- Washington's Mount Vernon. I'm Sarah Steele, your
social media manager, and joining us today is none other than General Washington himself. How are you doing today General? - I am well and I welcome you and all of our friends to
Mrs Washington and my farms. - Excellent. - We hope that you enjoy your visit. - Yeah, awesome. And we, yesterday some of you may know, we had us some birthday
celebrations here for the general. - My goodness gracious we had nion 20,000's of people here yesterday. - We did, just a few close friends indeed. Some of you may have joined us, but if you did not you can
join us this coming Saturday for Washington's actual birthday on Saturday, February 22nd. - Well you know it's
interesting you say that, because I was actually
born on February 11th, but we changed calendars
from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, and there was a mathematical adjustment, so I now celebrate on
February 20 and two, 22nd. - True true. And we celebrate that day here as well. So the estate, it will also be free and open to visitors to come
and see our special event. Come and wish the
general a happy birthday, happy natal day. So we hope you can join us then, and in the meantime we have some downtime here with the general, and he's graciously offered
to answer any questions you all have today. So please ask them in the comments, tell us where you're watching from, and in the meantime,
General can you tell us a little bit about how you
plan to spend your birthday? And maybe how you spent past birthdays? - Well at this age and stage I will suggest to you that my birthdays tend to be of a more quiet nature. Surrounded by friends and family. I have always said that I would rather be with friends and family than with the great nebobs and notables of all the courts of Europe. So I will hopefully have a
quiet and reflective birthday. In the past, well they
have been sometimes quiet and sometimes very active. I remember the very
first public celebration of my natal anniversary, and that was in the winter of 1778 in the midst of our encampment
at the Valley of the Forge. I had had a long day, no recognition of my birthday at all, I was rather tired, Mrs Washington had
traveled from Mount Vernon up to Pennsylvania, and she was at the encampment. I finally at about half
nine o'clock at night retired to my chambers
up on the second floor. Mrs Washington was in chamber. And I saw that she had a
mischievous look in her eye and all of a sudden, as I was removing my regimental coat, I heard music wafting from outside. And I looked at her and
she smiled ear to ear and I walked over to the window and I raised the window, there were four, five, 600 soldiers all standing in a half circle below. And there were musicians from General Henry Knox's artillery band. And they were playing a serenade for me for my birth night. So that was the first public celebration, very memorable indeed. - Very good, well we have many birthday wishes coming in general. - Oh lovely. - Paige says happy birthday
from North Carolina. - Ah from the Carolinas,
wonderful, wonderful. - Have you been there yourself? - I have traveled to North Carolina. I have traveled to every one of the original states in this union. I made a promise when I
became the chief magistrate the President of the United States, that I would travel to every
single one of the states. And I originally went to New England, and I traveled to every state except one. There was one state that had not yet signed the Constitution. They did ultimately, but they were very very
slow to do so, Rhode Island. So I traveled all to New
England except for Rhode Island, and then the next year I
traveled down to the south, and of course that
included North Carolina. I did eventually make
it back to Rhode Island. - Oh nice. Didn't wanna leave them out. - Did not. - Ricky asked did you ever
go to the Louisiana area? - No, I am familiar with it from maps, and it is a critical area. That whole vicinage has
changed hands from time to time betwixt the Spanish and the French. Currently the Spanish hold it, and I would suggest to you that we are having some success in
negotiating navigation rights down the Mississippi to
the Louisiana Vicinage, and that's important because that is how western citizens get their products to market and such. - Mandy said the general
did an amazing job in his recent D.C. videos, she loved it. Remember we took a trip to D.C. - Ah yes the visit to the federal city. The District of Columbia. I must tell you, I was speechless, I
cannot begin to describe the feelings I had over
the development of it. It was mostly farmland when I picked that point
for the permanent seat of the federal government, and my goodness, what it has become. - Indeed, indeed. If you haven't watched
