Harold Titus's Blog - Posts Tagged "thomas-nelson"

In Capital Square in Richmond today stands an equestrian statue of George Washington. A tourist would notice six figures mounted at the base of the statue. Chances are he would recognize instantly the importance of three of the figures: Patrick Henry, the orator of the Revolution, Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, and John Marshall, the famous Supreme Court Justice. But the other three figures about the statue – George Mason, Thomas Nelson, and Andrew Lewis – might mean nothing to him. Seconds later he would probably walk away, intent upon seeing another historic monument in historic Richmond.

Mason, Nelson, and Lewis were important leaders. To the general public, however, they are anonymous patriots, their significance overlooked or underemphasized by the biographers of the giants of American history.

Thomas Nelson is the subject of this new series of posts. He can be taken as a test case of the importance of obscure Revolutionary War leaders. If he had not died relatively early, he would probably have been an important national political figure. Even so, his life was full and his contributions substantial.

***

In describing the seaport town of York to Sir Henry Clinton shortly before the beginning of the American Revolution, a British officer wrote: “The people in and about it, influenced by the family of Nelson, are all Rebellious” (Riley 22). If the officer had remained in the town longer and inquired about the Nelson family, he might have left contemplating just how far beyond the boundaries of foolishness this rebellious family might go. They were merchants, the first in York, one of the wealthiest families in the colony. If the existing breach between the political and economic interests of Great Britain and her colonies should expand to the point where neither antagonist could reverse course, if the ultimate solution to this clash of interests could be none other than a clash of arms, the Nelsons stood to lose economically far more than most Americans. Yet, from the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765, the family’s history is one of consistent loyalty to colonial principles. The British officer might have explained all of this with the thought that many men lose their senses in times of strife, but a crisis can also inspire the employment of rare qualities of character, one being courage.

Thomas Nelson, the founder of the wealthy Virginia family and the grandfather of the subject of this post, came to the colonies from Penriff, near the border of Scotland, shortly after the turn of the Seventeenth Century. He established himself in York as a merchant, married a Miss Reid of the neighboring county, and had two sons and one daughter.

Thomas Nelson’s two sons, William and Thomas, upon reaching their adulthood, also settled in York. Both men took an active role in Virginia politics. Thomas -- Thomas Nelson Jr.’s uncle -- was secretary of the governor’s council for over twenty years. William became a member of the House of Burgesses from York County in 1742. In 1744 he joined his brother in the council and later became its president. Due to the length of time both men held these positions in the council, they came to be called Secretary and President Nelson.

Importing goods from the merchants of Philadelphia and Baltimore, then in their commercial beginnings, William Nelson acquired a large fortune. After the death of Governor Botetourt, Nelson was acting governor of the colony from October 1770 to August 1771. While he was “the right hand of George III,” he remained loyal to colonial ideals. His letters to merchants at this time reveal his indignant opposition to onerous acts passed by the British Parliament, unwarranted impositions, he believed, legislated upon colonial rights and privileges. Bishop Meade wrote that he left “none to doubt where he would have been when the trumpet sounded to arms” (Meade 209).

William Nelson married a Miss Burnwell, a pious and conscientious woman. All of their daughters died before they reached the age of twelve. Of their six sons, one burned to death and another damaged his brain in a fall from an upper story of the Nelson house. These tragedies turned Mrs. Nelson ever closer to her religion.

She was particularly attentive to the religious training of her children. She taught them to be punctual and conscientious in their daily prayers, set for them an exemplary example, and prayed for them often. Equally concerned with their children’s religious upbringing, William took the lead in affairs of the local parish. On Sundays, generous as well as pious, he had a large dinner prepared to which both rich and poor were invited.

Thomas Nelson, Jr., the eldest son, born December 26, 1738, had the qualities of courage, generosity, honesty, and leadership – so apparent during the Revolution – instilled in him in the Nelson home.

***

At the age of fourteen Thomas Nelson, Jr., was a rather high spirited boy, energetic enough to give his father uneasy moments. The boy had become old enough for President Nelson to consider sending to England for a formal education. It was the custom of many wealthy seaboard Virginia families to send their eldest sons to London for that purpose. In a year, or perhaps two, Thomas would be ready. Then, one Sunday morning while strolling about the outskirts of York, father Nelson’s aristocratic soul was rudely shaken. He had come upon his son playing in the streets with several of the little Negro boys of the village. Realizing the delicacy of such an association and the difficulty of preventing future ones, Nelson decided quickly that it was time for Thomas to begin his English education. A vessel stood anchored in the harbor ready to sail. Thomas found himself aboard it the next day. He would not return for nine years.

President Nelson placed Thomas under the care of two friends: a Mr. Hunt of London, and Neilby Porteus, then fellow of Cambridge University, later to become a bishop. Nelson needed six years of preparation before he entered Christ’s College at Cambridge in 1758. He was then placed under the care of a Dr. Newcome at the Hackney School, in the village of the same name near the outskirts of London. He then entered Cambridge under the private tutorship of Mr. Porteus. In letters to Hunt and Porteus, President Nelson shows his pious concern for the improvement of his son – “in all things, but especially in morals and religion.” Thomas’s spirited nature yet troubled him. He had exhibited behavior unbecoming a gentleman of his station by associating with Negroes. What form might his behavior take now that he was older? Nelson requested of his friends that during the vacation seasons Thomas be placed under the supervision of an eminent scientific agriculturalist, so that “the temptations incident to young men during the vacation” resulting from “a disposition to idleness and pleasure” be avoided. Additionally, when Thomas returned to America, he would be able to make adequate use of the soils of Virginia (Meade 206).

Regardless of what President Nelson may have wished, Thomas’s activities were not devoted exclusively to the studying of books and soils. Nelson saved a man from drowning. Ironically, the man was a kinsman of Lord North, Prime Minister just prior to and during most of the Revolutionary War. In appreciation of Nelson’s heroic deed, the Lord presented the young man a gold snuff box containing a fine miniature of himself (Davis III 119).

After three years of tutorship by Mr. Porteus, Thomas was ready to return to York. However, due to his father’s great concern for his spiritual upbringing, Thomas’s departure was delayed several months. The elder Nelson had learned that two young Virginians, whose habits he feared, though they were sons of the first families of the colony, would be aboard the ship that Thomas was scheduled to take. Thomas, therefore, was ordered to remain in England until another ship sailed for Virginia.

A blue-eyed, light-haired youth of twenty-two, exhibiting a ruddy complexion, finally returned to Virginia at the close of 1761. His father was happy to find a general improvement in his son, but regretted that he had adopted the bad practice of smoking tobacco – “filthy tobacco,” he wrote his friends in England. The elder Nelson also complained that Thomas ate and drank “more than was conducive to health and long life, though not to inebriety” (Meade 217). If the reunion of father and son had given the President some cause for feeling a bit surprised, it gave Thomas far greater cause. While Thomas was still on his voyage home, his name had been entered, undoubtedly by his father, as a candidate to the House of Burgesses from York County. Thomas was greeted at the dock with the news that he had been elected a burgess.


Sources Cited:

Davis III, Edward Morris. “Historical Silver in the Commonwealth of Virginia.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (April 1941) XLIX. Print.

Meade, Bishop. Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1891)Vol. I. Print.

Riley, Edward M. “Yorktown/During the Revolution.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (January 1949), Vol. 57. Print.

