Similarities were many…
Presidents Washington, Lincoln
leaders who were ‘right for their time’

Washington and Lincoln were two men who were right for their time,” Gene McManaway emphasizes.

“The country would not be the same without them.”

Visitors at the 2012 Vice Presidential Debate in Danville also got that impression as McManaway, portraying George Washington, and Larry Elliott, portraying Abraham Lincoln, spent the day Oct. 11 letting folks understand how these two presidents shaped America.

“Washington started the country and Lincoln kept it together,” McManaway noted.  “They had similar feelings about the nation and its people, about equal rights and about having a great United States of America. Lincoln was a great fan of Washington and what he accomplished in a difficult time.”

The credit for bringing the two presidents together goes to the Association of Retired Persons (AARP). When the association discovered that Louisville’s Larry Elliott would be on hand to portray Lincoln as part of the debate activities, officials contacted McManaway, another Louisvillian, and ask him to portray Washington.

Gene fell in love with history in high school and knew a lot about the nation’s first president and, as one of their volunteer workers, the AARP was aware of this.   McManaway was contacted, provided a Revolutionary War officer’s attire, and sent to the “front” to join Elliott and communicate with the growing audience.

“We spent eight hours walking around and talking with people,” Elliott explained. “We didn’t have a formal program, but Gene and I were knowledgeable about the presidents we were portraying and were able to answer questions and talk about the history of Washington’s and Lincoln’s time.”

The audience “ate it up” and enjoyed the color and pageantry of the activity. And, McManaway noted, they learned about the qualities of leadership the two men provided.

“Washington led by example,” Gene explained. “He really wanted to be an effective leader and, when a battle was going badly, he’d mount a horse, rally the men and lead them back into the action. He avoided injury, but his clothes often were riddled with bullet holes.

“Although he basically was a very reserved person, Washington always was concerned about the image he presented to his soldiers. And, because of his leadership and the image he gave to his men, he received a lot of respect. Not a lot of generals have received the type of respect he earned.

“Basically, he was a kind of rock star of his day.”

Although he had been a colonel in the English army, Washington received somewhat of a bad rap for the way he directed a battle, Gene observed.

“His tactics were based on frontier fighting, confronting the enemy in the same manner as they faced him. The gentlemanly way of fighting was to confront the enemy head on and keep firing until one side overwhelmed the other. But Washington had led the Virginia militia, fought Indians and learned a lot from that experience. He fought as they did, from behind trees or other cover and not giving opponents a clear and open target.”

Although the British were aghast at such tactics, Washington used them to his advantage.

“Washington was about 6-foot-2 or 3 and weighed around 190 pounds – really big for a man of that time,” McManaway said. “But because he was tall, he looked like a leader and lived up to that image.”

Gene has read and viewed material about Washington and has made every effort to separate fact from fiction. He wore the general’s uniform at Danville the AARP provided, but, since then, has purchased his own uniform with the idea of portraying the president at schools.

“I’d like to see students understand more about our history,” he continued.  “Sometimes I think there’s not a lot of interest among young people about who and why we are.”

Gene sees future portrayals as a means of correcting that and showing that Washington is more than just an image on a one-dollar bill. Elliott has encouraged McManaway to continue his portrayals and the two are examining how they can perform together in the near future.

Larry points out that Gene has done his homework about Washington and early America.

“He asked me when we were at Danville, ‘who was America’s first president?’,” Elliott said. “And, I was told it wasn’t George Washington.”

The answer, Gene announced, is John Hanson.

Hanson, a merchant and Maryland public official, McManaway explained, was a Continental Congress delegate who signed the Articles of Confederation in 1781 and, in November of that year, was elected president of the Continental Congress.

He also became the first president to serve a one-year term under the provisions of the Articles of Confederation. And that, some historians claim, makes him America’s first president.

“How’s that for American trivia,” Elliott grinned.

– Ed Ford