My apologies to ol’ General George

I owe George Washington an apology. Yes, George Washington, as in President George Washington, father of the nation.

Around this time last year, when the medical marijuana debate raged, I wrote a column decrying the libertarian movement to legalize pot. A reader, a staunch proponent of legalization, wrote to say that Washington had grown the hemp plant, from which marijuana is derived, on his plantation. Was it not conceivable that Washington, the reader noted, took a toke now and again? He felt that, in all probability, Washington had.

I wrote a second column, saying that even if ol’ General George had smoked pot, we shouldn’t base our moral compass on any one man. Should we reinstitute slavery because Washington held slaves?

Of course not.

However, in reading David McCullough’s remarkable book “1776,” on the first year of the Revolutionary War, I realize now that I was wrong to poke fun at Washington the way I did, even if it was for a good cause.

In my research, I’ve found no citations in which Washington admitted to smoking marijuana, or even mentioned it. The hemp plant was grown throughout the colonies in pre-Revolutionary War times. It was used to make everything from rope to cloth to paper. Washington clearly saw it as a profitable cash crop, but as the source of a recreational drug? Doubtful. His correspondences found in “1776” were just a tad too lucid.

But I digress.

I don’t really want to write about the legalization issue. I’d much rather write about the Revolutionary War, in which Washington was, to my mind, a hero beyond compare. A thousand times, I say every American should read “1776,” as it paints a detailed, nuanced picture of the Revolutionary War unlike any found in a high school history text. And at the center of it all is Washington.

McCullough, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and host of PBS’s “American Experience,” is an old-school storyteller and historian. Dr. Henry Kiernan, superintendent of the Bellmore-Merrick Central School District and a great student of history, introduced me to McCullough’s work, for which I’m eternally grateful.