He was more of a chess player than a traditional warrior, thinking out his moves and executing them subtly rather than reacting to events viscerally and showily. In Washington, in fact, he found himself in need of a book he had left at Monticello: a work of strategy by the chess master François-André Danican Philidor. It was important enough to him that he recalled its place precisely: “You will find [it]37 in the book room, 2nd press on the left from the door of the entrance,” he wrote Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr.