the general's adventures as he takes D.C., head over to MountVernon.org/takesDC
to see them all. And we had a question from Diana, she asked what a typical
birthday dinner is for you sir. - Well Mrs Washington always sees that there is what we refer
to as a groaning board. So much food on a table
that the table wants to sag. But we will of course hopefully I will begin my birthday meal
with my very favorite food in the whole of this world, food that is only available on months that have an R in it, oysters. And then there will be maybe two, three different types of meats, and a fresh vegetables that we have grown during the growing season, and that we keep in our root cellar here. And hopefully the meal will conclude with one of her either
trifles, which is wonderful, or perhaps one of her remarkable cakes which has untold pounds of butter in it. Or perhaps my very favorite,
which is iced cream. Have you ever had iced cream? - I have, it's one of my
favorite desserts as well. - I love iced cream. - Nice, that sounds pretty good. So your favorite foods you would be having on your birthday. - Hopefully. - Hopefully, well I'm hungry, I'm ready. You think I could come? - You're most welcome. - All right, excellent. We've had a lot of other
birthday wishes, Hazaa, so you mentioned your
first birthday celebration, but how did you normally, did you ever celebrate you birthday? Or is it normally not
a day of celebration? - Well what I mentioned was
my first public celebration. - Right. - I don't really remember my
first birthday celebration. But typically it is a rather quiet day and a work day like every
other day by and large. There is not a great deal of to do or fanfare on my natal anniversary. And that's not unusual, most people don't have much
in the way of celebration. At least in my day. - Yes yes yes, what did
you celebrate in your day? What were the celebratory? - Well of course we celebrate
a wedding anniversary, that is rather remarkable. Mrs Washington and I just
enjoyed our 40th anniversary, there are very few friends
and contemporaries of ours that have reached that milestone. And here now in United America we celebrate Independence Day in a very very wonderful way. Back in that day in 1776, you may or may not know this but the question of our independence was voted upon on July 2nd, 1776, it was adopted on July 4th. Mister John Adams, who is now the chief
magistrate of the country, Mister Adams said that July second will long be remembered in this country with great illuminations and parades. He was only off by two days. - Close, close enough. Lilliette asked, I hear
you make beer there. Does it sell well? - Well we make beer for our own use, we do not sell the beer. We make ciders, both light
ciders and hard ciders, and we also of course distill
whiskey here at Mount Vernon. So there are all manor of libations that are produced here at Mount Vernon. The one wonderful libation that has eluded every attempt of ours to successfully make it is wine. We have been unsuccessful in growing palatable wine making grapes. There are wild grapes that
grow everywhere in Virginia, but you don't want to make
wine out of those, terrible. - Interesting, and what
is your favorite libation? - My favorite libation I would reckon is Madeira Wine. I greatly enjoy the product
of the island of Madeira. We celebrate, and you
talked about celebration, we celebrated the signing of the Declaration of
American Independency with Madeira wine, the
Constitution signing with Madeira wine, and we
do enjoy our Madeira wine. - Very good, well Chuck has a question. I'm sorry, Steven has a question, have you ever forgiven Benedict Arnold? - Have I ever forgiven Benedict Arnold? I understand what went
into his personal decision, and his actions. His treason. But I cannot forgive his actions, because he not only betrayed me, which I probably could get past, but he betrayed the band of
brothers that he served with, and most importantly
he betrayed his nation. So that is I am afraid beyond forgiveness. Well, we will let that one go. - Yeah that was a tough question. - No it was not difficult, just that it stirs up
memories and emotions that are not easy ones. - Indeed, indeed. Well Matthew asks, had you not taken the presidency, what do you think would have happened? - Had I not answered
the call of my country? - I suppose that is what he's asking. - That is impossible first of all, I have always always answered
the call of my country, sometimes with reticence,
but always with love. But had I not been given the opportunity, I likely would have continued as a delegate for Virginia
at various congresses, but I would have retired
