Narrator: What if the most famous stories about America's first president were not just myths, but deliberate fabrications designed to hide a far more complex and troubling reality? George Washington did not have wooden teeth. The truth is more unsettling: his dentures were crafted from a grim collection of ivory, animal teeth, and human teeth purchased from his own enslaved people. He didn't chop down a cherry tree and confess with the famous line, "I cannot tell a lie." That story was invented by a bookseller decades after his death to create a symbol of perfect virtue. These sanitized legends have sculpted our image of Washington into a marble statue—imposing, flawless, and inhuman.

In her book, You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington, historian Alexis Coe shatters this marble facade. She argues that for centuries, the narrative of Washington has been controlled by male biographers, whom she dubs the "Thigh Men of Dad History," who were obsessed with his masculinity and military prowess while ignoring the uncomfortable truths and the crucial women who shaped his life. Coe provides a fresh, critical, and deeply human portrait, forcing us to confront the man in all his ambition, insecurity, and contradiction.

Narrator: For generations, the biography of George Washington has been a male-dominated field. Coe argues that these biographers have often been more interested in preserving a national myth than in revealing a historical truth. They focus excessively on his physical stature, his supposed stoicism, and his childlessness, creating an unapproachable figure who is more monument than man. This approach, Coe contends, has perpetuated a host of stereotypes and outright fabrications that obscure our understanding of him.

The most famous myths serve to build this idealized character. The story of the cherry tree, for instance, was invented by Parson Mason Weems to package Washington as the embodiment of honesty for a young nation. Similarly, the myth of his wooden teeth paints a picture of rustic stoicism. But the reality Coe uncovers is far more revealing. Washington's dental problems were a source of constant pain and insecurity. His dentures, far from being wooden, were sophisticated and expensive contraptions made from ivory, gold wire, and, most disturbingly, teeth he purchased from the enslaved people at Mount Vernon. This single detail transforms him from a stoic hero into a man whose very smile was built on the exploitation inherent in the system he presided over. By dismantling these myths, Coe argues that we can begin to see the real person, whose complexities and flaws are far more instructive than the one-dimensional hero of legend.

Narrator: Traditional histories have relegated the women in Washington's life to the footnotes. Coe places them at the center of the narrative, arguing that they were not just supporting characters but essential figures who shaped his destiny and whose stories reveal his true character. This re-examination begins with his mother, Mary Ball Washington. Often portrayed by male biographers as a shrewish and difficult woman, Coe presents her as a resilient and fiercely protective single mother who navigated a patriarchal world to secure her children's future.

One of the most pivotal moments in Washington's young life was his mother's refusal to let him join the British Royal Navy. At fourteen, George was eager for a life of adventure at sea, an opportunity heavily promoted by his older stepbrother. It was a respectable path for a young man of his station. But Mary, having already lost a husband and understanding the brutal realities of life at sea—where disease and violence were rampant—put her foot down. She sought advice from her brother in England, who confirmed her fears, describing the life of a common sailor as being "used like a negro, or rather like a dog." Her decision to keep him home, against the wishes of influential men, was not the act of a nagging mother but a calculated choice that saved him from a likely early death and set him on the path that would eventually lead to the presidency. This perspective, Coe shows, is what is often gained when historians shift their focus to the women in the room.

Narrator: Long before he was a revolutionary hero, George Washington was a young, ambitious, and sometimes reckless military officer. The traditional narrative often glosses over his early blunders, but Coe highlights them as crucial to understanding his development. In 1754, a 22-year-old Washington was sent by the Virginia governor into the Ohio Valley to challenge French encroachment. This was his chance to make a name for himself.

Leading a small force alongside a Seneca chief known as the Half-King, Washington received intelligence that a French diplomatic party was camped nearby. Eager for action, he and his allies launched a surprise attack. The skirmish was brief and brutal. The French commander, Joseph Coulon de Jumonville, was killed—reportedly by the Half-King himself, who, according to one account, split his head open with a tomahawk. Washington later built a flimsy fort, aptly named Fort Necessity, which was quickly overrun by the French in retaliation. He was forced to sign a surrender document, written in French, that included an admission to the "assassination" of Jumonville. This single, impulsive act by a young Virginian in the American backwoods was the spark that ignited the French and Indian War, a conflict that would escalate into the global Seven Years' War. It was, as one British writer put it, "the volley fired by a young Virginian... [that] set the world on fire."

