Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy

by Nathaniel Philbrick

In 1784, the king of Spain, hoping to win favor with the newly independent United States, agreed to send George Washington some male and female donkeys, known as jacks and jennies. These were followed by a shipment of Maltese donkeys from Lafayette in France. A cross between the Spanish and the Maltese breeds, named Compound, would become the Adam of American donkeys—the animal from which this country’s donkeys (and their mule progeny) are descended. Yes, Washington was the father of his country, but he was also the father of the American mule—the creatures that pulled thousands upon thousands of pioneer wagons across the plains and served the U.S. military as late as the war in Afghanistan in the twenty-first century—and it all began here, at Mount Vernon. —