Parliament’s passage of the Tea Act in the spring of 1773 was the catalyst of a series of contentious events that culminated in colonial America’s war with Great Britain that began two years later and its declaration of independence in 1776.

The Tea Act granted the foundering British East India Company the right to import 18,000,000 pounds of surplus tea that it had stored in its London warehouses directly into the colonies without payment of any export tax. The Company would use co-signees appointed by royal governors in Massachusetts, New York, and South Carolina and the proprietors in Pennsylvania rather than local merchants to sell its tea. The American tea merchant was legislated out of business. Even though consumers would still have to pay the tax on tea imposed by the 1767 Townshend Acts, they would be paying a price lower than that charged previously by American merchants and tea smugglers. With the Tea Act, Prime Minister Lord North hoped to accomplish two purposes: provide motivation for colonialists to accept the Townshend Acts tax on tea and reinforce Parliament’s authority to impose taxes of any sort on the colonies. In both particulars he failed. Colonial merchants of every kind recognized that they, too, could be legislated out of business. Colonial representatives objected to any tax imposed on the colonies by Parliament without their consent, regardless of whether the public benefited as to cost of product taxed. In Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston, they, fearful merchants, and disgruntled consumers deprived of choice of purchase were determined to prevent the off-loading of new East India Company tea onto their docks.

Resisters in New York and Philadelphia caused appointed co-signees to resign and ship captains to return their vessels to England with their unloaded cargo. In Charleston co-signees were also forced to resign and the cargo was left to rot on the unloaded ships. Boston had a very different outcome.

The tea ship Dartmouth arrived in the Boston Harbor in late November. British law required the Dartmouth to unload and pay import duties to customs officials within twenty days of its arrival. Massachusetts’s governor Thomas Hutchinson persuaded his co-signees, two of whom were his sons, not to resign. A mass meeting led by Sam Adams passed a resolution that urged the captain of the Dartmouth to send the ship back to England without paying the import duty. Governor Hutchinson refused to grant permission for the Dartmouth to leave without paying the duty. Two additional tea ships, the Eleanor and the Beaver, arrived in Boston Harbor. Hutchinson also refused to allow these ships to leave. On December 16 (one day before the twenty day deadline was reached) at a meeting attended by about 7,000 people at the Old South Meeting House, Sam Adams declared: "This meeting can do nothing further to save the country" (Boston Tea Party 1). That evening a crowd of what later was roughly estimated to be 30 to 130 “Sons of Liberty” boarded the three East India Company tea ships. The entire cargo -- 342 chests of tea – were dumped into the water. This flagrant act of defiance impelled Parliament to pass several punitive measures that the colonists came to call the “intolerable acts.” The first measure, the Boston Port Bill, closed the port of Boston until the destroyed tea was paid for. The other three measures sought to cripple the political rights of the colony, transfer the trial of capital offenses to England, and renew the quartering of British troops in Boston. Massachusetts would be made the example of what British authority could do to rebellious colonies. Instead of being cowed, the twelve witnessing colonies, especially Virginia, made Massachusetts’s cause their own.

Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and other members of Virginia’s House of Burgesses saw the necessity of arousing the Virginia people “from the lethargy into which they had fallen” (Henry 176) the past three years following Parliament’s repeal of all but the one that taxed tea of the Townshend Acts. The group decided to have the House declare “a day of general fasting and prayer” to be observed June 1, 1774, the day the Boston Port Bill would go into effect. The House passed the resolution. Two days later Governor Dunmore dissolved the legislative body.

Eighty-nine burgesses, Thomas Nelson among them, assembled the following day (May 27) at “The Raleigh” Tavern, formed a non-importation association, and called for a meeting to take place at a later date at which time all House members could determine what else they could do to aid Massachusetts. Days later that meeting was scheduled for August 1 in Williamsburg. Meanwhile, Burgesses would meet with their constituents to formulate resolutions to be presented at the general meeting.

Thomas Nelson was moderator of the meeting of free holders in his county, York. He opened the meeting July 18 with a lengthy address that called for careful consideration of the resolutions about to be formed.

“You will know what it is to be FREE Men. You know the blessed privilege of doing what you will with your own, and you can guess at the misery of those who are deprived of this right. Which of these will be your case depends upon your present conduct. We have found already that petitions and remonstrances are ineffectual, and it is now time that we try other expedients. We must have those who are endeavouring to oppress us feel the effects of their mistakes of their arbitrary policy; for not till then can we expect justice from them” (Virginia Gazette July 21, 1774).

Nelson doubted that the colony could stop her exports without serious harm, “but that imports ought to be prohibited necessity demands, and no virtue forbids. It is not supposed that we can do this without subjecting ourselves to many inconveniences; but inconveniences, when opposed to the loss of freedom, are surely to be disregarded” (Ibid.).

Then, Nelson the merchant spoke: “It is true, we must resign the hope of making fortunes; but to what end should we make fortunes, when they may be taken from us at the pleasure of others” (Ibid.)?

Following the address, the county of York formed its resolves. They first defined the rights of the American colonies, coming to the ultimate conclusion that although British America was under voluntary subjection to the crown, every British parliamentary edict of taxation, custom, duty, or impost on the American colonies without their consent was illegal. The resolves declared the Tea Act illegal and the Boston Port Act unconstitutional, the latter due to the fact that Boston was only defending “their liberties and properties” the night the tea was thrown overboard. All imports would be stopped “with as few exceptions as possible.” The question of stopping exports would be settled at the August convention. Lastly, a subscription would be “immediately opened for the relief of the inhabitants of Boston” (Ibid.), under the direction of Thomas Nelson and his fellow burgess, Dudley Digges.

Nelson ultimately obtained 49 subscribers who pledged bushels of wheat and corn, barrels of flour, and shillings. In a not altogether trustworthy record kept by Massachusetts authorities, ten subscribers’ contributions were specifically noted as not having been delivered. This was due to no fault of Nelson. He had the contributions of twenty subscribers shipped to Boston at his own expense. The subscribers’ contributions averaged 4.8 bushels in wheat and 5.4 bushels in corn per person. Nelson sent 100 bushels of wheat.

Thomas Nelson and the delegates of the various other counties met in Williamsburg August 1. They agreed to cut off all British imports to the colony after November 1. They would also cut off their own exports to Britain if the mother country did not redress “American Grievances” before August 10, 1775. The Convention ended its business by electing seven of its leaders to represent Virginia at the First Continental Congress, which had been called to meet in September in Philadelphia. They were Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison and Edmund Pendleton. Nelson returned to York to spend what would be his last few months of peaceful living for the next four years.


Works Cited:

“Boston Tea Party.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_T.... Net.

Henry, William Wirtz. Patrick Henry’s Life, Correspondence and Speeches. Vol. I. New York: Charles Scribners and Sons, 1891. Print.

Virginia Gazette (Rind) July 21, 1774. Microfilm.

The First Continental Congress, meeting in September 1774, adopted a non-intercourse agreement similar to that passed by Virginia’s Burgesses. It called for the establishment of association enforcement committees in the counties of the respective colonies. The Congress adjourned in October. It would reconvene in the spring of 1775 because of Britain’s failure to redress their grievances. Delegates from the counties of Virginia met in Richmond March 20, 1775, to decide upon what policy Virginia should now take in its relations with Great Britain.

