AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "In her form-shattering and myth-crushing book....Coe examines myths with mirth, and writes history with humor... You Never Forget Your First] is an accessible look at a president who always finishes in the first ranks of our leaders." --Boston Globe Alexis Coe takes a closer look at our first--and finds he is not quite the man we remember Young George Washington was raised by a struggling single mother, demanded military promotions, caused an international incident, and never backed down--even when his dysentery got so bad he had to ride with a cushion on his saddle. But after he married Martha, everything changed. Washington became the kind of man who named his dog Sweetlips and hated to leave home. He took up arms against the British only when there was no other way, though he lost more battles than he won. After an unlikely victory in the Revolutionary War cast him as the nation's hero, he was desperate to retire, but the founders pressured him
