The University-affiliated Papers of George Washington organization recently published a new volume of letters written to or by George Washington during the Revolutionary War.
The Papers of George Washington, founded by the University and the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association in 1968, is a group that attempts to collect, transcribe and annotate letters and documents related to Washington, according to Papers associate editor Edward Lengel.
The organization is "significant for historians because it is the only complete edition of Washington's papers in existence," Lengel said.
Papers editor-in-chief Theodore Crackel said the project divides the documents into five chronological periods: the colonial era, the Revolutionary War, the Confederation period, Washington's presidency and his retirement. Documents are then published in volumes within each category. The documents recently published by the association were contained in Volume 17 of the Revolutionary War series, which contains about 600 documents from a six-week period in 1778, Crackel stated.
"This volume is the newest volume in the Revolutionary War series, which is by far the biggest series," Lengel noted, adding that the Revolutionary War series is probably about two-thirds the size of the entire collection.
He also estimated that the entire collection will be finished in about 15 to 18 years.
Some of the documents in Volume 17 have already been published, but most of them have never been published before, especially those that were privately held in small libraries, Crackel noted.
"What is so different about what we do is scholarly annotation," Crackel said. "We try to explain every person, every event, every issue mentioned. We talk about them in notes so that the reader can go to the notes and get a better background about what the letter is about."
Lengel, meanwhile, emphasized the documents reveal a lot about the Revolutionary War and the country at the time.
"There are letters from frontiersmen, wealthy people, men and women, white and black," Lengel said. "It really provides a great top-to-bottom view of America in the founding era."
Lengel noted that the letters show Washington acting as a "wonderful diplomat and a wonderful manager."
According to Lengel, America and France had just become allies a few months earlier, but their relationship was not yet secure; in many of the letters Washington is shown trying to maintain the alliance between the two.
The documents also reveal Washington's "great character," Crackel asserted. He added thatWashington was very conscious of the role he was playing in history.
"Everything he [did would] be a precedent for future presidents, so he was very, very careful," Crackel said. "When you read these letters, you really begin to understand what a great man [Washington] truly was. He was honest, almost to a fault, and he wouldn't do things that he thought he shouldn't even though he wanted to."
Crackel said although such a view may appear overly positive, his work with the letters has confirmed much of what was told to him as a child about the nation's first president.
"There are always new things we learn," Crackel said, but "the impression we have of Washington being a great and honorable man is the case with very few exceptions"
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