At the convention Patrick Henry introduced a resolution that called for the immediate raising of a “well regulated militia” to defend the colony. The proposed resolution caused a stormy debate. Many of the moderate members considered the measure premature and dangerous. Friends in London had sent favorable reports about British intentions. Henry’s supporters argued that the hope of a favorable change in British policy was delusive. Virginia must defend herself against whatever dangers might arise.

Richard Henry Lee delivered an eloquent speech in defense of the resolution. Thomas Nelson then rose, for the first time as a burgess to take an active part in a serious debate. Edmund Randolph later wrote that Nelson “convulsed the moderate by an ardent exclamation, in which he called God to witness, that if any British troops should be landed within” his county, “he would wait no orders, and would obey none, which should forbid him to summon his militia and repel the invaders at the water edge.” Randolph recalled that Nelson’s temper, “though it was sanguine, and had been manifested in less scenes of opposition, seemed to be more than ordinarily excited. His example told those, who were happy in ease and wealth, that to shrink was to be dishonoured” (Sanderson 287-288). Soon afterward Patrick Henry delivered his famous “give me liberty, or give me death” speech, and the Convention adopted the resolution with a majority of five votes.

The business of the Convention turned to the election of delegates to the Second Continental Congress. The delegates to the First Congress were reelected. Falling short, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Nelson were eighth and ninth in the balloting with 18 and 16 votes respectively.

Governor Dunmore had been watching the activities of these leading men of the colony with great concern. Now the Richmond Convention delegates had voted to defend the colony. “Between three and four o’clock on the morning of April 21, Captain Collins of the armed British schooner Magdalene carried out the governor’s order to remove the entire powder supply of the colony from Williamsburg and place it on board his vessel anchored at Burwell’s Ferry on the James River” (Evans 46). The seizure caused an immediate and violent reaction throughout the counties. “One thousand men poured into Fredericksburg, six hundred of them ‘good riflemen’ attired in hunting shirts with tomahawks in their belts. … In Hanover County Patrick Henry was also raising an independent company. Several patriotic leaders, including Peyton Randolph and George Washington, prevailed upon the Fredericksburg and Albemarle companies to disperse; but Henry, after haranguing his volunteers at Newcastle on May 2, began a march on Williamsburg” (Evans 46).

Dunmore “sent his wife and children on board an English-bound schooner in the York River, placed cannon in the Palace yard, armed his servants, and asked for a detachment of marines from the man-of-war Fowey, anchored at Yorktown” (Evans 46). Before daybreak May 4, the Fowey’s Captain Montague and a party of marines roused Thomas Nelson’s aged uncle, Secretary Nelson, from his bed. Montague warned that if they were molested by any of the townspeople the ship would fire upon the town. The ultimatum enraged the inhabitants of the surrounding countryside. Not only was the threat of bombarding the town considered barbaric. The person who would suffer most from such a bombardment would be Thomas Nelson, who had assumed the responsibility of meeting Henry and his troops (fifteen miles outside Williamsburg) to prevent harm to Dunmore from occurring.

Although most of the colonists did not know it then, the time for peaceful conciliation with Great Britain had passed. Anger and the desire for reprisal had dislodged reason. The contentious events of the past ten years had pushed many colonists to a willingness to bear arms against the soldiers of their mother country. On April 26, Virginia had received the news that Massachusetts militiamen had fired upon British soldiers in route to Boston from Concord. Massachusetts’s military governor General Thomas Gage had sent an army of 700 redcoats to Concord to seize stored munitions and gunpowder. America had reached a point of no return. She would take a little while yet to realize it.

The crisis of the confiscated powder was settled soon after Montague’s ultimatum. Several Virginia patriots – Nelson included -- bought the seized gunpowder for 320 pounds. The ship Fowey remained off Yorktown. On June 6, Dunmore and his family went aboard, never to set foot in the colony again.

On June 17 British soldiers and Massachusetts militiamen clashed in the Battle of Bunker Hill.

On July 17, the representatives of the counties of Virginia met for the third time during the course of a year. They passed an ordinance that called for the raising of three regiments of regular troops, to be commanded by a colonel, lieutenant colonel, and major appointed by the general convention. Patrick Henry, Thomas Nelson, Hugh Mercer, and William Woodford were looked upon as candidates for commander-in-chief of the regiments and colonel of the first regiment. Henry openly solicited the appointment. Mercer, born in Scotland, had some degree of military experience. Nelson acknowledged Mercer’s abilities, said he would not oppose Mercer’s appointment, and declared that he hoped he would not be voted for. Woodford also supported Mercer.

Seeing that Mercer would be his chief adversary, Henry sought to undermine his qualifications, instilling in the minds of many the thought that Virginia had to be sure loyal patriots commanded her forces. On the first ballot Mercer received 41 votes, Henry 40, Nelson 8 and Woodford 1. Henry won a run-off election by a small majority. Nelson was appointed lieutenant colonel of the second regiment. Woodford was appointed the major of the third regiment.

The Convention then turned its attention to the election of delegates to the next session of the Second Continental Congress. Of the seven delegates who had been previously elected, Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Harrison, Edmund Pendleton, and Richard Bland were considered eligible for another term. George Washington had been appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. Patrick Henry, as head of Virginia’s forces, was also considered ineligible. Pendleton asked to be excused from serving due to ill health. Three positions were open for new delegates. They were filled by Thomas Jefferson, Nelson, and George Wythe. Bland later declined his appointment because of infirmities of age and was replaced by Francis Lightfoot Lee. After Nelson had been appointed, he declined the command of the second Virginia regiment. Woodford was appointed his replacement.

One of the most dramatic periods in American history was rapidly approaching. Thomas Nelson, wealthy merchant and country gentleman, steadfast opponent of British economic and political authoritarianism from its inception, would be an active participant in Virginia’s struggle to attain independence. “Yet the course he chose to follow was not an easy one. He felt close to the mother country for many reasons. He had spent eight years of his life there, and he had many friends and several relatives who still lived in England. Furthermore, the patriotic cause by no means had the full support of all Americans … Nelson’s wife’s brother, John Randolph Grymes, left Virginia because of his sympathy for the British position. Both Thomas and Lucy Nelson were related to the Randolphs, and they saw that family torn apart when John Randolph, the attorney general, left Virginia with Dunmore, while his son, Edmund, remained a firm patriot” (Evans 49, 50). For Nelson, the loss of natural and constitutional rights mattered above all else!


Works Cited:

Evans, Emory G. Thomas Nelson of Yorktown: Revolutionary Virginian. Williamsburg, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1975. Print.

Sanderson, John. Biography of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence. Second Edition. Philadelphia, William Brown and Charles Peters, 1828. V. Print.

A stout man of 38 years sat waiting to affix his signature to a copy of the newly formed and approved Declaration of Independence. Richard Henry Lee, a delegate from Virginia, had moved on June 7, 1776, that “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States …” The Second Continental Congress’s Committee of the Whole had discussed Lee’s motion the following day and Monday, June 10, before deciding to postpone final consideration until July 1. The middle colonies and South Carolina had not been ready to sanction the final break; but -- the Committee had believed -- given time, they could be persuaded. A committee, which included Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams, had consequently been formed to write a declaration of independence. On July 2 a resolution for independence had been adopted. On July 4 twelve colonies had approved Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. The New York delegation had chosen not to vote. On July 15 New York had accepted the Declaration and Congress had ordered that it be engrossed on parchment and signed by the members.

