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"He Died as He Lived": A New Look at the Death of George Washington
From: Columbia University
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Peter Henriques |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
George Washington is widely remembered as the leader who won independence for America and founded the country's government. Yet his life after his retirement from office and the story of his courage during his final hours are less often talked about. In a lecture given at Columbia University, Peter Henriques addresses Washington's personal and private life and his views about death, religion and an afterlife. |
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Portrait of George Washington, by Gilbert Stuart, c. 1795-1800.
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 arch 4, 1797, was a memorable day for George Washington. John Adams was sworn in as the country's second president. Finally, after almost 20 years of constant and exhausting service to his country, George Washington was retiring from public life and returning to his beloved Mount Vernon. |
A mind constantly on the stretch, as he put it, with little relaxation, would at last be employed in pursuits of Washington's choosing. His joy was scarcely containable. John Adams later wrote his wife, "Washington seemed to me to enjoy a triumph over me. Me thought I heard him say, ah, I am fairly out, and you are fairly in. See which of us will be the happiest." If ever a man earned and deserved a happy and rewarding retirement, and a calm and peaceful death, that man was George Washington. |
Washington's final retirement, however, turned out very different from what he had hoped. Political partisanship grew ever more intense and greatly worried the master of Mount Vernon, who became increasingly convinced that the Republican Party of Jefferson and Madison might risk the safety and well-being of the country for their own narrow partisan gains. The growing partisanship was intricately connected with what appeared to be an equally great threat to the new nation's security when revolutionary France virtually declared war upon the young republic. George Washington found it impossible to simply view these results and developments as an observer. |
Like an old warhorse, Washington responded to the alarm of danger to his beloved country by springing into action, and he was soon appointed lieutenant general. Once again he was in command of American forces. Obviously, that war did not develop, so he never actually took the field. Yet Washington would not simply sit quietly under his own vine and fig tree (as he called it), calmly awaiting the end of his days; days of which, he constantly reminded his correspondence--and himself--there could not be many. Washington often mused about the relatively short span of time he believed he had left on this earth. "My thread is almost spun; my days are almost over; I am at the bottom of the hill," he said. |
Nevertheless, death was unlikely to have been on Washington's mind as he went out to check on his farms, as was his habit, on Thursday, December 12, 1799. His recent health had never been better. He had been making various plans for an active future. That day he remained outside for approximately five hours, despite the fact that--as he recorded in his journal, which he kept faithfully--the weather was very disagreeable, a constant fall of rain, snow and hail, with a high wind. While getting wet and chilled from the snow and sleet and rain, with snow still clinging to his hair and coat, Washington decided not to change his clothes before dinner that December 12. |
Already beginning to show signs of a cold and sore throat the next day, a Friday morning 200 years ago, and despite continued bad weather, which included sleet, he went out briefly in the afternoon to mark some trees that he wished to have cut down. By evening he was very hoarse but still in good spirits. He insisted on reading sections of the newspaper out loud to his wife, Martha, and his private secretary, Tobias Lear, who was a major source of information about Washington's final illness. |
By the early hours of Saturday morning, the 14th, the disease had progressed so rapidly that Washington awoke feverish, very uncomfortable, and with labored breathing. He would be dead before the day ended. |
The general's painful malady
Accounts of George Washington's death uniformly downplay the horrific nature of his illness and the amount of suffering that he had to endure. It is, of course, impossible at this late date to assert with certainty exactly what malady struck the general. However, the latest and most convincing medical studies indicate that George Washington died from acute epiglottitis, caused by a virulent bacteria. |
The epiglottis is a structure at the base of the tongue at the entrance of the larynx, or voice box, and in an infection it can swell up very dramatically. Washington's symptoms are a textbook case of acute epiglottitis. While the pain is intense, the truly frightening aspect of acute epiglottitis is the obstruction of the larynx, which makes both breathing and swallowing extremely difficult. The first things that we learn to do as infants is to breathe, and the second is to swallow. To have these two absolutely basic functions dramatically impaired is very frightening to anyone, no matter how brave and courageous he or she might be. |
