When I was down in the Norfolk-Williamsburg area in Eastern Virginia, I certainly heard the Southern accent.
Ugh! I didn't say they didn't have a Southern accent, I said they didn't have a Southern drawl. Perhaps you think one is identical to the other?
Upper Southerners (and residents of the top halves of Deep South states) do not drawl. They twang.
I am merely pointing out that George Washington, a Virginian, would not have sounded like someone from south Mississippi.