Thomas Nelson was one of the famous Virginia delegation that had won so much praise from the pen of John Adams of Massachusetts. Washington, Henry, Pendleton, and Bland were all missing from that first group of delegates who had come north in the spring of 1775. Nelson was one of four new men who had taken their places. Adams described him “as a fat men … He is a speaker, and alert and lively for his weight.” Pennsylvania delegate Benjamin Rush provided more information. Rush wrote that Nelson is “a respectable country gentleman, with excellent dispositions in public and private. He was educated in England. He informed me that he was the only person out of nine or ten Virginians that were sent with him to England for education that had taken part in the American Revolution. The rest were all Tories” (McGee 224, 226).

Before affixing his signature Nelson very likely recalled his position on independence during the previous twelve months.

He had decided early that hostilities had progressed too far and that a final stand would have to be taken. There remained, however, opposition to independence in Congress, especially from New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. “But events were pushing the colonies in the direction of independence whether all of them liked it or not. In Virginia the militia commanded by William Woodford defeated a British force under [former Governor] Dunmore at Great Bridge, forcing the noble lord to abandon Norfolk; in Canada the combined American forces under Benedict Arnold and Richard Montgomery were repulsed before Quebec on December 31 [1775]. These occurrences, coupled with a royal proclamation of December 23 closing the colonies to all commerce as of March 1, 1776, made the breach between England and the colonies almost irreparable” (Evans 54). On January 22 Nelson had written his friend in Virginia, John Page, how he wished he knew “the sentiments of our people upon the grand points of confederation and foreign alliance, or, in other words, of independence … We cannot expect to form a connexxion with any foreign power, as long as we have a womanish hankering after Great Britain; and to be sure, there is not in nature a greater absurdity, than to suppose we can have any affection for a people who are carrying on the most savage war against us” (Sanderson 51).

Soon afterward, Thomas Paine’s famous Common Sense had been published. Nelson had sent a copy home to his friend, Thomas Jefferson, at Monticello. Here was a stirring piece of work that Nelson must have embraced heartily. No doubt he had hoped it would convince many in the states of the folly of striving for peaceful conciliation with Great Britain. There were still many men in the Congress who needed to alter their thinking. In February Nelson had written Page an intense letter that expressed his frustration.

“Independence, confederation, and foreign alliance are as formidable to some of the Congress, I fear a majority, as an apparition to a weak, enervated woman. Would you think that we have some among us, who still expect honourable proposals from the administration? By heavens, I am an infidel in politics, for I do not believe, were you to bet a thousand pounds per scruple for honour at the court of Britain, that you would get as many as would amount to an ounce. If terms should be proposed, they will savour so much of despotism, that America cannot accept them. We are now carrying on a war and no war. They seize our property wherever they find it, either by land or sea; and we hesitate to retaliate, because we have a few friends in England who have hips. Away with such squeamishness, say I” (Sanderson 52-53).

Upon returning to Virginia in March to spend time with his family and to attend to business matters, he had discovered that a majority of the colony’s population favored independence. The Virginia Gazette had “expressed the sentiment of many when, soon after his arrival, it declared: 'If we cannot enjoy the privileges of Englishmen when connected with them, let us instantly break off to them'” (Evans 55).

On May 6, one hundred twenty-eight delegates had convened in Williamsburg to conduct the final business of the soon to be replaced House of Burgesses. The Convention had elected Edmund Pendleton to be its president. Nelson had been appointed to the important Committee on Privileges and Elections. Jefferson had urged Nelson to raise in committee the issue of independence. He had done so in his numerous communications with other delegates. To one delegate (not identified) he had written “having weighed the arguments on both sides, I am clearly of the opinion that we must, as we value the liberties of America, or even her existence, without a moment’s delay, declare independence.” There was no need to determine the opinions of France and Spain. France would benefit from the separation. Fear in the minds of some that England would give territory to either country on the condition that it not support the colonies was “chimerical.” Nelson declared that the military “would abandon the colors if independence were not declared. … the spirit of the people (except a very few in these lower parts, whose little blood has been sucked out by mosquitoes), cry out for this declaration” (Evans 56).

Quite surprisingly, Patrick Henry had been hesitant. He had feared precisely what Nelson had dismissed – “that England would call on some European ally with the promise of a part of the colonies as a reward for helping to subdue them.” Henry had believed that an alliance with France or Spain had to be affected before separation could be declared. When he had recognized that “he would lose much of his support unless he lead the movement [for immediate independence], he took the initiative, allies or no allies” (Evans 57). Consequently, he had devised a plan. He would persuade Nelson to introduce a motion for independence and Henry would then work for its acceptance. The plan had been effected.

Edmund Randolph had written later that Nelson “affected nothing of oratory, except what ardent feelings might inspire, and characteristic of himself he had no fears of his own with which to temporize …” (McGee 226-227). “He passed over the probabilities of foreign aid, stepped lightly on the difficulties of procuring military stores and the inexperience of officers and soldiers, but pressed a declaration of independence upon what, with him, were incontrovertible grounds; that we were oppressed; had humbly supplicated a redress of grievances, which had been refused with insult; and to return from battle against the sovereign with the cordiality of subjects was absurd” (Evans 57).

On May 17 Nelson had left for Philadelphia with the Virginia delegation carrying the resolutions that the Virginia convention had agreed upon., to wit that Congress “‘declare the United colonies free and independence states, absolved from all allegiance to, or dependence upon, the crown or parliament of Great Britain’” (Evans 58).

Now, August 2, Thomas Nelson affixed his signature to the official document.

Nelson had much to lose financially. He had written to a Virginia colleague three months earlier that “no man on the continent will sacrifice more than myself by separation” (Evans 56). Yet quite early he had stood forcefully for independence. He, like every delegate to the Continental Congress, also knew the personal danger of this position. What real chance did a band of disjointed states, challenging the immense power of Great Britain, have of prevailing? It behooved Nelson to work assiduously to achieve that outcome.


Works cited:

Evans, Emory G. Thomas Nelson of Yorktown: Revolutionary Virginian. The University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, 1975. Print.

McGee, Dorothy Horton. Famous Signers of the Declaration. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1955. Print.

John Sanderson, Biography of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, Second edition. Philadelphia: William Brown and Charles Peters, 1828. V. Print.

The American victory at Saratoga was of first importance for it convinced the French that the Revolution in America could be successful. France officially entered the war against Great Britain in May 1778.

The news of General Burgoyne’s surrender October 17, 1777, was received in Williamsburg with great jubilation. A battalion was formed and reviewed by Nelson; members of the upper and lower houses of the new Assembly spoke to the congregated citizens. The Virginia Gazette reported that “joy and satisfaction … was evident in the countenance of every one; and the evening was celebrated with the ringing of bells, illuminations, &c.” (Gazette 1)

About to go into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Washington was, naturally, pleased with Burgoyne’s capture. But he had failed to keep General Howe from capturing Philadelphia, and he wrote Nelson that he now regretted not accepting Nelson’s offer to send him some of the Virginia militia. None of the joyous exuberance seen in Williamsburg following the Saratoga victory existed in Washington’s camp. Washington could only say that the victory in the north would make a winter camp against Philadelphia possible if “our ragged and half naked Soldiers could be clothed” (Fitzpatrick X, 27).

