The Young George Washington in Psychobiographical Perspective

From a personality standpoint there appear to have been two George Washingtons: pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary. The pre-revolutionary Washington had a grandiose personality, preoccupied with his honor, dignity, and reputation, and obsessed with acquisition of material wealth, especially land. Having won the Revolutionary War and served two terms as president, Washington underwent a transformation by becoming generous, magnanimous, and judicious. Since the literature on post-revolutionary Washington is voluminous, the present work focuses on pre-revolutionary Washington and his strengths, weaknesses and foibles, and specifically the conditions, forces, events, and persons that shaped his personality and drove him to action. The resulting portrait is a careful, accurate, and realistic one, intended to counterbalance the numerous adulatory and superhuman accounts. Part One is an interpretive essay drawing on Washington's writings in an abbreviated fashion, presenting only the most operative or strategic passages. Part Two consists of a series of appendices that place these passages in broader contexts and allow Washington to speak for himself. In presenting Washington's writings, spelling, grammar, punctuation, capitalization, italics, the editor's brackets have been left intact: they are exact reproductions from the sources indicated.