Narrator: While Washington is remembered as a great general, the book reveals that he lost more battles than he won. His true genius as a leader was not always in battlefield tactics, but in his perseverance, his strategic cunning, and his mastery of the political and psychological dimensions of warfare. He understood that the Revolution was a war for legitimacy as much as it was a war for territory.

This was never clearer than in his interactions with the British commanders, the Howe brothers. When they sent a letter addressed to "George Washington, Esqr.," refusing to use his title of "General," Washington refused to accept it. This was not a matter of ego. He knew that accepting the letter would be a tacit admission that he was merely the leader of a band of rebels, not the commander of a legitimate army. By insisting on the proper title, he was forcing the British Empire to acknowledge, on some level, the sovereignty of the United States. He also proved to be a master of espionage, establishing the highly effective Culper Ring, a network of spies in British-occupied New York who used invisible ink, codes, and dead drops to provide him with critical intelligence that helped him outmaneuver the British. These off-the-field victories were just as crucial as any battle in keeping the revolutionary cause alive.

Narrator: The central, glaring contradiction of Washington's life—and of the American Revolution itself—was the fight for liberty by men who held others in bondage. Coe does not shy away from this hypocrisy. She details Washington's life as a plantation owner at Mount Vernon, a businessman who relied on the forced labor of hundreds of enslaved people to build his wealth. He was a demanding master who expected his overseers to "keep everyone in their places" and was not above using violence himself.

This paradox is powerfully illustrated by the story of Ona Judge. Judge was Martha Washington's personal maid and a "dower" slave, meaning she was part of the estate Martha inherited from her first husband. While living in the President's House in Philadelphia, Judge was exposed to a large and vibrant free Black community. When she learned she was to be given as a wedding gift to Martha's granddaughter—a move that would seal her fate as a slave for life—she decided to act. In 1796, while the Washingtons were eating dinner, Ona Judge walked out of the house and never returned. She escaped to New Hampshire, and though Washington used his presidential resources to relentlessly pursue her for years, she was never caught. Her quiet act of defiance exposes the profound hypocrisy at the heart of Washington's world: a man fighting for his nation's freedom from "enslavement" by the British was simultaneously denying that same freedom to the people he owned.

Narrator: Perhaps Washington's most revolutionary act was not what he did with power, but how he gave it away. At the conclusion of the Revolutionary War in 1783, he stood before the Continental Congress in Annapolis and resigned his commission as commander in chief. In a world dominated by kings and emperors who held power for life, this voluntary surrender of military authority to a civilian government was a stunning and unprecedented event. King George III himself reportedly said that if Washington did this, "he will be the greatest man in the world."

This act set the crucial precedent for civilian control of the military, a cornerstone of American democracy. He would later be called out of retirement to preside over the Constitutional Convention and serve as the first president, a role he accepted with great reluctance, comparing it to a "culprit who is going to the place of his execution." After two terms, he once again willingly stepped down, reinforcing the principle that power in a republic is temporary and subordinate to the rule of law. In these moments, Washington's legacy was truly forged, not as a conqueror, but as a leader who understood that the greatest strength of a republic lies in its ability to peacefully transfer power.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from You Never Forget Your First is that the real George Washington is far more compelling and instructive than the myth. Alexis Coe replaces the flawless marble statue with a man of flesh and blood, driven by immense ambition, haunted by insecurities, and defined by profound moral contradictions. He was a brilliant strategist who made disastrous blunders, a champion of liberty who was a master of enslaved people, and a leader whose greatest act was to walk away from power.

By confronting this complex reality, we are challenged to rethink not just Washington, but the very nature of our national heroes. The book asks a difficult question: Can we admire a figure for his contributions to freedom while simultaneously condemning him for his participation in the brutal system of slavery? Grappling with this question is not about tearing down a hero; it is about engaging in the mature, honest, and critical work of understanding our nation's complicated origins.