While Washington was facing the prospect of a dismal winter, Nelson was officially thanked by the two houses of the Assembly for the services he had rendered during the British fleet scare. He was thanked in such glowing phrases as, “actuated by noble principles and generous motives and exemplary diligence and alertness in performing the duty were such as became a virtuous citizen” and officer. Nelson replied that he hoped he could continue to deserve “the good opinion” and discharge his duty in any office “they may think me worthy of” (Gazette 1). Nelson would have many opportunities to do just that. But, for the present, he could only worry about the progress of the war.

The want of men and supplies was a serious handicap for the revolutionaries throughout the war. In late 1777 the Virginia House of Delegates was considering the passage of a bill that would alter how single men could be drafted into the regular Virginia army. “Each county was given a quota of men necessary to fill Virginia’s line regiments. All single men were eligible, and on a specified day they were to report to the courthouse where slips were to be prepared for all the able bodied. If the quota of the county happened to be thirty, then thirty of the slips would be marked ‘Service’ and the remainder “Clear.’ All would be put into a hat and every man would draw a slip, those getting ‘Service’ slips being obliged for duty. The term of service would be one year. Substitutes were still allowed, but on a one-to-one basis. The person obtaining the recruit was exempt from the draft for the period of time, after the discharge, that the man had actually served” (Evans 73).

Simultaneously, Nelson pushed to have included in the bill a plan to raise 5,400 volunteers to serve six months under the command of brigadier generals appointed by the governor. Nelson used in argument “Washington’s passing comment, after the defeat of Burgoyne, that he wished he had given more serious consideration to Nelson’s earlier offer to join him with militia. … as late as December 19, Nelson thought the proposal was lost because many delegates feared ‘it would interfere with compleating the Regular battalions. … by December 26 authorization to raise volunteers had been approved. … No more than fifty-four hundred volunteers could be raised, for six-months duty, they were to remain eligible for the draft until they actually marched to join the Continental army, and they would be exempt from the draft for six months after their discharge” (Evans 73-74). The entire bill would become law on January 9, 1778. To encourage enlistments, Nelson was appointed to be one of the two brigadier generals.

Rather than serve in the next session of the Continental Congress -- which Washington urged that he do -- Nelson remained in Virginia. “He had developed a near compulsion to lead troops in the field; and he felt certain that a sizable addition of troops would enable the Continental army to quickly defeat Howe, which would, in turn, bring an end to the war. In his inexperience, he did not comprehend that it was wiser to add men to Washington’s regular forces, where they would serve under seasoned officers and with battle hardened troops, than to bring in a body of untrained soldiers who would be commanded by novices. The general as much as told his friend this. … Fill up the regular regiments and provide the food to feed them, Washington was urging—then we can talk about separate forces of volunteers. … By the early spring of 1778 the volunteer plan had failed and Nelson was searching for an alternative” (Evans 76).

On March 2, 1778, the Continental Congress passed a resolution that called for the wealthy men of the states to step forward in the service of their country and raise troops of light cavalry. Each member of a cavalry group would be expected to provide his own provisions, as well as forage for his horse. All other expenses would be paid by the person who raised the cavalry.

When news of the Congressional resolution reached Virginia, Nelson published an address calling for young men of fortune to meet with him in Fredericksburg, May 25, to organize themselves into a cavalry unit. He also desired to have join with him men with less fortune, but with as much patriotism. Nelson wrote that it was a “pity that they should be deprived of the opportunity of distinguishing themselves!” To enable them to enter the service, “I propose that such should be furnished with a horse and accoutrements by subscription in their respective counties; and surely those who remain at home, enjoying all the blessings of domestic life, will not hesitate to contribute liberally for such a purpose” (Sanderson 57-58). In May the Virginia Assembly gave state support to the plan. It passed a bill authorizing the raising of a regiment of 350 horses to be commanded by Nelson. Members of the regiment “would receive the same rations and pay as members of the Continental army. Those who could not furnish their own horses and equipment would be supplied at public expense” (Evans 77). Nelson received 4,000 pounds to expend for arms and an equal amount to purchase horses. Many people believed that at best he would receive half of the 350 volunteers desired.

About 70 gentlemen appeared at Fredericksburg, including two of Thomas’s brothers, Hugh and Robert. In a letter to Washington Nelson vented his frustration.

“So great is the aversion of the Virginians to engaging in the Army that they are not to [be] induc’d by any method. I cannot say they are in apathy for view them in the mercantile way, and they are as alert as could be wish’ed, or rather more so, almost every Man being engag’d in accumulating Money. Public Virtue & Patriotism is sold down to South Quay and there shipd off in Tobacco Hogsheads, nevermore, in my opinion, to return. The number of resignations in the Virginia line is induced by officers, when they have returned, finding that every man, who remains at home is making a fortune, whilst they are spending what they have, in defense of their Country. If a stop be not put to the destructive trade that is at present carried on here, there will not be a spark of Patriotic fire left in Virginia in a few Months” (Evens 77).

Washington was happy with the prospect of being reinforced. The last campaign had greatly reduced his cavalry. As to the disappointing turnout, he wrote this:

“I am sorry to find such a backwardness in Virginia in the Service of the army. Perhaps it is fortunate for the cause, that our circumstances stand in less need of the great exertions of patriotism than heretofore, from the changes in foreign councils, and the open interposition of the French in our favor. But I am convinced you have left nothing undone, of encouragement, for the increase of your corps, …” (Fitzpatrick XII, 203).

“Through June and July, with the temperature hovering around one hundred degrees, the general tried to whip his volunteers into shape at Port Royal” (Evans 77). On the eve of the cavalry’s departure to join Washington, Nelson gathered his men about him and tried to assure them there was some hope for remuneration for expenses incurred in the country’s service. Then he asked if anyone was in need of money; he would like to have that person consult him in his quarters. A number of men did, and Nelson supplied them personally.

When Nelson and his cavalry arrived in Philadelphia during the first week of August, they learned that the cavalry was no longer needed. Howe had retired from the city and had been on his way to New York. Washington had intercepted him June 28 at Monmouth, New Jersey. Although Washington had failed to win a decisive victory, the war in the north was finished. The colonists did not know it, but they felt reasonably secure. Nelson’s cavalry had arrived in Philadelphia too late to serve a useful purpose. Nevertheless, the congressmen were appreciative of Nelson’s efforts. On August 8 they passed a resolution publicly thanking him and his men for their service. But they advised that the cavalry return to Virginia. Nelson had lost a good sum of money in this venture. Yet he made further advances of money to those who required it to enable their return to their homes.

Greatly disappointed, Nelson searched for some way to be of service to Washington. He offered a favorite horse as a gift. Washington refused, Nelson persisted, and the commander-in-chief relented. With great feeling Washington thanked his generous friend.

“In what terms can I sufficiently thank you for your polite attention to me, and agreeable present? And … with what propriety can I deprive you of a valuable and favourite horse? … as a proof of my sincere attachment to, and friendship for you, I obey with this assurance, that from none but a Gentn. for whom I have the highest regard, would I do this, notwithstanding the distressed situation I have been in for want of one” (Fitzpartick XII, 341).

