George Washington (almost) died here
In superhero cartoons on TV, the monster confronts the hero and the show pauses for a commercial. When the show resumes, the monster is still waving his arms and growling and the hero is contemplating his next move. Such is the pace of “The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington.”
Brad Meltzer, the co-author whose name is above the title on the book cover, writes thrillers and comic books. He and his co-author, Josh Mensch, collaborated on the History Channel’s “Brad Meltzer’s Lost History,” and Mr. Mensch has written, directed or managed other TV stories on the History Channel, PBS and Nat Geo.
In “The First Conspiracy,” they succeed in animating the stiff and proper George Washington by giving us a peek into his times. Washington was not a good tactician nor a successful soldier. He was, rather, a man of discipline, integrity and charisma, dedicated to the American cause. The authors winnow through young Washington’s upbringing, about which little is known. They skate lightly over his father’s position as a Virginia slave plantation owner, rich in land but not wealthy by the standards of the day.
Washington’s father died when the boy was 11, and one of his much older halfbrothers, Lawrence, commander of the Virginia militia, took young George under his wing. Lawrence had married into the prestigious Fairfax family, which the book does not mention, and introduced Washington to high culture and social graces. George’s education was not up to the caliber of other boys of his class, and he never attended college. The book omits many details of Washington’s early life, focusing instead on his later achievements and the regard in which he held his brother. More detail on the influence of the Fairfaxes and other family relatives in shaping Washington’s character and promoting his career would have shed more light on the future first president.
When tuberculosis eroded Lawrence’s health, young George accompanied him to Barbados in the West Indies, a climate thought better for Lawrence’s condition. There, George contracted smallpox, which conferred later immunity to him, extremely useful in crowded barracks during an age of deadly epidemics. Lawrence died at age 34 shortly after returning home, and George would eventually inherit his brother’s property, including the Mount Vernon estate.
George Washington wanted to enter the British Navy after his half-brother’s death, but his mother would not allow him, a detail that, while not critical to the narrative, is one of the few mentions of his mother’s influence in his life. Instead, he applied for his brother’s position in the militia, which he was granted without his having had any prior military experience or relevant education.
In briefly outlining Washington’s early life, the authors missed an opportunity to paint a broader portrait of Washington. Their two-page account feels rushed. They do not delve at all into Washington’s early military service, particularly not the Fort Necessity debacle in which Washington’s men slaughtered some French soldiers, leading to Washington’s ignominious surrender in Fayette County and the start of the French and Indian War. Knowing how Washington responded to this defeat would have lent greater depth to the reader’s understanding of him.
The authors, however, wanted to spend as little time as possible on exposition and instead dive into their true story, the assassination plot against Washington during the early hours of the American Revolution. Here, by contrast, their account feels drawn out. They state multiple times that the Continental army had open latrines and little to no housing or food. They also repeat that the Loyalist mayor of New York City set in motion various anti-colonial conspiracies from his makeshift headquarters aboard a British warship. Their key findings about the plot to assassinate Washington are surprising, but again, they repeat the details until they lose their punch.
Their writing style sometimes brings the story closer to modern ears and sometimes just annoys. “Intelligence. Cunning. Secrecy. These are the tools of war” sounds exaggerated but not jarring. Other sentences give force to musty 18th-century prose. “Read that part again,” orders one sentence after a lengthy quote. “Some sixty [emphasis in original] soldiers from the Continental army have secretly joined the British.” On the other hand, “One Colonel. One Lieutenant Colonel. One Major. Ten Captains” reads more like a shopping list than a rundown of important data. In any event, the military ranks of these men are unimportant to the story. “Exactly. Not a good day,” reads another paragraph, a break in the narrative that is unnecessary and irritating.
Throughout the story, Washington comes off as honorable but strangely ineffectual. He seems to be a poor judge of character and to lack solutions to problems. He is, in short, still a puzzle.
Most readers will enjoy this readable account of a little-known piece of history. But the book could have used tighter editing in some places, more exposition in others. The reader will put down the book hungry to know more.