George_Washington

George Washington Washington, George (1732-99), commander in chief of the Continental army during the American Revolution, and later the first president of the United States. He symbolized qualities of discipline, aristocratic duty, military orthodoxy, and persistence in adversity that his contemporaries particularly valued as marks of mature political leadership. Washington was born on February 22, 1732, in Westmoreland County, Virginia, the eldest son of Augustine Washington, a Virginia planter, and Mary Ball Washington. Although Washington had little or no formal schooling, his early notebooks indicate that he read in geography, military history, agriculture, deportment, and composition and that he showed some aptitude in surveying and simple mathematics. In later life he developed a style of speech and writing that, although not always polished, was marked by clarity washington, virginia, planter, military, later, lands, during, county, appointed, although, years, writing, westmoreland, western, west, valued, united, two, tall, take, symbolized, surveys, surveyor, surveying, survey, superb, summer, style, strong, states, sports, speech, son, society, social, simple