Tell about George Washington ?

By the time the Second Continental Congress convened a year later, the American Revolution had begun in earnest, and Washington was named commander in chief of the Continental Army.

Washington proved to be a better general than military strategist. His strength lay not in his genius on the battlefield but in his ability to keep the struggling colonial army together.

His troops were poorly trained and lacked food, ammunition and other supplies (soldiers sometimes even went without shoes in winter).

However, Washington was able to give them the direction and motivation to keep going.

Over the course of the grueling eight-year war, the colonial forces won few battles but consistently held their own against the British.

In October 1781, with the aid of the French (who allied themselves with the colonists over their rivals the British), the Continental forces were able to capture British troops under General Charles Cornwallis (1738-1805) in Yorktown, Virginia.

This action effectively ended the Revolutionary War and Washington was declared a national hero.

In 1783, with a peace treaty signed between Great Britain and the U.S., Washington, believing he had done his duty, gave up his command of the army and returned to Mount Vernon, intent on resuming his life as a gentleman farmer and family man.

However, in 1787, he was asked to attend the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and head the committee to draft the new constitution.

His impressive leadership there convinced the delegates that he was by far the most qualified man to become the nation’s first president.

At first Washington balked. He wanted to, at last, return to a quiet life at home and leave governing the new nation to others.

public opinion was so strong that eventually he gave in.

The first presidential election was held on January 7, 1789, and Washington won handily. John Adams (1735-1826), who received the second-largest number of votes, became the nation’s first vice president.

The 57-year-old Washington was inaugurated on April 30, 1789, in New York City.

Because Washington, D.C., America’s future capital city wasn’t yet built, he lived in New York and Philadelphia.

The United States was a small nation when Washington took office, consisting of 11 states and approximately 4 million people, and there was no precedent for how the new president should conduct domestic or foreign business.

Mindful that his actions would likely determine how future presidents were expected to govern,

Washington worked hard to set an example of fairness, prudence and integrity.

In foreign matters, he supported cordial relations with other countries but also favored a position of neutrality in foreign conflicts.

Domestically, he nominated the first chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John Jay (1745-1829), signed a bill establishing the first national bank and set up his own presidential cabinet.

His two most prominent cabinet appointees were Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804), two men who disagreed strongly on the role of the federal government.

Hamilton favored a strong central government, while Jefferson favored stronger states’ rights.

Washington believed that divergent views were critical for the health of the new government, but he was distressed at what he saw as an emerging partisanship.

In 1796, after two terms as president and declining to serve a third term, Washington finally retired.

In his farewell address, he urged the new nation to maintain the highest standards domestically and to keep involvement with foreign powers to a minimum.