George Washington announces plans to resign commission, Dec. 4, 1783
On this day in 1783, George Washington, then commanding general of the Continental Army, summoned his officers to Fraunces Tavern in New York City to inform them that he planned to resign his commission to return to his Mount Vernon, Va., home as a gentleman farmer.
The farewell dinner for Washington and his officers took place at the tavern’s Long Room. “With a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you,” he told them. “I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable.”
Although Lord Charles Cornwallis, the top British general, had surrendered to Washington at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781, it took nearly two years to conclude a peace treaty in Paris and even longer for the last British troops to leave New York. With their departure, Washington embraced his officers one by one before departing for Annapolis, Md., where he resigned his commission in a ceremony before the Continental Congress on Dec. 23.
Although during the six-year war Washington had lamented the sorry state of his largely undisciplined troops and the frequent ineffectiveness of most of his officer corps, he nevertheless voiced his appreciation for their service at the dinner. Observers of the scene described Washington as “suffused in tears.”
Washington came out of retirement in 1788 when he agreed to run unopposed for the newly created office of president of the United States, a position he held for two terms until 1797.Since 1904, the tavern has been owned by Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York. It claims to be the city’s oldest surviving building, having opened on the same site in 1762 and remains a restaurant and bar.