Alas for Romance - The Gift Frederick the Great Didn't Send to George Washington

Now Frederick the Great of Prussia (r. 1740–1786) was undoubtedly the most renowned general of his times, so well-regarded that when Napoleon, having defeated the Prussians, visited his grave in 1806, he would say, "Were he alive, we would not be here."

There's a tradition that in his old age Frederick came to admire another general, George Washington, for his skillful conduct of the American Revolution.

This tradition holds that Frederick so admired the American general, that in 1780 he sent Washington a gift, a splendid sword inscribed -- or perhaps accompanied by a written message reading -- "From the oldest general in the world, to the greatest!"  This tradition had considerable circulation in Germany at one time, and even the great Otto von Bismarck once referred to it as a sign of German-American friendship.

So strong was the legend, that when, following the Civil War, former General-in-Chief Winfield Scott sent a copy of his memoirs to the new General-in-Chief, Ulysses S. Grant, he inscribed the volumes with the very same phrase.

The story, which was certainly in circulation by the 1850s, is bogus.

Moncure Daniel Conway (1832-1907), an American clergyman, abolitionist, and author, once investigated the tale.  Writing in 1891 and again in 1898, he noted that not only had he never found any evidence to support the story, but that he had once asked the noted historian Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), about it.  Author of the multi-volume Life of Frederick the Great (published in 1858–1865), the best nineteenth century English account of the Prussian king's life and career, Carlyle had replied "There is not the slightest foundation for it."

Carlyle might have added that Frederick would seem unlikely to want to call Washington a great general until he'd actually won a war, and in 1780 the outcome of the American Revolution was still very much in doubt; the decisive victory at Yorktown did not take place until October of 1781, and the war dragged on for two years more.

Nevertheless, the legend persists, and a sword held by Washington's heirs is still sometimes referred to as having been the very one presented to the general by Frederick the Great.