A Year With George Washington
February 1st, 1753 – Following the death of his half-brother Lawrence, Washington became the official Adjutant of James River Counties (northern neck), and was appointed the rank of major at the age of twenty.
George Washington’s father, Augustine, died when George was just eleven. His father’s death would alter the course of his life, and ours, in myriad ways. Immediately, it would make his mother, Mary, dependent on him and end his formal education. For us, it would set young George on a path to father the nation we now call the United States of America.
Lawrence, his half-brother and elder by fourteen years, would take young George under his wing. In addition to introducing him to Virginia high society, Lawrence instilled in George an ardency for the martial arts. Lawrence had served as “Captain of the Soldiers acting as Marines” aboard Admiral Edward Vernon’s flagship, the 80-gun HMS Princess Caroline, during the War of Jenkins Ear.
Despite being a colonial and thus treated as a second-class soldier in the British Army, Lawrence must have thought highly enough of Admiral Vernon to name the family estate after him, one that George would, in time, inherit and still bears the Vernon name.
Unlike an astonishing ninety percent of his fellow American colonists who succumbed to yellow fever in the performance of their duties, Lawrence returned home. The sailors and soldiers aboard Admiral Vernon’s flagship were mostly veterans of the seas and had acquired immunity from the deadly diseases taking a toll on the other ships of the fleet. Lawrence managed to stave off illness for a time and served king and country well. Washington was no doubt enchanted by the reports his brother dispatched to Virginia of his adventures off the coast of Colombia in the Battle of Cartagena de Indias.
Following his participation in the British landing at Cumberland Harbor (Guantanamo), Cuba in 1741, Lawrence sailed home the following year and learned the post of Adjutant General had opened. Lawrence won the appointment and, with it, a promotion to the rank of major. He occupied the post until his death from Tuberculosis in 1752.
Washington, just twenty years old, followed in his brother’s footsteps, attaining the rank of major in the Virginia Militia. His tenure with the militia would be far more active and consequential than that of his late brother, however, as he would soon find himself the catalyst of a war that would consume the great powers of the globe.
