History

I saw the first part, and plan to see the second and third parts tomorrow.  This is done as a documentary, not as a biopic, in the same pattern as Ken Burns's miniseries on the War of the Rebellion and baseball.  Inevitably, there were things I would have liked to see -- including the fact that Braddock made it almost all the way to Fort DuQuesne without being attacked.  The French wanted to hit him with their Indian allies and were very frustrated that his ordinary precautions were sufficient to prevent this.  The British let down their guard when they got near the fort, no doubt overeager, and rendered themselves vulnerable to a Franco-Amerindian attack.

But to cover Washington's career all the way up to the point that he took command of the Continental army outside Boston, they couldn't include everything.  It's perhaps unsurprising that when it came to getting a politician to discuss Washington as a leader, they had . . . Slick Willie.  Well, it could have been worse.  At least he only made a couple of brief appearances.  Overall, what I've seen so far is probably better than the Burns series that I saw.

The final hour does indeed concentrate on Washington's presidency.  There is little on his policies other than paying off the existing war debt (which of course would take far longer than his term) and one result of the taxes Hamilton pushed to do so -- the Whiskey Rebellion.  Naturally they discuss issues relating to slavery, such as rotating his household slaves between Mount Vernon and Philadelphia because of Pennsylvania law (visitors could bring slaves, but if they were there 6 months they were declared free).  His decision to step down after 2 terms was itself revolutionary, and led to subsequent presidents repeating the precedent for the simple reason that no one was willing to claim superiority to Washington.

Until FDR came along, of course.  One could note that TR ran for a third term in 1912, and Wilson might have done so if he were capable of it.  Progressivism rejected both tradition and modesty.  (No surprise that they didn't go into that, of course.)

There is a final coda covering Washington's death and the public memorials afterward as well as Martha Washington's reaction.  (They did mention his freeing his slaves in his will, though with one exception it was to take place at her death.  None of the other Virginia founders did so.)  In discussing his qualities, they sadly don't mention Henry Lee's famous "first in war, first in peace, and first in the heart of his countrymen".

A biography of Albert Sidney Johnston (the senior Confederate army commander) once noted that he was no military genius, but that he was the sort who could have maintained an army in extremis through leadership, much as Washington did.  Of course, Johnston never got the chance to see if he could do that.  Lee did, and pretty well, though he had a lot of deserters.  But so did Washington.  The wonder, in both cases, is that they both had a decent number who didn't desert despite everything.

I guess that happens once you make a nation and truly establish it.  Many people will fight for it no matter ow bad the situation is.  But in Washington's case, the situation on occasion -- as it was before Trenton when the army's enlistments would expire in another week, at Valley Forge when they were starving and frozen while the British occupied their capital, and at Newburgh when the troops considered marching on Congress to get their pay at last -- was unbelievably bad.

Character matters, and that's what Washington had most of all.

I never read Shogun or saw the movie, but I must admit that this is an interesting tidbit.  The most comparable event might be finding the grave of Frederick Townsend Ward, the American "devil soldier" who founded the Ever-Victorious Army (though it earned its sobriquet best under Charles Gordon, which is why the latter is known as Chinese Gordon) and became a mandarin of the third rank.

A fictional account (to some extent) of Ward can be found in Flashman and the Dragon.

That sounds like it might be interesting.  I will mention that I once saw at least part of a movie on TV about the American ambassador to Japan after Perry's mission and his efforts to further open the country up.  I don't recall the title, but there are two scenes I recall.  One involved the embarrassing moment when the Japanese court brought up the matter of American chattel slavery.  The other involved a few Americans escaping a merchant ship -- infected with cholera.  All he knew about dealing with cholera was that fire would do wonders.

In addition, Stephen Sondheim did a musical (Pacific Overtures) about Perry (and later other efforts) from the Japanese point of view.  It concluded with a modern look, including how many Japanese watches are sold in Switzerland and how many Japanese souvenirs were sold during American bicentennial celebrations.

As I recall, the Geisha in question did not want to go work for Harris, but the local (and other) worthies basically forced her to do so in order that they could keep an eye on Harris and learn about those henna gaijin (strange foreigner) customs.  In any case, she didn't last very long as Harris apparently fired her after less than a week.

Didn't John Wayne play Townsend Harris in the movie?