Martha Washington and the Revolutionary War

Eyewitness accounts of the American Revolution

James Thacher

New York Times

1969-00-00

book

eng

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)