Olivia: Alright, Jackson, pop quiz. Give me one 'fact' you know about George Washington. Jackson: Easy. Wooden teeth. And he chopped down a cherry tree, then 'fessed up because he was just that honest. Basically, America's first Boy Scout. Olivia: Perfect. And almost completely wrong. That's exactly what we're getting into today. Jackson: Wait, what? You can't just drop that and walk away. No cherry tree? Olivia: No cherry tree, and definitely no wooden teeth. We've been handed a myth, a marble statue, when the real man was so much more complex, flawed, and frankly, more interesting. Jackson: Okay, my entire elementary school education is now in question. What are we reading? Olivia: We are diving into You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington by Alexis Coe. And what's fascinating is that Coe is one of the first women historians to write a major Washington biography in decades. She comes at it with this incredibly fresh, sharp, and often funny perspective, taking aim at what she hilariously calls the "Thigh Men of Dad History." Jackson: The what men? The 'Thigh Men'? What does that even mean? Olivia: It's her brilliant term for this long line of male biographers who she says seem obsessed with Washington's physique—his height, his powerful thighs from horseback riding—treating him like a superhero instead of a human. Coe's goal is to crack open that marble facade and see the man inside. Jackson: I love that. It's already so much more interesting than the usual stuffy biography. So, if he didn't have wooden teeth, what was actually going on in his mouth?

Olivia: This is one of the best examples of how Coe dismantles the myths. The wooden teeth story is a complete fabrication. The reality is much darker and more revealing. By the time he was president, Washington had only one of his own teeth left. Jackson: Only one! That's brutal. So what were his dentures made of? Olivia: It was a gruesome collection of materials. Carved ivory, for sure, but also cow and horse teeth. And here's the part that really hits you: he purchased human teeth from his own enslaved people at Mount Vernon. Jackson: Whoa. Hold on. He bought teeth from his slaves? That is... so much more disturbing than the simple 'wooden teeth' story. It completely changes the picture. Olivia: Exactly. Coe describes his smile as, at best, a "poacher's smile." It wasn't a symbol of rustic hardship; it was a symbol of the era's brutality and the deep, personal contradictions of his life. He was in constant pain, his dentures were ill-fitting, and they were literally built on the exploitation of others. Jackson: That one detail tells you more about the man and his time than a whole chapter on a battle. It feels like we prefer the simple, clean myth because the reality is just too messy. Olivia: That's Coe's whole point. And it's the same with the cherry tree story. It never happened. It was invented decades after his death by a bookseller and parson named Mason Weems, who wanted to create a moral tale for children and sell more books. Jackson: Unbelievable. So the ultimate story about Washington's honesty is, in fact, a lie. The irony is staggering. Olivia: It is. Weems essentially created a character, a symbol of American virtue. And as Coe points out, that mythmaking process continued for centuries, mostly by men, for men. They built this unapproachable, perfect figure. Coe's work is so important because she's saying, let's look at the forgotten people around him, the understudied issues, the uncomfortable truths. Let's talk about his difficult mother, Mary Ball Washington, who biographers have historically painted as a shrewish, awful woman. Jackson: Why? What was their basis for that? Olivia: Mostly speculation and sexism. Coe shows that Mary was a single mother, a widow who managed a farm and raised five children in a tough world. She was resilient and protective. When a 14-year-old George wanted to join the British Royal Navy, an opportunity his step-brothers were pushing, Mary said no. Jackson: And everyone probably called her an overbearing mother for it. Olivia: They did. One man dismissed her concerns as "trifling objections such as fond and unthinking mothers naturally suggest." But Mary had sought advice from her brother in England, who wrote back a horrifying letter describing naval life. He said it would be better to make George a tinker's apprentice, because a common sailor was treated "like a negro, or rather like a dog." Jackson: Wow. So she wasn't being difficult; she was saving his life. The navy was a death sentence for many young recruits back then. Olivia: A third of them didn't survive their first two years. Her "no" wasn't shrewish; it was a savvy, protective move that completely altered the course of American history. By challenging that one-dimensional portrayal of his mother, Coe starts to show us the real, complicated world that shaped the real, complicated George Washington. Jackson: Okay, so if the personal myths are wrong, what about the big one? The heroic general who single-handedly won the Revolution. I have a feeling Coe has a different take on that, too.