Washington was angry at the dismissal of Nelson’s cavalry. He felt that since the expense of getting the cavalry to Philadelphia had already been incurred, he should have received it. The assumption that Nelson’s men would save money by disbanding rather than staying on, he felt to be “very erroneous.” He felt keenly disappointed over the resolution, but hoped he would soon see Nelson in camp.

Thomas Nelson returned to Virginia a healthier man. The physical exercise of raising and delivering his cavalry to Philadelphia seemed to have restored his health. Consequently, he accepted an appointment as delegate to the Continental Congress and took his seat February 18, 1779.

Nelson’s appointment greatly pleased Washington. His comments are worth quoting.

“I think there never was a time when cool and dispassionate reasoning; strict attention and application; great integrity, and … wisdom were more to be wished for than the present … Unanimity in our Councils, disinterestedness in our pursuits, and steady perseverance in our nation duty, are the only means to avoid misfortune” (Fitzpatrick XIV, 246). Washington believed Nelson embodied those qualities.

“Early in February, the weather turning unseasonably mild, he [Nelson] left home to assume his duties. Peach trees were beginning to blossom and others to bud, while shrubs were in full bloom. But the pleasure of an early spring contrasted starkly with the dismal prospect facing the country. The depleted ranks of the army forced Washington to remain on the defensive. Neither the necessary men nor supplies were forthcoming from the states. Inflation continued and Congress, unable to find an alternative, persisted in printing paper money. The French alliance of early 1778 had given the country hope that the war would end soon, but the events of the year that followed did nothing to encourage this hope. The best of congresses would have been severely tested, and this one was no more than mediocre. A general feeling prevailed that the members of Congress were more interested in Philadelphia’s social life than in the pressing business of the country. Such was the situation into which Nelson stepped” (Evens 79-80).


Sources Cited:

Evans, Emory G. Thomas Nelson of Yorktown: Revolutionary Virginian. Charlottesville, Virginia, The University Press of Virginia, 1975. Print.

Fitzpatrick, John C., ed. Washington to Nelson, November 8, 1777. The Writings of George Washington. Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1933, X. Print.

Fitzpatrick, John C., ed. Washington to Nelson, July 22, 1778. The Writings of George Washington. Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1933, XII. Print.

Fitzpatrick, John C., ed. Washington to Nelson, August 20, 1778. The Writings of George Washington. Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1933, XII. Print.

Fitzpatrick, John C., ed. Washington to Nelson, March 15, 1779. The Writings of George Washington. Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1933, XII. Print.

Sanderson, John. Biography of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence, Second Edition. Philadelphia, William Brown and Charles Peters, 1828). V. Print.

Virginia Gazette (Dixon and Hunter) October 31, 1777. Microfiche

Virginia Gazette (Purdie) November 14 and 21, 1777. Microfiche.

In order to appreciate the great contribution that French soldiers and war ships made in forcing British General Charles Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown, we must go back several years.

“Ever since the rebel victory at Saratoga, in 1777, had convinced France to sign a treaty of alliance with the United States, George Washington had been waiting and praying for French intervention to come soon, but as the weeks and months passed with no sign that help was on the way, his hopes waned. … Fortunately for the patriots, the young French aristocrat Marquis de Lafayette, a volunteer who had been serving in Washington’s army, returned to Versailles in 1779 and came back to America a year later with the welcome news that seven French ships of the line, ten to twelve thousand veteran troops led by Comte de Rochambeau, and a war chest of 6 million livres were on the way and should arrive in Rhode Island in June [1780]” (Ketchum 9, 10).

Washington’s army had spent a desperate winter camped at Morristown, New Jersey, “twenty-five miles west of New York City, on high ground protected by the Watchung Mountains, overlooking the roads between New York and Philadelphia.” When Lafayette rejoined Washington at Morristown, he was appalled at what he witnessed: “‘An Army that is reduced to nothing, that wants provisions, that has not one of the necessary means to make war.’ However prepared for such squalor he may have been by his knowledge of past distress, ‘I confess I had no idea of such an extremity,’ he wrote” Ketchum 10). Demonstratively, Washington could accomplish nothing without French troops and a large fleet.

Ships carrying Rochambeau’s soldiers were sighted off Newport, Rhode Island, July 11, 1780, the fleet having sailed from Brest May 2. Washington’s immediate hope was that with considerable French assistance he could attack and defeat British commander-in-chief Henry Clinton’s army, situated in New York City. The timely arrival of British Admiral Thomas Graves with six ships of the line to augment British Admiral Arbuthnot’s fleet, giving “the British a thirteen-to-eight superiority over the French fleet” (Ketchum 27), thwarted Washington’s plan.

Subsequently, Washington learned that the French ships unloaded at Newport had “carried no arms, no gun-powder, no uniforms for his destitute, half-naked veterans. … Washington’s troops did not have enough horses and wagons to join the French in an operation anytime soon. … So lackadaisical were the states about providing food for the army that the commander-in-chief was obliged to authorize a program he detested. Here it was the harvest season, a time of abundance, yet appeals to the states had produced no results worth noting, forcing the General to resort once more to scavenging his own country” every few days moving “his camp, letting the men forage for anything within reach, and when the area was striped clean, move on to another and repeat the process” (Ketchum 28, 29).

Rochambeau wrote to his government that the real strength of Washington’s army was three thousand men and the country’s currency was worthless. He urged that he be sent troops, ships, and money. “Washington’s plan for an attack on New York was foolhardy, he observed – preposterous, in fact, and very likely the last gasp of a desperate commander” (Ketchum 31).

Months of inactivity ensued. A second French fleet at Brest was kept from departing by a British blockade. On September 24, 1780, Benedict Arnold fled his command at West Point after his communications with the British about turning West Point over to them had been intercepted. Rewarded by General Clinton with a brigadier general’s commission, Arnold was placed in command of 1,600 troops sent to Virginia in December.

Desperate appeals were made to the French government for immediate, essential assistance. Lafayette wrote: “With a naval inferiority it is impossible to make war in America. It is that which prevents us from attacking any point that might be carried with two or three thousand men. It is that which reduces us to defensive operations, as dangerous as they are humiliating.” Washington wrote: “If France delays a timely and powerful aid in the critical posture of our affairs it will avail us nothing should she attempt it hereafter. We are at this hour suspended in the Balance; not from choice but from hard and absolute necessity.” Rochambeau sent his son to France to plead for assistance. It was Benjamin Franklin, ambassador to France, however, who succeeded most in persuading the King to renew French assistance. “Shrewdly, the old man reminded Vergennes that if the English were to recover their former colonies, an opportunity like the present one might not recur, while possession of the vast territory and resources of America would afford the English a broad basis for future greatness, ever expanding commerce, and a supple of seamen and soldiers that would make them ‘the terror of Europe’” (Ketchum 137).

On May 8, 1781, a French frigate docked at Boston carrying the news that Admiral Francois Joseph Paul de Grasse had left Brest March 22 with 26 ships of the line, 8 frigates, and 150 transports, their immediate destination believed to be the West Indies. Aboard the ships were 6 million livres designated to satisfy the needs of Washington’s army. Washington and Rochambeau set about immediately determining how best to utilize this transfusion of military and naval assets. Rochambeau wanted to focus on the Chesapeake Bay. Washington looked upon that operation only as an alternative to attacking New York City. Rochambeau forthwith sent a dispatch to de Grasse urging that the admiral sail not to New York City but to the Chesapeake Bay where he should expect to be joined by Rochambeau’s and Washington’s combined forces. Believing that a combined French and American attack on New York was imminent, Clinton ordered General Cornwallis, now in Virginia, to send him all the troops he could spare and to establish a defensive position. Washington, eventually taking Rochambeau’s viewpoint, sent a trusted officer to the West Indies to find de Grasse and impress upon him the necessity that he sail immediately to the Chesapeake.

