The four-volume Retirement Series covers the interval between
Washington's retirement from the presidency on 4 March 1797 and his
death on 14 December 1799. Except for a trip to Philadelphia in
1798, Washington stuck close to home, only occasionally going from
Mount Vernon into Alexandria or across the river to Georgetown and
the new Federal City. The management and improvement of his farms
at Mount Vernon were his major concern, and the pressing need for
money forced him to give particular attention to the disposition of
his large landholdings in the West. As Father of His Country he
found himself not only entertaining a constant stream of visitors
but also responding to a steady flow of letters from friends and
strangers, foreign and domestic. From the start, senators,
congressmen, Adams's cabinet members, and diplomats kept him
informed of political developments. Washington's absence from the
public stage, never much more than a fiction, came to an end in
July 1798 when his growing alarm over French policy and the bitter
divisions in the body politic arising out of it led him to accept
command of the army, with the promise to take the field in case of
a French invasion. And in 1799 Washington for the first time became
deeply involved in partisan electoral politics.
In the fall of 1798, when this volume opens, Washington was
immersed in the business of creating a military force to deal with
the threat of an all-out war with France. A clash over Alexander
Hamilton's rank in the army led Washington to contemplate
resignation of his own post as commander in chief of the army, and
the resolution of this affair brought no opportunity for rest as
Washington engaged in the tedious task offinding officers for the
new military formations. Despite all of this he still found time in
the months that followed to build houses on Capitol Hill in
Washington, D.C., seek the funds to put his financial affairs in
order, oversee the marriage of Nelly Custis to Lawrence Lewis, and
lament the divided state of American politics.
General
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