Olivia: You are absolutely right. This is another area where Coe really flips the script. We have this image of Washington as a brilliant battlefield tactician, a military genius. But the book lays out a startling fact, one that even his supporters acknowledge: Washington lost more battles than any victorious general in modern history. Jackson: Wait, say that again. He lost more battles than he won? How on earth do you win a war that way? That seems impossible. Olivia: It's because his true genius wasn't necessarily in battle strategy. It was in two other areas: resilience and intelligence. First, he was a master of perseverance. He held the Continental Army together through sheer force of will during brutal winters, with starving, underpaid, and often mutinous troops. He understood that the goal wasn't to win every fight; it was simply to not lose the war. As long as the army existed, the revolution was alive. Jackson: That's a huge mental shift. It's not about glory, it's about survival. The art of losing forward. Olivia: Exactly. But the second, and maybe more cinematic, part of his genius was in espionage. Washington was America's first spymaster. After some early, disastrous intelligence failures—like the tragic story of Nathan Hale, who was sent in with no training and was immediately caught and executed—Washington learned. He became obsessed with getting good intelligence. Jackson: So he was more like James Bond than Napoleon? Olivia: In a way, yes! He poured money into creating a sophisticated spy network. The most famous was the Culper Ring, operating right under the noses of the British in New York. Washington himself was the head of the operation, known only by his code number: Agent 711. Jackson: Agent 711! That's incredible. How did it work? Olivia: It was brilliant. A spy in New York City, Robert Townsend, would gather information. He'd pass it to a courier, who would ride it out to Long Island and leave it in a dead drop box in a pasture. A local woman, Anna Strong, would then hang specific items on her clothesline in a coded pattern to signal that the drop was ready and where the boatman should land. Jackson: A clothesline code? That's movie stuff. Olivia: It's real history! A whaleboat captain named Caleb Brewster would see the signal, retrieve the message, and row it across the Long Island Sound to Major Benjamin Tallmadge, who would then get it to Washington. They even used invisible ink, which Washington called "the medicine," to write secret messages between the lines of ordinary letters. Jackson: This completely changes how I see him as a leader. It wasn't just about grand charges on a white horse. It was about cunning, patience, and outsmarting the enemy. Olivia: Precisely. There's a fantastic quote from a British spymaster after the war, Major George Beckwith. He said, "Washington did not really outfight the British. He simply outspied us." That was his true strategic advantage. He leveraged intelligence to make his smaller, weaker army effective, like at the Battle of Trenton, where a spy's misinformation led the Hessians to let their guard down right before his famous crossing of the Delaware. Jackson: It makes him seem less like a marble statue and more like a scrappy, resourceful underdog. Which is a much better story. Olivia: It is. And that cunning, that willingness to do whatever was necessary to win, brings us to the most difficult and contradictory part of his story, something Coe confronts head-on.

