Includes bibliographical references (pages 421-423) and index.

Time for a new plan -- Beginnings -- The school of Fairfax -- His brother's keeper -- Turning point -- First command -- Blooded -- Picking up the pieces -- A worse catastrophe -- The naked frontier -- A wilderness of difficulties -- Biting the hand -- New paths -- Back into the woods -- The push to Fort Duquesne -- Washington in love -- The new love -- To Mount Vernon -- Man of business, master of slaves -- The backbencher advances -- The wheel of history: the Stamp Act and the Robinson scandal -- Pivot to Fairfax County -- The master of Mount Vernon -- Never enough land -- Washington's association -- Upheavals at Mount Vernon -- Seizing the moment: the Fairfax resolves -- A continental character -- The storm breaks -- General Washington -- "One of the most important characters in the world" -- The bloody path to valley forge -- The first adversary: the Conway cabal -- The second adversary: "this fatal crisis" -- The third adversary: the British -- Victory, he said -- The long, bumpy victory lap -- Home, not retired -- Back into harness -- America's rebirth -- A working politician -- On untrodden ground -- The debt and the residence -- The compromise -- The bank -- Second-term blues -- The calamitous Frenchman -- Troubles within -- The fight for peace -- Farewell, again -- Home for good -- Wrestling with sin -- Farewell forever.