George Washington is the hero of a new action-adventure that takes moviegoers to the Colony of Virginia in pre-Revolutionary War America. Jonathan Wright sifts fact from fiction in Young Washington, released to coincide with the US’s 250th birthday
Filmmaker Jon Erwin’s frontier drama Young Washington stars London-born William Franklyn-Miller as the future first President of the United States. But when the movie opens in July 1755, the figure of Washington as the revered leader of his nation is yet to come into focus.
Instead, we find Washington stricken with severe dysentery, a pale streak of a 20-something serving as an aide to the British Army’s Major-General Edward Braddock. Worse, as the battle of the Monongahela rages and his fellow Virginians face annihilation, he’s consumed by a fever.
Can Washington raise himself from his sick bed to fight in one of the most important battles in the early part of the French and Indian War (1754–63)? What brought him to this perilous situation? And how did the events of the day shape Washington’s subsequent role in the American Revolutionary War (1775–83), when he served as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army?
Does Young Washington tell a true story?
With a mild-spoilers-ahead warning, Young Washington is based on the Founding Father’s early life. While it loops around at the end to return to the battle of the Monongahela, the movie first jumps back in time to 1743. This was the year Washington’s father, Augustine, died.
Unlike his siblings and half-siblings, Washington did not receive an extended formal education. This was because he had to help his mother, Mary, run the family’s plantation, known as Ferry Farm.
Washington didn’t let this hold him back, though. He read widely. He was a talented writer, mathematician, surveyor and mapmaker. Throughout his childhood, he was especially close to his older half-brother, Lawrence. Washington also benefited from the patronage of the Fairfax family, whose members included Lord Thomas Fairfax, a noble who employed Washington to survey vast land holdings.
Washington’s military career began when he gained a commission in the Virginia militia. This was an era when France and Britain were competing to colonise lands in North America. In October 1753, Robert Dinwiddie, Virginia’s lieutenant governor, tasked Washington with heading to what were then frontier lands and informing the French to vacate the area. The French refused.
In 1754, having been promoted to lieutenant colonel, Washington returned to the wilderness. His orders this time around were to confront the French. On 28 May, along with allies from the Iroquoian peoples, he engaged a small French force, led by Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville. Was this an ambush or did the French open fire? Accounts differ.
What’s certain is that, in July, the French attacked Fort Necessity, where Washington, promoted to colonel, was now commander of the Virginia Regiment. Washington surrendered and subsequently signed a document in which he admitted to “assassinating” Jumonville, probably because of a translation error.
The incident was one of the sparks of the French and Indian War. Washington, unhappy at a reorganisation of militia forces that effectively meant a demotion, briefly resigned his commission. His military career had foundered, not to be revived in earnest until the battle of the Monongahela.
What’s the real history behind Young Washington?
Broadly, much of what we see on screen is true. Young Washington evokes a time when Virginia was still a wilderness and much is uncertain. Some details, which may seem too contrived to be true, are rooted in reality.
Washington’s ill-fated campaigning in 1754 really was key to the French and British taking up arms against each other in North America. At Monongahela, as shown on screen, his clothing had bullet holes in it. Washington himself was uninjured despite having two horses shot out from under him.
In a time when class distinctions mattered, Washington did, as the movie suggests, have to take orders from those he outranked because they had royal commissions. Regulations issued by the Crown in 1754 confirmed this pecking order.
However, it’s best to watch Young Washington while keeping in mind that it’s a drama. Washington campaigned to get his own royal commission, but the movie arguably downplays Washington’s lobbying, likely to increase the dramatic tension between New World-born Virginians and hoity-toity Brits.
The movie takes other liberties with Washington’s biography. For example, it shows Washington attracted to young and vivacious Sally Cary. In reality, while there’s evidence Washington had a crush on Sally, she was the wife of George William Fairfax (Lawrence’s brother-in-law and cousin of Thomas). Sally helped Washington negotiate polite society and acted as another of his mentors.
Perhaps more seriously, the idea of Washington as a slave owner is downplayed. When his father died, 10 enslaved people lived and worked on the family farm. Subsequently, Washington purchased other enslaved people. In 1759, when he married, his wife, the widow Martha Dandridge Custis, brought more than 80 enslaved people to the farm.
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Finally here, although there are other minor deviations from the historical record and we are wary of giving away too many spoilers, the movie overplays Washington’s ability as a public speaker. It concludes with Washington delivering a stirring speech to troops that seems, in its themes, to foreshadow the American Revolutionary War, even though Washington would have been a British loyalist at this point in time.
In truth, while he was a brilliant commander, Washington had a soft voice and, in later life, often encountered issues with public speaking because of his dentures. However, first-hand accounts suggest the 6ft 2in-tall Washington had presence, conveyed by a combination of his physical stature, emotional intelligence and a gravitas rooted in stoicism.
At its heart, the movie is arguably about how Washington came to be a leader by overcoming setbacks. To maintain this narrative, it simplifies the timeline and adds inventions, but it’s hardly the first movie to do this.
Four key characters we encounter in Young Washington
- Tanacharison (Ryan Begay) was a leader of the Seneca nation and, as Young Washington portrays, deeply suspicious of the French. He was one of the indigenous warriors who accompanied Washington to the French Fort LaBoeuf in 1753. He was known as the “Half King” because he acted on behalf of the broader Iroquois Confederacy, an alliance of indigenous peoples.
- Major-General Edward Braddock (Andy Serkis) was a career soldier who served with the British Army in the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48). Sent to the New World, he refused to adapt his campaigning methods to guerrilla warfare conducted in the wilderness. This proved disastrous, both for Braddock personally and for many of those he led. Perhaps he learnt from his mistakes. His final words were reported to have included: “Who would have thought it? We shall know better another time.”
- Robert Dinwiddie (Ben Kingsley) served as lieutenant governor of Virginia, which effectively made him the leader of the colony on a day-to-day basis because the governors stayed in Blighty. It was thanks to Dinwiddie, who wanted to curb French influence, that Braddock was sent to the Americas. He is credited with giving George Washington a start as a military man. He features in William Makepeace Thackeray’s 19th-century novel The Virginians: A Tale of the Last Century.
- Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron (Kelsey Grammer), was born in Leeds Castle in Kent. Subsequently, though, he became the only British peer who lived in the Thirteen Colonies, where his estates benefited from the work of several hundred enslaved people. His rustic hunting lodge, Greenway Court, was noted for its modesty.