David Humphreys' life of General Washington

In a remarkable feat of historical detective work, Rosemarie Zagarri has assembled manuscripts from three separate archives to reconstruct and publish for the first time in its full form the only biography of George Washington authorized by the general himself. Written by his close friend and military aide David Humphreys, it offers a rare, intimate glimpse of Washington's life, from his birth in 1732 until his assumption of the presidency in 1789. Best known as a minor poet of the Revolutionary War era, Humphreys became Washington's aide-de-camp during the war. Afterward, in 1786, he came to Mount Vernon at Washington's invitation and lived there for nearly three years, drawing on private papers and the general's reminiscences to compose the story of Washington's life. Before he finished, however, it became clear that Washington's story was far from over. The ratification of the Constitution paved the way for Washington's reluctant reentry into public life. Although Humphreys abandoned his plans for a full-scale biography, Zagarri has discovered that he did publish anonymously a much shorter version of his work as part of Jedidiah Morse's American Geography. Humphreys never publis