquier, British generals like Forbes and Sir John St. Clair, the Speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses, Jefferson, and