Like any mortal, Washington had to face the terror of struggling and gasping for each breath. His constant restlessness and changing of positions throughout the day was part of his endless effort to meet this most basic of needs. Essentially, he was slowly choking to death. There was not one thing done either for or to Washington during his illness that was not done in love and with the very best of intentions. Yet, tragically, virtually every single action, in fact, compounded his suffering and perhaps hastened his demise. Even simple ministrations almost proved fatal. As Lear recounted, a mixture of molasses, vinegar and butter was prepared to try its effect on the throat, but he could not swallow a drop. Whenever he attempted it he appeared to be distressed, then convulsed and nearly suffocated. |
This reaction was caused by the swollen epiglottis, which blocked the mixture from going into the esophagus. And, of course, some of it had to go into his windpipe, triggering what doctors called a laryngospasm. When food or water goes down the wrong pipe, one chokes and coughs because the larynx immediately goes into sustained, spastic closure to prevent the inhalation of foreign substances into the lungs. During this laryngospasm air can neither enter nor exit the lung. It is an uncomfortable feeling under normal circumstances, but it can be fatal when the airway is already partially compromised and breathing and swallowing are impaired. |
During the course of approximately 10 hours, George Washington was bled four different times, losing approximately five pints--more than 80 ounces--of blood. This was between a third and half of his total blood volume. Of course, the theory of phlebotomy was to remove the diseased matter from the body. And practitioners believed that the blood would be restored within hours. In fact, such excessive bloodletting severely weakened Washington. In addition to weakening him, the aggressive treatment compromised his circulation. |
In acute epiglottitis,
 it is difficult to inhale and receive sufficient oxygen. The epiglottis acts like a ball valve, and as the patient tries to breathe in it closes up and makes a strident whistling noise, and it is extremely difficult for the patient to get sufficient air. As a result, the patient suffers from what doctors call hypoxia, or insufficient oxygenation of the blood. The very significant loss of blood further reduced his oxygen-carrying capacity, as the hemoglobin in the blood carries the oxygen and his blood supply was dramatically reduced. |
The use of purgatives significantly reduced Washington's bodily fluids and exacerbated the situation by further compromising his circulation. Not only did the purgatives compromise circulation, they inflicted additional suffering as well. Repeated doses of emetic tartar were given to induce vomiting. Large amounts of calomel, a white, tasteless medicine with mercurial properties used as a purgative, were given as well as an injection. The result was a "copious" discharge of the bowels. |
How much discomfort these actions would have caused a man who was struggling for each and every breath is easier to imagine than it is to describe. The room must have reeked of blood and excretions and sweat. The extreme difficulty of speaking and making his wishes known added to Washington's agony. As the doctors later reported, speaking, which was painful from the beginning, now became almost impractical--almost, but not quite. Washington somehow managed, through a remarkable display of willpower and self-control, to summon up the strength to communicate his most pressing thoughts to those around him. |
Strength in the face of adversity
His communication that fateful day, both by word and action, reveal a great deal about the man and his character. In the words of his secretary, Tobias Lear, "He died as he lived." |
One of Washington's most endearing traits is that he combined a sense of power with a sense of diffidence, hesitation, doubt, shyness. George Washington was a remarkable man. He knew he was a remarkable man. And he was revered by the American people as an almost godlike figure. He was feted, praised, honored and almost worshipped, in a way no other American has been. Nevertheless, Washington never lost sight of the shared sense of humanity. In Robert Frost's words, George Washington was "one of the few, in the whole history of the world, who was not carried away by power." |
His diffidence and his shyness allowed him to keep a healthy psyche, to not let the constant adulation go to his head. He never saw himself as intrinsically superior to others. This basic respect and concern for others, combined with his charisma and his power, were two of the keys to his success as a leader. This concern for and sensitivity to others was not a thin veneer used to put on, to please or to deceive the people; it was an essential part of Washington's persona. So integral to his character that even in the midst of a mortal and very painful illness, he demonstrated it a number of times. |
