As a newspaperman he had been intrigued when collector Sol Feinstone showed him some of Washington's love letters. Randall resolved to write a book that would dispel once and for all the ``fourth grade level thinking'' about Washington -- the stories of him chopping down a cherry tree, throwing a coin across the Rappahannock, kneeling in the snow at Valley Forge.
Randall gave us a man who wrote over 20,000 letters in his lifetime, who dictated to as many as 11 aides simultaneously, a man whose height made him to some extent almost a freak in an era when most men were barely 5'7". The key to his rise was his near compulsion to do things, to volunteer to carry a message to the French through hundreds of miles of wilderness at 20, to become and Indian-fighting frontier colonel at 23.
Randall told us how Washington virtually transformed southern agriculture when he took over Mount Vernon -- and how he and George mason introduced a bill to free Virginia's slaves in 1765. We learned that he lived in 280 different temporary residences and lost half of his net worth in the Revolution.
Space prevents us from adding more of these startling revelations. To no one's surprise, Mr. Randall got a standing ovation as he accepted his plaque, saluting his book and his many other contributions to the history of the Revolution.