Washington and Rochambeau were taking a great risk. Acting on the assumption that de Grasse would reach the Chesapeake without being intercepted by a large British fleet and that he would be able to place his ships in a position that would prevent Cornwallis’s army’s escape by sea, the two generals would march their armies from Newport and the Hudson Valley all the way into Maryland, transport them by boats to Richmond, march them to the York peninsula, and have them encircle Cornwallis’s forces. “On June 10 the first brigade of French troops stepped off on what proved to be a 756-mile march to the South” (Ketchum 143). On August 14, Washington and Rochambeau learned from de Grasse that he was sailing for the Chesapeake. Once there, “he planned to stay until October 15—no longer—when he would have to return to the West Indies with his troops. It was clear at once to Rochambeau and Washington that they had a window of opportunity of four or five weeks at most in which to make use of the French fleet—if the British navy did not interfere” (Ketchum 150). The next day Washington wrote an order for Lafayette, in Virginia, “to position his force in such a way as to prevent Cornwallis from returning to North Carolina” (Ketchum 151). Rochambeau’s forces joined Washington’s troops at White Plains, New York, August 22, and the combined armies commenced their lengthy journey.

More than two months earlier, June 12, the Virginia legislature had elected as its new governor Thomas Nelson. There had been a good deal of informal talk among the legislators at Staunton about establishing a dictator. Possible candidates had been Patrick Henry, George Washington, Nathaniel Greene, and George Nichols, a young Hanover County representative with considerable military experience. The talk came to nothing, but the feeling remained that the new governor should be given broader powers to exercise.

The legislature vested Nelson with powers that his predecessor Thomas Jefferson had labored without. “His feelings on receiving the news are not known, but later he remarked that to ‘have declin’d the appointment might have indicated timidity. I, therefore accepted it with a determination to exert every power that I possess’d to give energy to Government and security to the inhabitants of the State” (Evans 103).

Nelson was given the power, with the consent of the Council, to impress provisions of any kind necessary for supplying the militia and Continental armies. It gave Nelson the freedom to act immediately at critical moments. He was empowered to “call out the state militia in such numbers as he saw fit and to send them where their services were required; … to seize loyalists and banish them without jury trial; to redistribute the property of persons who opposed laws for calling up militia … Additional legislation provided the death penalty for desertion and empowered the governor and Council to lay an embargo on exports from the state, to declare martial law within a twenty-mile radius of the enemy or American camps, and to strengthen militia regulations so that six months might be added to the service of those who failed to appear when originally summoned” (Evans 103, 104).

Nelson could not legally exercise this new power without the consent of the Council, consisting of 8 men elected periodically by the legislature. During the time Nelson was governor, only four members (the bare minimum required for carrying on business) were able to meet. They had difficulty meeting regularly. Frequently, Nelson chose to carry out his legislated powers without the Council’s consent.

“… state officials had little choice but to resort to impressment in order to get the necessary food and equipment. This frequently involved the threat of force, for Virginia farmers were loath to exchange their produce for vouchers which stated the appraised price and were redeemable at a future date. The situation was worsened by a long dry spell culminating in a poor harvest. Even when provisions were acquired a scarcity of wagons made if difficult to get them to the army. Owners often hid their wagons and refused to transport supplies unless they got protection from impressment and assurance that they would be paid for their services” (Evans 107).

“Assuring that all men eligible for militia duty reported for service when called was much more difficult in areas distant from Richmond, particularly in the western part of the state. In counties to the west of the mountains, where the Indians were a greater threat than the British and where there were large pockets of Loyalists, the evasion of militia duty in some instances reached the point of virtual insurrection” (Evans 109).

Virginia had reached its lowest point in the Revolution. Washington regretted that he had not been able to come to his state’s aid. Nelson’s election had pleased him. From Dobbs Ferry, New York, on July 25, Washington had written a letter to his step-son, John Parke Custis, praising him for “your choice of a Governor. He is an honest man, active, spirited, and decided, and will … suit the times as well as any person in the State” (Fitzpatrick XXII, 178).” Washington’s words would be proven prophetic.

Nelson had placed himself and his militia under General Lafayette’s command. As governor, he planned to take the field, but would yield to Lafayette’s decisions. It is interesting to compare the thoughts of these two men concerning their military situation during the summer months. In a letter to Brigadier-General Morgan, Nelson expressed his reluctance to call out the county militia at “the approach of harvest; but I have my hopes that some capital Blow may be struck time enough to enable the Commander of the Troops to dispense with their services at that time” (Nelson Letters 61). In a letter to Nelson, Lafayette expressed the opinion that the more reinforcements Virginia sent to General Nathaniel Greene in North Carolina, the better the situation would be for Virginia. “Whether he [Cornwallis] continues in his present situation, commences fresh ravages in the State, we shall find that to succor General Greene we shall want them [the militia] here [with Greene]. Indeed, it is one way of compelling the enemy to leave us, or at least force him to detach …” (Lafayette V, 380).

The answer to the question of what Lafayette and Nelson should do with Virginia troops – gather them to strike Cornwallis or send them to Greene into the Carolinas –- was answered by General Henry Clinton’s order to Cornwallis to establish a defensive position. On August 5 Nelson reported to the Virginia House of Delegates in Richmond Cornwallis’s movement from Portsmouth to the York River, where he could command both the York and Gloucester shores. Lafayette thereupon placed his forces not far below Richmond where he could march either northward or southward, “as their movements should make necessary …” (Nelson Letters 64).

Cornwallis was now camped on the neck of land upon which Washington had warned Nelson five years ago never to place a large detachment of soldiers. The roles of attacker and defender were now reversed. If the British had not the sense to see the danger in their position, Washington would not provide them much time to discover it. He gave Clinton every indication that the movement of his and Rochambeau’s armies was a prelude to an attack on Staten Island. Clinton was cognizant of the existence of de Grasse’s fleet, rumored to be somewhere in the West Indies. Would it arrive off New York to participate in a massive attack? On August 21, the Comte de Barras, commander of the French fleet at Newport, Rhode Island, set sail for Virginia to augment de Grasse’s fleet, “making it superior to anything the British could muster, but even so, questions remained. The allied generals now knew when and where they would march, but the fiction of an attack on New York had to be maintained lest Clinton assail them while they were on the move, and at a certain moment the British general would know with certainty that they were bound for the South” (Ketchum 158).

On August 27, Washington informed Nelson that he was coming south with American and French troops and to expect the arrival of a French fleet of war ships. He was concerned about being furnished with sufficient supplies to sustain him through his campaign. He would need most salted provisions, beef, forage, and the means of transportation. “Let me entreat your Excellency that every exertion may be made to feed and supply our army …” (Fitzpatrick XXIII 55-56). Nelson would need to concentrate his activities on procuring the essential food and supplies. With his own troops present, Washington would have little need of the militia.

