His second and favorite brother, John Augustine, who was four years his junior, Washington described as “the intimate companion of my youth and the friend of my ripened age.”  While the Virginia colonel was on the frontier, from 1754 to 1759, he left John in charge of all his business affairs, giving him a residence at and management of Mount Vernon.  With this brother he constantly corresponded, addressing him as “Dear Jack,” and writing in the most intimate and affectionate terms, not merely to him, but when John had taken unto himself a wife, to her, and to “the little ones,” and signing himself “your loving brother.”  Visits between the two were frequent, and invitations for the same still more so, and in one letter, written during the most trying moment of the Revolution, Washington said, “God grant you all health and happiness.  Nothing in this world could contribute so to mine as to be fixed among you.”  John died in 1787, and Washington wrote with simple but undisguised grief of the death of “my beloved brother.”

The eldest son of this brother, Bushrod, was his favorite nephew, and Washington took much interest in his career, getting the lad admitted to study law with Judge James Wilson, in Philadelphia, and taking genuine pride in him when he became a lawyer and judge of repute.  He made this nephew his travelling companion in the Western journey of 1784, and at other times not merely sent him money, but wrote him letters of advice, dwelling on the dangers that beset young men, though confessing that he was himself “not such a Stoic” as to expect too much of youthful blood.  To Bushrod, also, he appealed on legal matters, adding, “You may think me an unprofitable applicant in asking opinions and requiring services of you without dousing my money, but pay day may come,” and in this he was as good as his word, for in his will Washington left Bushrod, “partly in consideration of an intimation to his deceased father, while we were bachelors and he had kindly undertaken to superintend my Estates, during my military services in the former war between Great Britain and France, that if I should fall therein, Mt.  Vernon ... should become his property,” the home and “mansion-house farm,” one share of the residuary estate, his private papers, and his library, and named him an executor of the instrument.

Of Washington’s relations with his youngest brother, Charles, little can be learned.  He was the last of his brothers to die, and Washington outlived him so short a time that he was named in his will, though only for a mere token of remembrance.  “I add nothing to it because of the ample provision I have made for his issue.”  Of the children so mentioned, Washington was particularly fond of George Augustine Washington.  As a mere lad he used his influence to procure for him an ensigncy in a Virginia regiment, and an appointment on Lafayette’s staff.  When in 1784 the young fellow was threatened with consumption, his uncle’s purse supplied