A Gentleman's Pursuit: Five Days in the Hunt
As told by George Washington, Master of Mount Vernon
The frost lay heavy upon the Neck that morning of the second of March, in the year 1768, and I confess I felt the season's grip in my bones as I mounted. The hounds were eager—too eager, perhaps—their breath rising in clouds as they strained against their handlers. I had Mopsey and her line out that day, along with several of the younger dogs, and from the first I noted they seemed unusually spirited.
Captain Posey arrived as dawn broke, his gelding's hooves crunching upon the frozen earth. "A fine morning for it, Colonel," said he, though I observed his collar drawn tight against the wind. Mr. Robert Alexander came shortly after, and Mr. Bryan Fairfax, their faces ruddy with cold and anticipation.
"The creature will not run long in such weather," offered Fairfax, and I inclined my head, though I held my own counsel on the matter. A fox is a cunning adversary, and the cold makes him desperate.
We found our quarry near the old tobacco barn—a dog fox, lean and scarred, with a bobbed tail and ears that spoke of previous encounters with hounds or trap. The chase began at once, and I knew from the first cry of the pack that this would be no ordinary run.
The beast led us through country I knew well—across Muddy Hole, through the pine breaks I had ordered cut the previous winter for just such sport, and then eastward toward terrain less familiar. Hour followed hour. The sun climbed and fell again. My horse lathered and heaved beneath me, and I changed mounts twice at pre-arranged points, a necessity I had learned to anticipate in longer pursuits.
By the fourth hour, Posey had fallen back, his mount spent. Alexander persisted, though I could see the strain in his seat. The dogs—and here I must record with some regret—began to show their exhaustion. Several of the younger hounds faltered, and I heard Fairfax cry out that Trueman had pulled up lame.
Still the fox ran.
In the seventh hour, with the sun now declining and shadows lengthening across the fields, we cornered the creature at last near the creek boundary. The pack, though greatly reduced and visibly spent, brought him to ground. Most of the dogs were utterly worsted by the effort—I had never seen them so thoroughly used up. Even old Taster, ordinarily stalwart, lay panting with his tongue upon the frozen earth.
I dismounted to examine our prize. The bobbed tail, the mutilated ears—this fox had survived much before meeting us. There was something almost noble in the creature's resistance, though I do not indulge in sentiment where sport is concerned.
The consequence of such exertion manifested itself the following day, when I was taken with a lax and violent griping that confined me to my chamber. Dr. Laurie attended me and prescribed rest, though I chafed at the inactivity. The body, I reflected, exacts its price for such pursuits, yet I would not have foregone the chase for any consideration.
A year hence, in April of 1769, there occurred a hunt of such peculiar character that I set it down here in fuller detail than my diary permitted.
The morning of the eleventh began fair, with a southerly breeze carrying the scent of early apple blossoms. I had arranged to hunt alone—or rather, with only my hounds and handlers—desiring some solitude after several weeks of constant company and the demands of correspondence with factors in London regarding the tobacco crop.
We raised the fox near the old Palmer place, and from the first I observed something unusual in the creature's strategy. Rather than running for cover or distance, it made for the treeline with what seemed almost deliberate purpose. Within a quarter hour, the fox had taken to a tree—a young oak with branches low enough to permit the ascent.
"Extraordinary," I remarked to my handler, James. "I have not seen the like above twice in all my years of hunting."
We might have shaken the creature down or shot it, but a notion seized me—partly sporting curiosity, partly an experiment in the nature of the beast. "Fetch netting," I instructed. "We shall take this one alive."
The operation required some care and not inconsiderable patience, but within the hour we had the fox secured in heavy netting and conveyed back to Mount Vernon in a crate. The animal, a dog fox of perhaps three years, showed neither fear nor excessive agitation, but regarded us with what I can only describe as intelligent wariness.
I had the creature housed in a secure pen and saw to it that food and water were provided. That evening, over supper, I mentioned the capture to my stepson, Jacky Custis, who expressed enthusiasm for running the fox again the following day.
"You cannot mean to hunt the same creature twice, sir," said he, with the frank incredulity of youth.
"Can I not?" I replied. "We shall see what manner of sport a fox provides when he knows the ground and the enemy both."
The twelfth of April dawned overcast, with a threat of rain hanging in the heavy air. We assembled a small party and released the fox at the edge of the Neck, giving him some minutes' head start as fairness seemed to require.
The creature bolted at once—not, as I had half expected, toward some bolt-hole of previous acquaintance, but directly for the same oak that had sheltered him the day before. The hounds gave chase, and we followed, but the fox's knowledge of the terrain and his evident determination to reach that tree made for a shorter but more intense pursuit.
Within an hour and forty-five minutes, the fox had treed again in the very same oak. The hounds bayed at the base, and I sat my horse looking up at the creature, who looked back at me with what I fancied was almost recognition.
"Shall we take him again?" asked Custis.
I considered the matter. The fox had shown remarkable persistence, returning to a strategy that had once saved him. To kill him now seemed somehow unsporting; to capture him again, merely repetitive.
"No," I decided. "Call off the hounds. He has earned his freedom."
