Free The Painter's Chair by Hugh Howard

perception.

    IN MAY 1775, delegates to the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia. As they gathered at the Pennsylvania State
     House, the men were forced to digest the disturbing news of bloody confrontations at Lexington and Concord the previous month,
     as well as word of the confiscation of Virginia’s powder stores at Williamsburg. Angry calls for separation from England were
     offered and quickly countered by arguments for reconciliation.
    Events demanded that the Continental Congress act. The Provincial Congress of Massachusetts was raising an army and sought
     support from the other colonies. Though he had sat largely mute and served on no committees during the First Continental Congress
     in 1774, George Washington began to assume new prominence under the altered circumstances. As one of the few experienced military
     officers at hand, he worked on three committees in the next three weeks. His labors on defense strategies and munitions impressed
     his fellow delegates. He had arrived prepared, bringing along “five books—military.” 3 As he came to accept that the cause of one colony (namely Massachusetts) required a response from all thirteen, Washington
     also changed his costume. By the end of May, as John Adams noted for posterity, “Colonel Washington appears at Congress in
     his uniform.” 4
    As military plans began to take shape, no clear consensus existed as to the nascent army’s command structure—or who should
     be its commander in chief. One man in attendance certainly coveted the job as military leader, and perhaps desired it more
     than the Virginian in military garb. John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, could claim no military experience.
     The orphaned son of a minister, he had ascended to wealth and influence in Boston after inheriting his uncle’s booming merchant
     business. But Hancock, who had helped finance the rebellion and become an outspoken critic of British rule, saw himself as
     general material. It fell to another Massachusetts delegate, John Adams, to advance the cause of revolution by one long Virginia
     stride.
    Adams spoke for many when he confided in his wife, Abigail, that Colonel Washington, “by his great experience and abilities
     in military matters, is of much service to us.” 5 Despite his diligent work, however, the master of Mount Vernon himself was very much of two minds about the job. He would
     have preferred returning home (as he wrote to Martha a few days later, “I should enjoy more real happiness and felicity in
     one month with you, at home, than I have the most distant prospect of reaping abroad, if my stay was to be Seven times Seven
     years”). 6
    Even as he confided in Martha his feelings about his domestic life, more than mere duty kept him in Philadelphia. The military
     life he lived during the French and Indian War twenty years earlier had been exhilarating and ultimately frustrating, since
     he had been denied what he regarded as a well-deserved promotion in the king’s army. On the one hand, then, a chance was in
     the offing to fulfill his military ambitions. Against this, he weighed the odds of succeeding and the understanding that military
     service would mean time—and who knew how much?—away from Mount Vernon.
    On June 14, John Adams rose from his seat in Congress and made a recommendation. He opened the session that morning by offering
     a motion to the Second Continental Congress to adopt as its own the army assembled in Massachusetts. The suggestion had been
     floated some days before, but this time Adams added a staffing recommendation. A general would be required, said Adams, and
     his choice would be “a gentleman from Virginia.” For Hancock, watching the proceedings from the president’s chair, this was
     indeed a blow (Adams: “When I came to describe Washington for the commander, I never remarked a more sudden and striking change
     of countenance. Mortification and resentment were expressed