[serallak]

> George Washington could have financed the entire Revolutionary War out of his own pocket and he still would have retained two thirds of his wealth

Is that true ?

As far as I am aware, the money the French Government alone loaned to the US during the revolutionary war (at least two million dollars[0]) far exceeded the value of Washington personal wealth (estimated at $780,000 in 1799 [1], so at the time of his death, not during the war).

And this is not counting all the loans made from other foreign sources (the Spanish Government and private Dutch investors), and the money raised directly by the Continental Congress.

Also, as others have said, it would have been almost impossible to liquidate his assets (his lands and his slaves) during the war - the problem was availability of cash, not wealth.

[0] https://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/loans [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finances_of_George_Washington#...

[dumbledoren]

It goes far beyond that: France sent troops and France and Spain sent their navies to protect the East Coast and fought with the British navy to prevent them from landing forces. They also prepared an invasion to invade the British isles, which tied what forces Britain had remaining to the British isles. That is how the small rebel contingents were able to win against the scarce British presence. Even that required Lafayette to come up from the south with his French contingent and do a pincer move.

[sigmoid10]

Your source says that it depends on how you look at it. See the similar discussion regarding Iraq war spending in the other comments.

But it is also totally irrelevant, because the point is that Washington was one of the richest people in America before the war started and even richer when he died. There is no doubt about that.

[serallak]

I'm not doubting that Washington was very very rich.

I'm doubting the different and very specific claim that "George Washington could have financed the entire Revolutionary War" with just a third of his wealth.

To me, the math simply does not add up. I suppose it can be chalked up to hyperbole ?

I also don't see how a discussion of the Iraq war could be relevant to that claim ...

[sigmoid10]

War financing is incredibly complex and even more so when your only source is some paper notes from several hundred years ago. Whether you believe that or not basically boils down to how you want to see it. Would you for example say that George Washington would have owned more than 30,000 slaves in today's world? A straightforward extrapolation of the population size might suggest so. But then again that is also grossly overlooking many other aspects. So you would also be right to doubt it. Either way, you would still be missing the point of the discussion.

[AnimalMuppet]

> War financing is incredibly complex and even more so when your only source is some paper notes from several hundred years ago. Whether you believe that or not basically boils down to how you want to see it.

Perhaps so. But you're the one who made the initial claim so confidently and definitively. To now say "it's complex and based only on a few notes, and depends on how you want to see it" is basically the same as saying "my original claim was my spin on it, which I was asking everyone to take as accurate".