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  • "His High Mightiness":History, Memory, and the Politics of Remembering George Washington
  • Antonio T. Bly
Gerald E. Kahler , The Long Farewell: Americans Mourn the Death of George Washington (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008). Pp. 190. $30.00.
Seth C. Bruggeman , Here, George Was Born: Memory, Material Culture, and the Public History of A National Monument (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2008). Pp. 260. $24.95.

History, Pierre Nora writes in "Between History and Memory: Les Lieux de Memoire," is an objective enterprise. It is a contrivance. At best, it is or it seeks as its most sacred goal an unbiased truth. At worst, it is a construction. History remakes what we now call the past or yesterday into a series of colorful mini-dramas in which cantankerous, divided factions (who change over time and space) drive the narrative up and down, to and fro. In contrast, memory is unapologetically subjective. It is deeply flawed. It is racist, sexist, class oriented; it is an ethnocentric thing. Perhaps because of its nuance, its muddiness, memory, Nora insists, is destroyed by history because history is a less complicated endeavor. At the middle of that ensuing conflict are Gerald Kahler's The Long Farewell and Seth Bruggeman's Here, George Was Born.

Drawing on almost three hundred funeral eulogies published throughout the country between 1799 and 1800, The Long Farewell recounts in vivid detail the story of a nation mourning the death of its "First Citizen," George Washington. As news of the beloved leader's demise appeared in newspapers across the then young Republic, Americans from every walk of life—from his close friend Alexander Hamilton, to Congregational minister and Jeffersonian Republican the Reverend Dr. William Bentley, to the Reverend Richard Allen, a founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in America—paused in unison to honor the passing of America's first President. The Long Farewell, Kahler explains, "retrieves an unfamiliar and long-forgotten story from the annals of the early history of the American republic . . . It narrates the prolonged national mourning rituals for George Washington that moved thousands of grieving Americans to tears and dominated American civil life for sixty-nine days during the winter of 1799-1800" (10). For several days, throughout the country commerce was suspended, shops and offices closed, and theater performances and assemblies postponed.

By Kahler's account, while many in the nation participated in funeral processions and memorial services, wore black badges of mourning, composed eulogies and orations, poems and hymns, wrote letters to the editors who ran newspapers around the country, Federalists used Washington's death "and the commemorations that followed as a means of unification in a nation that was precariously divided by the political struggles of the Federalists and Democratic Republicans" (26). If but for a brief moment, Americans were one people again, united in their grief at the passing of the "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen" (33). Just a few days after the state funeral for Washington, a unanimous Congress approved a proposal to extend the mourning period. Alexander Hamilton unsuccessfully attempted to use the national event, which included a series of [End Page 622] mock funerals, to advance his own personal and political agendas (38-54). But, he was not alone in doing so; though "Washington gave only limited evidence in his life of conventional Christian faith," clergymen throughout the republic used their sermons and eulogies to ignite in the nation a renewed sense of Christian zeal and revival (59-61). The national mourning period also afforded women, perhaps most notably Abigail Adams, an opportunity to advance their causes as well. From beginning to end, they were significant actors in the nationwide funeral processions. According to Kahler, "the national mourning played a key role in advancing the new ideal of 'Republican Motherhood,' giving women a civic role through their enhanced performance of a traditional duty" (81).

Overlooked in this fascinating account is an explication of George Washington's will that appeared in print in many northern newspapers. Specifically, Kahler does not address Washington's freeing of and provisions for William Lee and his other slaves in his last will and testament. "First...

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