Washington wrote almost lightly of preparing to “bring on a rumpus” with the redcoats

From 1776 by David McCulough. Page 90.

As he had often before in his life, Washington eased the stress of waiting by catching up with his correspondence, writing again to Joseph Reed and to a young black poet, Phillis Wheatley, then living in Providence, who had sent him a poem written in his honor: “Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side / Thy every action let the goddess guide.”

The country had no poets as yet, and Washington was not known to be inclined to poetry or poetic musings. Yet he, a soldier and planter—a slave master—despite all that bore heavily on his mind, took time now to write to her in his own hand.

“I thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of me,” Washington wrote, “and however undeserving I may be of such encomium and panegyrick, the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your great poetical talents.” Should she ever come to Cambridge, he would be “happy to see a person so favored by the muses.”

In a letter to a Virginia friend, Washington wrote almost lightly of preparing to “bring on a rumpus” with the redcoats. 

Astonishing the  details which conflict with modern assumptions.  In today's Critical Theory dominated teachings, there is no room at all for General George Washington, slave owning patrician, in the midst of a desperate campaign, writing a letter of appreciation to an unknown young, black woman poet.

It is not a detail which affirms or overturns anything but should cause us to consider carefully how much we think we know of the past.  

Reminds me of British General and later Viceroy of India Archibald Wavell, commander of British forces during the German invasion of North Africa.  When he was appointed Viceroy of India in 1943, not only did he have to deal with Japanese forces on the northeastern border of India but also had to address a famine in Bengal which took the lives of 2-3 million.  

And in the midst of all that, in 1944, he published Other Men's Flowers, an anthology of poems.  

Washington was not, to my knowledge, an enthusiast for poetry.  But he was highly motivated by duty and civility.