When he woke up with labored breathing and high fever, Martha wanted to summon help, to get out of bed and find a servant. Washington refused to allow her to do this. She was recovering from a serious illness herself, and he was worried. Even with the danger to his own health, he did not want to risk a setback for his wife. When his overseer was summoned to bleed the general, the man was nervous and anxious about performing such an operation on his illustrious employer. But George Washington reassured him: "Don't be afraid." |
In the course of the long and agonizing day, Washington consistently apologized to those trying to care for him and ease his suffering for the trouble that he was causing them. He apologized, for example, to Lear, who was helping him move to different positions in the desperate quest to find sufficient oxygen, worrying that the effort would fatigue Lear. He even urged his personal body servant, a slave named Christopher Shields, who had been standing by his bed throughout the day, to sit down. How many powerful leaders, in the midst of an excruciating terminal illness, would either notice or be concerned with the fact that a personal servant had been standing on his feet for most of the day? Such actions speak volumes about Washington's character. |
Equally striking as his concern for those around him was Washington's remarkable ability to remain awesomely organized to the end. Order, for Washington, was like a salve. Doctors Craik and Dick reported that during the period of his illness he economized his time in the arrangement of such few concerns as required his attention. His ability to do this while suffering was remarkable. |
Washington was a man who strove to be in control. To someone who wants to be in control, this disease must have been even that much more challenging and frightening. As he once wrote his nephew, "Time is limited, every hour misspent is lost forever." Washington drove himself, and he drove those around him. And while George Washington's overriding concern had always been amor patriae, love of one's country, he devoted as much time as possible to his personal interests. |
Honor and courage
Washington firmly believed that all men, himself included, were driven by both interest and honor. And while the latter was always the more important to him, Washington was not an altruist unconcerned with his own interests. The result of his drive and ability had been the amassing of a considerable personal fortune, making Washington one of the richest men in America. |
What he had acquired with ambition and protected with zeal he would distribute with infinite care. The end result was a remarkably detailed will that he drew up during the summer months of 1799. As he wanted to do it, he wrote a letter as he contemplated his death. His greatest anxiety was to leave all his affairs in such a clear and distinct form that "no reproach may attach itself to me when I have taken my departure for the land of spirits." |
Late on the afternoon of December 14, Washington knew his departure was at hand. He asked his secretary to have Martha go to his study and retrieve two wills from his desk. When she returned with the wills, the general indicated which was the operative one and requested that the other one be burned, which she did. |
Having taken care of the will, Washington then proceeded to make his longest recorded speech on his deathbed. Speaking to Lear, he said, "Do you arrange and record all my late military letters and papers, arrange my accounts, and settle my books, as you know more about them than anyone else. And let Mr. Rowlands finish recording my other letters, which he has began." |
It is not coincidental that George Washington's longest speech, when speech was so difficult, involved concern with his personal papers. He was, from the first, fascinated with the record of his own existence. In Professor William Abbott's words, "Washington had an uncommon awareness of self." What he decided and what he did, and how others perceived his decisions and deeds, always mattered. This extreme interest and concern for his papers was closely connected with Washington's desire for fame and secular immortality, which were driving forces in his actions. The words of Shakespeare about Henry V could apply to Washington: "If it be a sin to covet honor, he was the most offending soul alive." A profound concern for his historical reputation was a major aspect of Washington's personality. |
He strongly desired that in facing death he would do nothing to sully the reputation he had spent a lifetime building. The authors of a major biography of Washington emphasized another aspect of his character. The same self-discipline served Washington as a patient that had served him as a planter, as commander in chief and as president: duty. Duty was his governing principal. And this time his duty was to let the doctors do what they might for him, even though he felt there was no chance of recovery. Duty and courage were bywords for Washington, and he lived up to his creed. |
Throughout the entire ordeal he displayed remarkable fortitude and patience. Grace in the presence of mortal danger comprised a key part of Washington's code of honor. And the ultimate test of honor was courage in the face of death. As far as the record demonstrates, Washington was one of those few men to whom death personally held no terror. The words of Shakespeare again, this time from Julius Caesar, describing the valiant men: "Cowards die many times before their death, the valiant never taste of death but once." |
