The morning of December 12 was overcast.  He wrote to Hamilton warmly approving the scheme for a military academy; and having finished this, which was probably the last letter he ever wrote, he mounted his horse and rode off for his usual round of duties.  He noted in his diary, where he always described the weather with methodical exactness, that it began to snow about one o’clock, soon after to hail, and then turned to a settled cold rain.  He stayed out notwithstanding for about two hours, and then came back to the house and franked his letters.  Mr. Lear noticed that his hair was damp with snow, and expressed a fear that he had got wet; but the General said no, that his coat had kept him dry, and sat down to dinner without changing his clothes.  The next morning snow was still falling so that he did not ride, and he complained of a slight sore throat, but nevertheless went out in the afternoon to mark some trees that were to be cut down.  His hoarseness increased toward night, yet still he made light of it, and read the newspapers and chatted with Mrs. Washington during the evening.

When he went to bed Mr. Lear urged him to take something for his cold.  “No,” he replied, “you know I never take anything for a cold.  Let it go as it came.”  In the night he had a severe chill, followed by difficulty in breathing; and between two and three in the morning he awoke Mrs. Washington, but would not allow her to get up and call a servant lest she should take cold.  At daybreak Mr. Lear was summoned, and found Washington breathing with difficulty and hardly able to speak.  Dr. Craik, the friend and companion of many years, was sent for at once, and meantime the General was bled slightly by one of the overseers.  A futile effort was also made to gargle his throat, and external applications were tried without affording relief.  Dr. Craik arrived between eight and nine o’clock with two other physicians, when other remedies were tried and the patient was bled again, all without avail.  About half-past four he called Mrs. Washington to his bedside and asked her to get two wills from his desk.  She did so, and after looking them over he ordered one to be destroyed and gave her the other to keep.  He then said to Lear, speaking with the utmost difficulty, but saying what he had to say with characteristic determination and clearness:  “I find I am going; my breath cannot last long.  I believed from the first that the disorder would prove fatal.  Do you arrange and record all my late military letters and papers.  Arrange my accounts and settle my books, as you know more about them than any one else; and let Mr. Rawlins finish recording my other letters, which he has begun.”  He then asked if Lear recollected anything which it was essential for him to do, as he had but a very short time to continue with them.  Lear replied that he could recollect nothing, but that he hoped the end was not so near.  Washington smiled, and said that he certainly was dying, and that as it was the debt which we must all pay, he looked to the event with perfect resignation.