Fields, Joseph E. 'Worthy Partner': The Papers of Martha Washington. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994

Washington Headquarters Library, Department of the Interior

My Dear Sister                         Cambridge January the 31,1776

I have wrote to you several times in hopes that would put you in mind of me but I find it has not had its intended affect and I am really very uneasy at not hearing from you and have made all the excuses for you that I can think of but it will not doe much longer if I doe not get a letter by this nights post I shall think myself quite forgot by all my Freinds The distance is long yet the post comes in very regularly every week --

The General myself and Jack are very well Nelly Custis is I hope getting well again, and I beleive is with child, I hope noe accident will happen to her in going back I have not thought much about it yet god knows whare we shall be I suppose thare will be a change soon but how I cannot pretend to say - A few days a goe Gen. Clinton, with several companyes Sailed out of Boston Harbor to what place distant for, we cannot find out. some think it is to Virginia he is gon, others to New York -they have been keept in Boston so long that I suppose they will be glad for a place where they may have more room as they cannot get out anyway here but by water - our navey has been very successful in taking thair vessels two was taken last week loded with coles and potatoes wines & several other articles for the use of the troops - If General Clinton is gon to New York, - General Lee is there before him and I hope will give him a very warm reception, - he was sent thare some time a goe to have matters put in proper order in case any disturbance should happen, as thare are many Tories in that part of the world or at least many are susspected thare to be unfreindly to our cause at this time - winter hear has been so remarkable mild the Rivers has never been frozen hard enough to walk upon the Ice since I came heer, My Dear sister be so good as to remember me to all enquireing friends - give my Duty to my mam(ma) and love to my brothers and sisters Mr Bassett your Dear Children and self - in which the General Jack and Nelly joins me.

I am my Dear Nancy
your ever effectionate sister
Martha Washington

(Address)
To Mrs. Bassett
at
Eltham
to ye care of
Randolph Esq
Feb 24, 1776
Reed last night
and (missing)

Autograph Letter Signed

Fields, Joseph E. 'Worthy Partner': The Papers of Martha Washington. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994.

Massachusetts Historical Society

                                          Cambridge, January the 8th 1776

Mrs. Washington presents her respectfull compliments to Mrs Warren, and thanks her most cordially for her polite enquire, and exceeding kind offer - If the Exigency of affairs in this camp should make it necessary for her to remove, she cannot but esteem it a happiness to have so friendly an Invitation as Mrs Warren has given. In the meanwhile, Mrs Washington cannot help wishing for an oppertunity of shewing every civility in her power to Mrs Warren, at Head Quarters in Cambridge -

The General begs that his best regards may be presented to Mrs Warren, accompanied with his sincear thanks for her favourable wishes for his honour and success; and joins in wishing Mrs Warren - the speaker - and thair Family, every happiness that is, or can be derived from a speedy, and honourable peace

(address leaf)
To Mrs. Warren
at
Plymouth

(Docket)
Mrs Washington
Cambridge 8th Jany
1776

Autograph Letter Signed

Washington and Wife Visiting the Troops at Valley Forge, on Christmas Day 1777.. Print. Philadelphia: Breuker & Kessler, 1871. Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History.

Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History

print

10 x 15 1/2 in

Mrs. General Washington, Bestowing Thirteen Stripes on Britania [sic]. Etching and engraving. London: The Rambler's Magazine, April 1, 1783. The New York Public Library, C.W. McAlpin Collection.

New York Public Library

newspaper cartoon

Chastellux, Francois Jean. Travels in North America in the Years 1780, 1781, and 1782. New York: A.M. Kelley, 1970.

“[November 30, 1780, Philadelphia]…I found there Mrs. Washington, who had just arrived from Virginia, and was on her way to join her husband, as she does at the end of every campaign. She is about forty or forty-five, rather plump, but fresh and with an agreeable face….” (1:134)

“[About 1782] I had the pleasure of passing a day or two with Mrs. Washington, at the general’s house in Virginia, where she appeared to me to be one of the best women in the world, and beloved by all about her….” (1:298-299)

journal

Drinker, Elizabeth Sandwich. Elaine Forman Crane, ed. The Diary of Elizabeth Drinker: The Life Cycle of an Eighteenth-Century Woman. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1994.

