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To Mrs. Washington, & ct.
June 24, 1776
My dearest life and love,
You have hurt me, I know not how much, by the insinuation in your last, that my letters to you have lately been less frequent, because I have less concern for you. The suspicion is most unjust; -- may I not add, it is most unkind! Have we lived, now almost a score of years, in the closest and dearest conjugal intimacy to so little purpose, that, on appearance only of inattention to you, and which you might have accounted for in a thousand ways more natural and more probable, you should pitch upon that single motive which alone is injurious to me?
I have not, I own, wrote so often to you as I wished, and as I ought. But think of my situation, and then ask your heart, if I be without excuse.
We are not, my dearest, in circumstances the most favourable to our happiness; but let us not, I beseech thee, idly make them worse, by indulging suspicions and apprehensions which minds in distress are too apt to give way to.
I never was, as you have often told me, even in my better and more disengaged days, so attentive to the little punctilios of friendship, as, it maybe, became me; but my heart tells me, there was never a moment in my life, since I first knew you, in which I did not cleave and cling to you with the warmest affections… (continues…)
Now for the rest of the story…
The circumstances of which Washington writes were he was in the midst of moving the American Army from Boston to New York to prepare for the assault of 30,000 British troops! Ever the loving husband, might General Washington have had a few things to distract his attentions?
And the British were intercepting, and in this case publishing in the newspaper, Washington’s letters, so even while he was a loving husband writing home, we now know why Martha was not receiving his letters. Could this letter or others like it be why Martha burned near all their letters after he died?
Yet most important is how did Martha respond to her husband’s gentle chiding?
A “Lady Washington” song (recorded by Captain George Bush) tells that Martha left Mount Vernon and went to be with her beloved husband George at his winter encampment headquarters. While there Martha darned the socks, mended the uniforms, and nursed the sick soldiers. Martha showed signs of becoming a Biblical curse – “a nagging woman” (Proverbs 19:13, 21:9), yet instead became a Proverbs 31 “First Lady”!
This letter was discovered in the Rare Books Room of the Library of Congress on 12 February a.d. 2003, by George Washington scholar and historic interpreter James Renwick Manship, Sr., two days before he gave a “Love of Country” talk for Saint Valentine’ Day dinner.
-- For more information, please mail to: George@WashingtonLIVES.us or go to the website: StatesManship.US.
Journals of other Lady Patriots describe what a wonderful woman was the Lady Washington!
Click on the song sheet image and read the text in the middle to see what other ladies said of the lady who became America's first First Lady!
[Click on image, and Click Again to Enlarge and Magnify so you can carefully read the text. Right Click on the image, and you may be able to save to your computer and enlarge even further.]
See this song written by an officer who served his country faithfully in war, ...
Captain George Bush.
(Isn't History fun, even a bit funny?)
[Oh by the way, this George Bush passed from this world without ever having a wife so not a direct descendent of the current well known "George W." -- see the bumper sticker below on that theme...]
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