here at Mount Vernon. I call it retiring, it is a very work filled day
each and every single day, but we call it retirement because I would be away form
public service by and large. - Very good. Well Mary Jane says you're
my favorite president. - Well she is my favorite citizen. - Very nice. Oh Mary Jane also visited in 2000, thank you for sharing your home she says. You should come back Mary Jane. - Give us some more notice next time, we'll put you up for the night. - Mandy says I've had your whiskey at our whiskey rebellion in Cumberland, and it is quite good. Speaks well of your whiskey. - I appreciate her approbation, I'm not quite certain I would
call the whiskey quite good. The whiskey that I produce here is well, it can be rough stuff. It's for medicinal
purposes you understand. Although we sell every drop, and people enjoy it greatly. And perhaps it's not rough stuff at all. - She may have let it
sit for a little longer. - It doesn't age in the bottle, it has to age in the cast. - That's right. Josh asks, has Alexander Hamilton
ever visited Mount Vernon? And if so, what was his impression since he is from the New York region. - Well it's a long
question, the answer is no. He never traveled. We had many visitors here, but Colonel Hamilton was not one of them. Forgive me, I keep calling
him Colonel Hamilton, he has recently been
promoted to General Hamilton. Old habits die hard. - Indeed, so who has visited
you here at Mount Vernon that some of us may be familiar with? - Well of course we've
had Mister Madison here, we've had Mister Jefferson here. Let us not forget one of
our most favored guests, the Marquee de Lafayette. We have had all manner of citizen come, both of note, and typical citizens. If you arrived here perhaps with a letter of introduction you would be welcomed. And you would be welcomed
for three days let us say, I believe it was Doctor Franklin that said fish and company. After three days they both, well we'll leave that unstated. - That's a good one, yeah. Lawrence asked what was the reason you chose your VP? - What was the reason that I chose. - Your vice president, I'm sorry. - Oh I did not choose the vice president, the Constitution in my time, it may be slightly different in your day, but the Constitution calls
for an electoral college, each electoral delegate gets two votes, and the person with the most
votes becomes the President, and the person with the
second highest tally of votes becomes the vice president. So it's not as if I
chose him or picked him, although I was very happy
to stand with Mister Adams. He is a good and great man, and a wonderful patriot. - Very good, has he ever
visited Mount Vernon? - Mister Adams has not. - Too bad. Well Gene asks, speaking of Mount Vernon, he would like to know what Mount Vernon under
any threat during the war? - Interesting question, of course they knew that this was my home. There was one incident, and you might have expected
there would have been more, but there was one incident in which a number of British Frigates hoved to in the center
of the Potomac River. And officers of those frigates, along with their marine
escorts came ashore. I was away fighting the war, but my cousin, Lund Washington, he was managing the estate and the farms, and he greeted them. They demanded that he
provision their frigates with all fresh supplies, or they would burn the
house down to the ground. And he, thinking he was
doing the right thing, provisioned all the ships fully. He then wrote me a letter telling me proudly that he was happy to have saved Mount Vernon from the torch. I wrote back to him, and you don't really want to
know what I wrote back to him, but suffice to say I would have
rather seen my home in ashes than to have us supply and aid the enemy. - We're glad that it did not go to ashes. - Well there is one side
of me that is as well, but still if you think about it. - That's true, that's true. Ashley asked how did it feel to be the first president
of a brand new nation? - The word is frightening. I remember writing a letter
to General Henry Knox, a friend of mine and the
commander of artillery during the war of American Independence, and I wrote to Henry that as I move towards the
executive seat of government, I feel like a condemned culprit being led to his own execution. Because this was a path that no one had ever walked on before, and the eyes of the world were upon us. Because the entire rest of the world believed that man could
not govern himself. So this was a grand experiment, and I was in a word, frightened. But the experiment continues, and another birthday year continues, and so we will hope through
the grace of divine providence this whole experiment, and many birthdays will continue.