But the fox, whether from exhaustion or injury from the previous day's netting, or perhaps simply from the strain of a second chase, disappeared after we withdrew. We cast about for some time but found no trace. Whether he escaped to run another day or perished in some hidden covert, I cannot say. The affair left me thoughtful regarding the nature of both persistence and mercy.
The winter of 1770 brought a hunt of still stranger character. On the twenty-third of January, with young Custis again accompanying me, we found a bitch fox at Muddy Hole shortly after breakfast.
The chase proved vigorous, spanning better than two hours across terrain made treacherous by alternating frost and thaw. The fox twice took to trees—an unusual behavior in a bitch, and twice we pressed her from her refuge. The hounds, particularly the younger Countess and her sister Stately, ran with exceptional determination.
On the second treeing, near the old boundary marker by the creek, an event occurred which I set down as witnessed, though it defies ready explanation. The fox, cornered in the bare branches of a hickory perhaps twenty feet aloft, appeared in sound health—breathing steadily, maintaining her position with sure footing. The hounds bayed below. We prepared to flush her once more.
Then, without warning or apparent cause, the creature simply fell.
She dropped as though all life had left her in an instant, tumbling through the branches to land upon the frozen ground with a sound I can yet recall. Upon examination, we found her dead—no mark upon her save those from the fall itself, no foam at the mouth to suggest poison, no evident wound.
"She has died of fright," suggested Custis.
"Perhaps," I allowed, though I was unconvinced. I have seen many foxes in extremis, and they do not simply expire of terror whilst seemingly hale. Dr. Rumney, whom I consulted later regarding the matter, proposed some failure of the heart brought on by exertion, and this seems the likeliest explanation, yet the suddenness of it remained remarkable.
The incident cast a pall over what had been spirited sport, and we rode back to Mount Vernon in relative silence, each occupied with his own thoughts regarding mortality and the unexpected nature of death.
These hunts, spanning as they do nearly three years, represent for me something beyond mere sport or entertainment. In the pursuit of the fox, I find exercise for body and mind both—the former through the physical demands of riding, the latter through the constant calculation required: reading the terrain, anticipating the quarry's path, managing the hounds and horses, directing the company.
There is, too, a democratic quality to the hunt that I value. Upon the field, differences of rank matter less than horsemanship and courage. I have ridden alongside yeomen farmers and colonial nobility alike, and each man is judged by his seat and his nerve, not his acres or his pedigree.
Yet I confess that in these latter years, as colonial tensions mount and correspondence with London grows ever more fractious, I find in the hunt also a temporary refuge—a return to pursuits that are elemental and honest, where the objective is clear and the outcome depends upon skill, endurance, and fortune rather than political maneuvering or commercial calculation.
The land itself speaks to me during these pursuits. Every hill and hollow I traverse in the chase is land I must understand as a farmer and planter. The fox leads me across my own ground and my neighbors', showing me drainage I had not noted, timber I had not valued, paths that might serve purposes beyond the hunt.
And the hounds—they are, in their way, a nation in miniature, requiring leadership that is firm yet just, discipline that does not break spirit, and careful breeding to preserve desirable qualities while eliminating fault. I keep meticulous records of their lineage, as any good breeder must, and I take no small satisfaction in seeing my careful pairings vindicated in the speed and scenting ability of their offspring.
As I sit now in my study, with daylight fading and the records of these hunts before me, I find myself reflecting that the pursuit of the fox is, in its way, a metaphor for pursuits of all kinds—requiring patience, judgment, persistence, and the wisdom to know when to press forward and when to withdraw. These lessons serve a man in all his endeavors, whether upon the hunting field or in the broader theater of life and commerce.
The hounds sleep now in their kennel. The horses rest in their stalls. And I, having set down these recollections, shall rest also, content in the knowledge that come dawn, there shall be land to improve, correspondence to answer, and—should fortune and weather permit—perhaps another fox to pursue.
Disclaimer: Origin and Nature of This Text
Historical Basis and Creative Reconstruction
This narrative is a modern creative work based upon authentic primary source materials from George Washington's personal diaries, dated primarily between 1768 and 1770. It is not an original historical document written by Washington himself.
Source Materials:
- All factual details regarding dates, locations, companions, hunt durations, outcomes, and hound breeding records are drawn directly from Washington's actual diary entries, as provided in the source documents.
- The documented hunts described (including the seven-hour chase of March 2, 1768; the live capture of April 11-12, 1769; and the mysterious death of January 23, 1770) are real events recorded in Washington's own hand.
Creative Elements:
- The expanded narrative voice, dialogue, sensory descriptions, and internal reflections are literary interpretations created to bring the historical record to life.
- While the tone and vocabulary attempt to approximate 18th-century diction and Washington's documented writing style, the full narrative form is a modern reconstruction.
- Conversations and emotional states, while historically plausible, are imagined based on period context and Washington's known character.
Purpose: This piece serves as historical fiction in the truest sense—faithful to documented facts while employing literary craft to create an immersive experience of Washington's fox hunting experiences as he might have recounted them in a fuller memoir.
Author: This text was composed by Claude (Anthropic AI) in October 2025, based on user-provided historical documents.
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