1750s

The boy colonel of the 1750s was a long way from becoming the sage general of the 1770s, because he was too wrapped up in himself to see the world and other people objectively. ❋ David A. Clary (2011)

Washington’s most significant change from the 1750s was his conviction that the American military was subordinate to the civil power, which in return must deal with the army through its commander and not interfere politically. ❋ David A. Clary (2011)

In the 1750s, in the German town of Bethany on the Georgia frontier, the wife of the local school master was publicly censured and her husband dismissed from his position after she “conceived a lust to dance, and actually did dance” to the sounds of a dulcimer. ❋ Thaddeus Russell (2010)

Still, there was an echo of the boy colonel of the 1750s, obsessed with personal honor and trying in advance to avoid blame for whatever might go wrong. ❋ David A. Clary (2011)

Washington made halfhearted efforts through the 1750s to court several young women and was not greatly disappointed by his failures. ❋ David A. Clary (2011)

The Indians did not count; or, as a British officer said in the 1750s, the western lands were “a desolate country uninhabited by anything but wild Indians, bears and rattlesnakes.” ❋ David A. Clary (2011)

Remembering the criticism of his frequent absences in the 1750s, during the Revolution he did not leave the army without permission from Congress—he was away from Mount Vernon for six and a half years. ❋ David A. Clary (2011)

If the Washington of the 1750s had wanted honor above all, the Washington of two decades later knew that he must earn it. ❋ David A. Clary (2011)

Washington, George (1732–99), Virginia military commander in the 1750s; married Martha Custis (1732–1802), 1759 ❋ David A. Clary (2011)

Acts of Parliament during the 1750s revived practices from earlier imperial conflicts, conscripting “such able-bodied men as do not follow or exercise any lawful calling or employment, or have not some other lawful and sufficient support and maintenance”—in other words, “vagabonds”; Virginia adopted this practice. ❋ David A. Clary (2011)

It seems apparent in hindsight that Washington did not take advantage of all the educational opportunities the redcoats had offered him in the 1750s on planning, logistics, and command principles. ❋ David A. Clary (2011)

On July 20, 1776, with another war underway, Washington wrote to Adam Stephen, who had been his lieutenant colonel in the 1750s. ❋ David A. Clary (2011)

Except for a few corrections about Mount Vernon, the remarks were all about the war of the 1750s.13 ❋ David A. Clary (2011)

He also transferred his personal experience of the 1750s to the Continental Army of the 1770s, with mixed results. ❋ David A. Clary (2011)