“[4/6/1778] left J. Roberts after Breakfast, and proceeded on to the American Picket guard, who upon hearing that we were going to head-quarters, sent 2 or 3 to guard us further on to another guard where Colll. Smith gave us a pass for Head Quarters where we arriv’d at about ½ past one; requested an audience with the General—set with his Wife, (a sociable pretty kind of Woman) until [sic] he came in; a number of Officers there, who were very complient, Tench Tillman, among the rest, it was not long before GW. came [sic] and discoursd [sic] with us freely, but not so long as we could have wish’d, as dinner was serv’d in, to which he had invited us, there was 15 of the Officers besides the General and his Wife, Gen. Green, and G. Lee we had an eligant [sic] dinner, which was soon over; when we went out with the General Wife up to her Chamber, and saw no more of him….” (297)

diary

Berkin, Carol. Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America's Independence. New York: Knopf, 2005.

Thacher, James. Military Journal of the American Revolution. New York: New York Times, 1969.

“[Middlebrook, New Jersey] Yesterday [Thursday, 2/25/1779] I accompanied Major Cavil to head quarters, and had the honor of being numbered among the guests at the table of his Excellency, with his lady, two young ladies from Virginia, the gentlemen who compose his family, and several other officers.…Mrs. Washington combines in an uncommon degree, great dignity of manner with the most pleasing affability, but possesses no striking marks of beauty. I learn from the Virginia officers that Mrs. Washington has ever been honored as a lady of distinguished goodness, possessing all the virtues which adorn her sex, amiable in her temper and deportment, full of benignity, benevolence and charity, seeking for objects of affliction and poverty, that she may extend to the sufferers the hand of kindness and relief. These surely are the attributes which reveal a heart replete with those virtues which are so appropriate and estimable in the female character….” (152-153)

Marquis de Lafayette, and Stanley J. Idzerda, ed. Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution: Selected Letters and Papers, 1776-1790. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977.

“…Several general officers have brought their wives to camp, and I am very envious, not of their wives [who are rather dull], but of the pleasure they have in being able to see them. General Washington has also just decided to send for his wife, a modest and respectable person, who loves her husband madly….” (1: 225)

26. From: The Marquis de Lafayette to Adrienne de Noailles de Lafayette, 8/20/1784, in Stanley J. Idzerda and others, editors, Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution: Selected Letters and Papers, 1776-1790, Volume 5 (Ithaca, New York, and London: Cornell University Press, 1983), 237-238.
“Though I do not know if my letter will reach you, my dear heart, I had to write you that I am at Mount Vernon and that I am reveling in the happiness of finding my dear general again…I arrived here on the seventeenth…To describe to you the life that we lead here, I shall tell you that after breakfast the general and I chat together for some time. After having thoroughly discussed the past, the present, and the future, he withdraws to take care of his affairs and gives me things to read that have been written during my absence. Then we come down for dinner and find Mrs. Washington with visitors from the neighborhood. The conversation at table turns to the events of the war or to anecdotes that we are fond of recalling. After tea we resume our private conversations and pass the rest of the evening with the family. That, my dear heart, is how we spend our time, and we often talk of you, of our children, and of anything that has to do with the family. There are in the house two small children of Mrs. Washington, who you know was married once before. The general has adopted them and loves them with great tenderness. It was rather amusing, when I arrived, to see the curiosity of these two little ones, who had heard me spoken of all day and were very anxious to see if I looked like my portrait. The general read with great pleasure your letter and Anastasie’s. I have been asked to send the fondest regards from the whole household, and Mrs. Washington was saying the other day that since they were old, we must not defer the pleasure they would have in entertaining you and our whole little family here. On my earlier trip, my dear heart, I made the most solemn promise to bring you with me.”

Bakker, William Spohn. Itinerary of General Washington from June 15, 1775 to December 23, 1783. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1892.

“I have lately been several times invited abroad with the General and Mrs. Washington. He always inquires after you in the most affectionate manner, and speaks of you highly. We danced at Mrs. [Elizabeth Willing] Powell’s your birthday [January 6, (O.S.) 1706], or night I should say, in company together, and he told me it was the anniversary of his marriage [January 6, (N.S.) 1759]; it was just twenty years that night.” (149)

“Tuesday morning [February 2], His Excellency General Washington set off from Philadelphia to join the army in New Jersey. During the course of his short stay (the only relief he has enjoyed from service since he first entered into it), he has been honored with every mark of esteem which his exalted qualities as a gentleman and a citizen entitle him to. His Excellency’s stay was rendered the more agreeable by the company of his lady, and the domestic retirement which he enjoyed at the house of the Honorable Henry Laurens, Esquire, with whom he resided.” (151)