Ohio History Journal

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Book Reviews

Book Reviews

 

The Diaries of George Washington. Edited by Donald Jackson.

(Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1976. Vol. I, 1748-65, v

+ 373p.; Vol. II, 1766-70, xvi + 374p.; illustrations, maps, notes, bib-

liography, index. $15.00 each.)

 

These two volumes mark the beginning of the most massive historical

editing project in the nation's history-the writings of George Washington. At

the same time they represent the acme in the efforts of the National Historical

Papers and Records Commission's efforts to publish the papers of the

founding fathers of this Republic.

Editor Donald Jackson, Associate Editor Dorothy Twohig, and their staff

have achieved the highest standards of historical editing in the manner begun

by Julian P. Boyd with The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Since the first of

Boyd's volumes appeared in 1950, the papers of Benjamin Franklin, John

Adams, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, George Mason, Robert Morris,

John Marshall, John Jay, and Nathanael Greene have begun publication.

After years of lavish subsidies, long-term commitments, and obsessions for

thoroughness and accuracy, only the Mason project has reached completion.

The quest for definitive editions has gone so far as to result in Boyd

publishing a whole book about an incident in Hamilton's life which

tangentially affects Jefferson. This has to be the ultimate in footnotes. In

twenty-five years the Jefferson papers have reached nineteen volumes and we

are only up to 1791. At the present pace it will take a hundred volumes and at

least two lifetimes to edit them; and the Washington papers are even more

voluminous!

We have reached the point where one questions the efficacy of these efforts

at saturation scholarship. After all, in 1925 John C. Fitzpatrick edited the

Washington diaries in four volumes and little new textual material is added

here. Only the modern annotation expands this edition to an expected six

volumes. One can legitimately argue that any additions or corrections to

Fitzpatrick could have been noted in The Papers of George Washington

which are forthcoming.

One must compliment the editorial staff for an excellent job. The notations

are usually complete, they add to the understanding of the text, and they

effectuate the editors' quest to make Washington and his associates "come

alive." Here we see in a very intimate way Washington the agricultural

experimenter, the weather observer, the land speculator, the breeder of

hounds and fox hunter, and the friendly neighbor. Most of the diary entries

are curt, seldom making any judgmental comment. On March 2, 1762, he

broke this reserve and wrote: "Mr. Clifton came here today, & under

pretence of his Wife not consenting to acknowledge her Right of Dower

wanted to disengage himself of the Bargain he had made with me for his Land

. . .and by his Shuffling behaviour on the occasion convinced me of his being

the trifling body represented" (I, p.250).

These two volumes include his journals for various trips of which his

western journeys of 1753-1754 and 1770 contain observations on Ohio.

Always on the alert for good farm land, he noted 4,000 acres in Meigs County

that caught his fancy: "This is a good Neck of Land the Soil is generally