George Washington Remembers

Fred Anderson is professor of history at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is the award winning author of Crucible of War: The Seven Years War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766 and A People's Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and the Society in the Seven Years' War. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.French & Indian War 250, Inc. is a group representing the primary sites associated with the French and Indian War. Its members seek to raise awareness of the war and its significance to our region and nation.

Here we have the only known personal memoir Washington ever wrote. Moreover, it represents his attempt to recall those early years before his reputation had hardened into a marble statue, when he was still a visibly ambitious young man with rough edges and discernible doubts about his future.

• IntroductionThe Remarks FacsimileTranscript and AnnotationsChapter 1: Young Washington: Ambition, Accomplishment, and AcclaimChapter 2: Biography and Autobiography: Washington's "Remarks" in ContextChapter 3: "Just as They Occurred to the Memory, They were Committed": Speculations on George Washington's Autobiographical "Remarks" of 1787Appendix 1: The Manuscript as Object: Its Materials and ConservationAppendix 2: Historic Sites Mentioned in George Washington's "Remarks"