To Washington's vision the final decisive stroke of the war, the capture of Cornwallis at Yorktown, is chiefly to be credited. With the domestic situation intensely gloomy early in 1781, he was hampered by the feebleness of Congress, the popular discouragement, and inability to rely upon prompt and strong support by the French fleet. A French army under Rocham beau having arrived to reinforce him in i78o, he pressed De Grasse to assist in an attack upon either Cornwallis at the South or Clinton in New York. In August the French admiral sent definite word that he preferred the Chesapeake, with its large area and deep water, as the scene of his operations ; and within a week, on Aug. 19, 1781, Washington marched south with his army, leaving Heath with 4,00o men to hold West Point. He hurried his troops through New Jersey, embarked them on transports in Delaware bay, and landed them at Williamsburg, Va., where he had himself arrived on Sept. 14. Cornwallis had retreated to Yorktown and en trenched his army of 7,000 British regulars. Their works were completely invested before the end of the month ; the siege was pressed with vigour by the allied armies under Washington, con sisting of 5,500 Continentals, 3,500 Virginia militia, and 5,000 French regulars; and on Oct. 2 1 , Cornwallis surrendered. By this campaign, probably the finest single display of Washington's gen eralship, the war was brought to a virtual close.
Washington remained during the winter of 1781-82 with the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, exhorting it to maintain its exertions for liberty and to settle the claims of the army and officers; exhortations which he continued after he joined his com mand at Newburgh on the Hudson in April, 1782. Suggestions at this time that he found a monarchy were brusquely repelled. When the discontent of his unpaid men came to a head in the cir- I culation of the "Newburgh address" early in 1783, he issued a general order censuring the paper, and at a meeting of officers on March 15 read a speech admonishing the army to obey Con gress and promising his best efforts for a redress of grievances. He was present at the entrance of the American army into New York on the day of Clinton's evacuation, Nov. 25, 1783, and on Dec. 4 took leave of his closest officers in an affecting scene at Fraunces' tavern. Travelling south, on Dec. 23, in a solemn ceremonial immortalized by the pen of Thackeray, he resigned his commission to the Continental Congress in the State senate cham ber of Maryland in Annapolis, and received the thanks of the nation. His accounts of personal expenditures during his service, kept with minute exactness in his own handwriting, and totalling £14,500, without charge for salary, had been given the controller of the Treasury to be discharged. Leaving Annapolis at sunrise of Dec. 24, before nightfall he was at home in Mount Vernon.
In the next four years Washington found sufficient occupation in his estates, wishing to close his days as a gentleman-farmer and giving to agriculture as much energy and thought as to the army. He enlarged the Mount Vernon house in 1786; he laid out the grounds anew, with sunken walls or ha-has; and he embarked on experiments with mahogany, palmetto, pepper, and other foreign trees, English grasses, and grains. His farm manager during the Revolution, a distant relative named Lund Washington, re tired in 1785, and was succeeded by a nephew, Maj. George Augustine Washington, who resided at Mount Vernon till his death in 1792. Washington's losses during the war had been heavy, partly through neglect of his lands, partly through stoppage of exportation, and partly through a depreciation of paper money which cost him hardly less than $30,000. He now successfully at tempted to repair his fortunes, his annual receipts from all his es tates being from $1o,000 to $15,000 a year. In 1784 he made a tour of nearly 700 miles to view the wild lands he owned to the westward, Congress having made him a generous grant. As a national figure, he was constrained to offer hospitality to old army friends, visitors from other States and nations, diplomats, and Indian delegations, and he and his household seldom sat down to dinner alone.
More Perfect Union.—Viewing the chaotic political con dition of the United States after 1783 with frank pessimism, and declaring (May 18, 1786) that "something must be done, or the fabric must fall, for it is certainly tottering," Washington re peatedly wrote his friends urging steps toward "an indissoluble union." At first he believed that the Articles of Confederation might be amended. Later, especially after the shock of Shays's Rebellion, he took the view that a more radical reform was neces sary, but doubted as late as the end of 1786 that the time was ripe. He earnestly supported the proposal for a Federal impost, warning the States that their policy must decide "whether the Revolution must ultimately be considered a blessing or a curse." His numerous letters to the leading men of the country assisted greatly to form a sentiment favourable to a more perfect union. Some understanding being necessary between Virginia and Mary land regarding the navigation of the Potomac, commissioners from the two States met at Mount Vernon in the spring of 1785; and from this seed sprang the Federal Convention. Washington ap proved in advance the call for a gathering of all the States to meet in Philadelphia in May, 1787, to "render the Constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union." Though he hoped to be excused, he was chosen one of Virginia's five delegates, arrived in Philadelphia on May 13, the day before its opening, and as soon as a quorum was obtained, was unani mously chosen its president. For four months Washington pre sided over the Constitutional Convention, breaking his silence only once upon a minor question of Congressional apportionment. But though he said little in debate no one did more outside the hall to insist on stern measures. "My wish is," he wrote, "that the convention may adopt no temporizing expedients, but probe the defects of the Constitution to the bottom, and provide a radical cure." His weight of character did more than any other single force to bring the convention to an agreement and obtain ratifica tion of the instrument afterward. He did not believe it perfect, though his precise criticisms of it are unknown. But his support gave it victory in Virginia, where he sent copies to Patrick Henry and other leaders with a hint that the alternative to adoption was anarchy; while a letter of his published in a Boston newspaper, declaring that "it or dis-union is before us to chuse from," told powerfully in Massachusetts. He received and personally circu lated copies of the Federalist. When once ratification was obtained, he wrote leaders in the various States urging that men staunchly favourable to it be elected to Congress. For a time he sincerely believed that, the new framework completed, he would be allowed to retire again to privacy. But all eyes immediately turned to him for the first president. He alone commanded the respect of both the parties engendered by the struggle over ratification, and he alone would be able to give prestige to the republic throughout Europe. In no State was any other name considered. The electors chosen in the first days of 1789 cast a unanimous vote for him, and reluctantly—for his love of peace, his distrust of his own abil ities, and his fear that his motives in advocating the new govern ment might be misconstrued all made him unwilling—he accepted. On April 16, after receiving congressional notification of the honour, he set out from Mount Vernon, reaching New York in time to be inaugurated on April 3o. This ceremony was performed in Wall Street, near the spot now marked by Ward's statue of Washington, and in the presence of a great crowd which broke into cheers as, standing on the balcony of Federal Hall, he took the oath administered by Chancellor Livingston, and retired indoors to read Congress his inaugural.