VA, USA
Washington Departs for Continental Congress
May 4, 1775
George Washington left Alexandria for the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, arriving in time for the Congress that appointed him Commander-in-Chief on June 15, 1775. His departure from Alexandria was the last time he would leave the area as a private citizen. He would not return permanently for eight years — an absence that began the long period of Lund Washington's management of the estate and the Patriot networks that sustained Alexandria's wartime role.
People Involved
Virginia planter and Continental Army commander-in-chief who owned and managed Mount Vernon's enslaved workforce. Absent from his estate for most of the war, he directed Lund Washington's management by correspondence and returned to find the plantation's human community shaped by eight years of wartime disruption.