Jackson: You mean his relationship with slavery. It’s the unavoidable, giant shadow that hangs over all the Founding Fathers, but especially Washington. Olivia: Yes. And Coe doesn't try to excuse it or explain it away. She presents it in its full, painful complexity. The colonists, Washington included, constantly used the language of slavery to describe their relationship with Britain. They were fighting to avoid the "shackles of slavery" imposed by a tyrannical king. Jackson: The hypocrisy is just breathtaking. The English writer Samuel Johnson famously asked, "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?" Olivia: Coe puts that question at the center of Washington's story. And she uses the personal stories of the people he enslaved to show the human reality of this paradox. The most powerful is the story of Ona Judge. Jackson: I've heard her name, but I don't know the details. Who was she? Olivia: Ona Judge was Martha Washington's personal maid, a skilled seamstress. She was about 22 years old when the Washingtons were living in Philadelphia, the nation's capital at the time. But Pennsylvania had a Gradual Abolition Act, which meant any enslaved person who lived there for six months would be freed. Jackson: So the Washingtons were on a clock. Olivia: A literal clock. Washington wrote to his secretary, instructing him to find a way to rotate their slaves back to Virginia just before the six-month mark to reset the clock and prevent them from gaining their freedom. He was actively working to circumvent the law. Jackson: That's just... cold and calculating. Olivia: It is. And Ona Judge knew this. She learned that she was going to be given as a wedding gift to Martha's granddaughter, a woman known for her fierce temper. Ona realized this was her last chance. So one evening in May 1796, while the Washingtons were eating dinner, she simply walked out the door and, with the help of Philadelphia's free black community, boarded a ship to New Hampshire. Jackson: Good for her. But I have a feeling Washington didn't just let it go. Olivia: He did not. He was furious. For years, he used his power and his network to relentlessly pursue her. He sent agents. He tried to have her kidnapped. He saw her escape not as a bid for liberty—the very thing he fought a war for—but as an act of theft and ingratitude. In an interview years later, Ona Judge was asked if she regretted leaving the comfort of the President's House. She said no. "I am free," she said, "and have, I trust, been made a child of God on the way." Jackson: Wow. To see his own fight for freedom as noble, but hers as an insult... it's a level of cognitive dissonance that's hard to fathom. How did he grapple with this at the end of his life? I know his will is famous for freeing his slaves. Olivia: It is, and it was a monumental act for a man of his time and stature. But Coe, again, shows the painful complexity. In his will, Washington decreed that the 123 slaves he owned in his own right would be freed, but only upon Martha's death. Jackson: Why the delay? Olivia: His stated reason was to avoid splitting up families. Many of his slaves were married to "dower slaves"—people who had come into the marriage from Martha's first husband's estate. Legally, he couldn't free them; they belonged to the Custis estate and would be inherited by Martha's grandchildren. He feared freeing his slaves immediately would tear these families apart. Jackson: That sounds considerate on the surface, but it also put Martha in a terrible position. Olivia: A terrifying one. She was now an elderly woman living on a plantation surrounded by over a hundred people who would only be free when she died. She confessed she felt like a prisoner, and she lived in fear. So, just a year after George's death, she signed the deed of manumission and freed them herself. Not out of moral conviction, but likely out of self-preservation. Jackson: And what happened to the dower slaves? The ones he couldn't free? Olivia: That's the final tragedy. When Martha died, those families were broken up anyway. The dower slaves were divided among her four grandchildren and scattered across Virginia and beyond. Coe tells the story of one couple, Isaac and Kitty. Isaac was a Washington slave and was freed. His wife Kitty was a dower slave. She and their children were inherited by the Custis heirs and sent away. They were never reunited. Jackson: That's heartbreaking. So even his final, celebrated act of emancipation was incomplete and, for many, resulted in more suffering. It seems like there are no easy answers with him.

Olivia: There are no easy answers at all. And that's the power of Alexis Coe's book. It's not about tearing Washington down or canceling him. It's about replacing a one-dimensional monument with a three-dimensional human being. The myths, the military struggles, the moral failings—they all paint a picture of a man who was ambitious, brilliant, deeply flawed, and constantly grappling with the contradictions of his own life and the nation he was helping to build. Jackson: He was a product of his time, but also someone who shaped it. He could be incredibly forward-thinking, like with his spy network or his decision to give up power, but also stubbornly, cruelly stuck in the injustices of his era. Olivia: Exactly. Coe forces us to hold both of those truths at the same time. He was the indispensable man of the revolution, but his legacy is also one of profound moral compromise. He wasn't a god or a demon; he was a man. A complicated, powerful, and consequential man. Jackson: It really makes you wonder, which other historical figures are we seeing as monuments instead of people? And what uncomfortable, human truths are we missing because we prefer the simple myth? Olivia: That's the question that stays with you long after you finish the book. It challenges us to look at all of history with more critical, and more compassionate, eyes. Jackson: A powerful and necessary read. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.