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Article: Life of George Washington.
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- April 29, 1991
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1991 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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THIS BIOGRAPHY of George Washington is not the best. Still less is it the most historically significant (that honor probably belongs to Parson Weems's). It was never even finished. But part of it was published, anonymously, in 1789; it had the sanction of its subject, who let the author live in his house and wrote several hundred words of notes and revisions to the text. It's the closest thing we have to an eighteenth-century Why Not the Best?
David Humphreys was a Connecticut Yankee (Yale class of 1774), who volunteered for the militia the year of independence. He rose through the ranks, becoming aide-de-camp successively to Israel Putnam, Nathanael Greene, ...