From whatever source it emanated, Washington's calmness and courage in the face of danger was awe-inspiring to his contemporaries. His legendary courage as commander in chief of the continental army might have worried his aids, but it inspired his men. His action at Princeton and Monmouth, his response to the falling shells at Yorktown, cool like a bishop at prayer, demonstrated a character that was seemingly immune from normal fear in the presence of death. So great was his courage that even his harshest critics never brought it into question. |
A stoic hero
Washington's courage in the face of death is indisputable. The source of that courage is more controversial. To better understand it, a very brief look at the death of Virginia's other great popular figure of the eighteenth century, Patrick Henry, who died in the same year, is instructive. |
Henry, suffering from severe intestinal blockage, met his death in June of 1799, with the courage of a convinced Christian. More than a decade earlier, Henry had written his sister, on the death of her husband, "This is one of those trying scenes in which the Christian is eminently superior to all others and finds a refuge which no misfortune can take away." Facing his own imminent demise, Henry used his courage in the face of death as further proof of the truth of the Christian religion. His wife recounted his death scene to their daughter: "He met his death with firmness, and in full confidence that through the merits of a bleeding savior, his sins would be pardoned." |
Although the records of Washington's final hours are much more comprehensive than those of Henry, they leave a different picture. While no one can know what Washington was thinking on this subject on December 14, the complete lack of religious context is striking. According to the extant record of Washington's final hours, there was no reference to any religious words or prayers, no request for forgiveness, no fear of divine judgment, no call for a minister (although ample time existed to call one if desired), no deathbed farewell, no promise or hope of meeting again in heaven. |
It is significant that Tobias Lear ends his own personal journal of Washington's death with the explicit hope that, Lear writes, he will meet Washington again in heaven. But a sense of fidelity to a true record kept him from putting such words into Washington's mouth. Perhaps Washington did not take a special leave of any of the family because, as a relative wrote, he had frequently disapproved of "the afflicting farewells which aggravated sorrows on those melancholy occasions." |
But sure words of hope of future reunion, if honestly voiced, would have given comfort to those left behind. On this point, the privately voiced query of the Reverend Samuel Miller, later one of his eulogists, is particularly pertinent. Miller wrote, "How is it possible," he, "for a true Christian, in the full exercise of his mental faculties, to die without one expression of distinctive belief or Christian hope?" |
George Washington did not draw his courage from a Christian idea of redemption in the hope of eternal bliss through the sacrifice of Christ. Rather, I think, he drew it from a number of sources: from a stoical courage; from a strong desire to play his last role on earth's stage in a praiseworthy fashion and to die a heroic death; from confidence in his own virtue; from an effort to live by the highest ideals; and, certainly not to be discounted, from a trust in a rather vague but all-powerful and benign providence that controlled human destiny. |
In classic Stoicism, the true Stoic may fall victim to circumstances beyond his control, suffer and perhaps die. But his superior control over his passions calls forth admiration and leads to the reaffirmation of the dignity of man. Such control enabled Washington to reassure his close friend Dr. Craik, "I die hard, but I am not afraid to go." In the words of the musical "Les Miserables," based on Victor Hugo's epic novel, "There are storms that we cannot weather." The losing struggle for oxygen and the corresponding buildup of carbon dioxide ultimately overwhelmed the great general. |
As Washington lapsed into unconsciousness, he closed his eyes, his hand that had been taking his pulse fell to his side, his countenance changed and Washington expired "without a struggle or a sigh." The great body, which had endured so much, the great mind so steady in its operations, so sure in its conclusions, was stilled. |
Here was no more than an empty vessel, drained for the subsistence of a nation. Quoting Jefferson, who quoted the Bible: "Verily this day a great man has fallen in Israel." Certainly, the loss was irreparable to the nation. But the fact that such an individual had lived at all was, and is, comforting and ennobling. The Right Reverend Bishop Carroll asserted, while Washington lived, that "we seemed to stand on loftier ground, for breathing the same air, inhabiting the same country, and enjoying the same constitution and laws as the sublime and magnanimous Washington." |
Not only while he lived but even after his death, all Americans stand on loftier ground because of the fact that such a man as George Washington actually lived and is the father of their country. If ever a man deserved secular immortality and eternal remembrance from a grateful nation, that man was George Washington. |
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