On August 30, de Grasse’s fleet, consisting of 28 ships of the line and six frigates with 3,000 land forces, dropped anchor in the mouth of the York River. Nelson wrote confidently to Governor Lee of Maryland: “In all human Probability, Lord Cornwallis has nearly finished his career, and will shortly receive his reward.” Nelson then got down to the real purpose of his letter. He asked for flour, something “with which your State, I imagine, can easily and plentifully furnish me” (Nelson Letters 10, 11).

Nelson had begun a very tedious, frustrating, essential task. Virginia troops had always been short of supplies. Now Nelson had to raise supplies and food for Washington’s army. He sent out various requests to agents in the Virginia counties for specific commodities. From Smithfield he requested “large supplies of Vegetables and Vinegar;” from Caroline and the adjacent country “all the flour you can procure;” from Isle of Wight and the neighborhood flour, meal, spirits, and vinegar; and from Richmond entrenching tools. However, by September 12, there was not “a grain of meal in Camp” (Nelson Letters 12, 22-25). Nelson wrote that he did not know how Virginia could remedy such shortages in time.

On September 2, while Washington’s troops were marching through Philadelphia, Clinton “sent a message to Lord Cornwallis: ‘By intelligence which I have this day received, it would seem that Mr. Washington is moving with an army to the southward, with an appearance of haste, and gives out that he expects the cooperation of a considerable French armament. Your Lordship, however, may be assured that if this should be the case, I shall endeavour to reinforce your command by all means within the compass of my power …’” (Ketchum 163-164).

On September 5 Nelson placed an embargo on the shipping of all beer, pork, bacon, wheat, Indian corn, peas, and other grains and flours. Eight days later he would order the roads in the counties of Fairfax, Prince William, Stafford, Spotsylvania, Caroline, Hanover and New Kent to be put in order for the advance of Washington’s army. On the same day he asked Governor Burke of North Carolina for salt and beef, and Gloucester County for added salt. To one state official, Nelson wrote: “‘I think the trust my country has repos’d in me demands that I should stretch my powers to their utmost extent, regardless of the censures of the inconsiderate or any other evil that may result to myself from such a step [and] attain by the strongest methods of compulsion those necessaries which cannot otherwise be procur’d and from the want of which alone we can have any reason to fear that our enterprise will fail’” (Evans 115).

On September 5 a large British fleet appeared off the Virginia capes.

Here is a useful map.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PVmth_jOntY...


Works cited:

Evens, Emory G. Thomas Nelson of Yorktown: Revolutionary Virginian. (Charlottesville, Virginia: The University Press of Virginia, 1975). Print.

Fitzpatrick, John C., ed. The Writings of George Washington. (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1933). XXII. Print.

Ketchum, Richard M. Victory at Yorktown: The Campaign That Won the Revolution. (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2004). Print.

Lafayette to Nelson, July 29, 1781. The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (April 1898), V. Print.

Publications of the Virginia Historical Society, New Series, No. 1. “Letters of Thomas Nelson, Jr.” (Richmond: Virginia Historical Society, 1874). Print.

Both before and after Washington’s and Rochambeau’s arrival in Virginia, Governor Nelson sought vigorously to obtain from the citizens of his state essential food and supplies: more beef, flour, corn and vehicles of transportation specifically from the Richmond area, from the Williamsburg area, ammunition. He still needed digging equipment, but the arrival of Admiral Barras’s Rhode Island fleet provided “many implements for siege.”

On September 26, one of Nelson’s agents, David Jameson, wrote of the problems that he and Nelson’s other agents were encountering.

“We are very sorry to inform you, that in those parts of the Country where Agents are employed to purchase provisions for the French fleet and Army, our commissaries … can procure no supplies. The people withhold their wheat, in hope of receiving a present payment in specie. It is absolutely necessary something should be done, or our army will be starved” (Nelson Letters 41).

Nelson answered that he had long foreseen the consequences of such proceedings. He believed this was due “partially from the machinations of their [Virginia’s] agents,” receiving inadequate prices for their property and services in the past, “and partly from the desire of handling gold …” (Nelson Letters 44-45, 47). “He conceded that part of the trouble was due to the French [who had sent their own agents out to purchase food with gold], but he attributed it also to the ‘unwillingness of the people to assist [a] government from which former treatment gives them perhaps too little reason to expect Justice’” (Evans 116). To solve this problem Nelson authorized agents like Colonel Thomas Newton on October 3 to procure small meats and vegetables by impress if necessary, “granting certificates for what you get in this way” (Nelson Letters 50)

In addition to attempting to overcome the immense difficulty of providing food and military supplies, Nelson had to deal with hostile Loyalists. In Prince Anne County, where Norfolk was located, “there was neither civil nor military law in operation and ‘murder is committed and no notice is taken of it ….’ Nelson could not do much about the Norfolk area, but he did take vigorous action in other sections of the country” (Evans 116). On September 16, he ordered the arrest of eleven prominent Tories, including his wife’s brother, Philip Grimes, for conduct “‘which manifests Disaffection to this Government and the Interests of the United States.’” They were taken to Richmond for trial. Loyalists on the Eastern Shore were arrested. “Some of the disaffected people were released prior to Yorktown on showing the proper contriteness and giving security to furnish a soldier for the war. Even so, the Richmond jail was still crowded with Tories in December” (Evans 117).

Nelson’s militia also presented him problems. “Colonel James Barbour of Culpepper seized twenty-nine boxes of arms being transported from the north to the American army and distributed them to the militia of his county.” Nelson wrote: “‘If we were to consider the Consequences of such Conduct, nothing could appear more criminal, or meriting more severe notice.’ If every county lieutenant, he continued, acted as Barbour had, there would be no arms for the army on ‘which the immediate salvation of the state depends’” (Evans 117). In mid-September a body of Henrico County militia was ordered to patrol a section of the James River. After one trip they quit. “With the battle of Yorktown only days away one militia leader wrote asking that his men be discharged since they expected to serve only a fortnight ‘and some have urgent business in Richmond’” (Evans 118).

While Nelson labored, Washington and Rochambeau moved their soldiers in semi-circular fashion closer to Cornwallis’s fortifications at Yorktown. This involved digging trenches to establish parallel lines to the British fortifications. “The first parallel was dug six hundred yards from the besieged works, beyond the range of grape, canister, and small arms. Dirt from the excavation was thrown onto fascines [bundles of brush bound together, cut off straight at each end] in front of the parallels, forming parapets [defensive walls or elevation, as of earth or stone, raised above the main wall or rampart of a permanent fortification] while battery locations were dug out and connected to the parallels by other trenches. Saps, or smaller trenches, were dug in zigzag paths toward the fortress, while gabions [sticks in the ground in a circle, about two feet or more in diameter, interwoven with small brush in the form of baskets set down in three or more rows with dirt thrown into them to form a breastwork] were filled and covered on the side facing the enemy. … At three hundred yards a second parallel was dug … close enough so that the attackers could breach the fortress walls for an assault by infantry” (Ketchum 222-223). All of the digging was done at night, out of sight of the British, after which the artillery pieces were carried or dragged to their assigned positions.

“Preparation of the parallels was no simple matter. Twelve hundred Pennsylvania and Maryland militia were detailed to collect wicker material in the woods for making six hundred gabions. Stakes were cut—six thousand of them—and two thousand round bundles of sticks were bound together for fascines …” (Ketchum 223).

Beginning October 1 the British artillery fired steadily every day -- on one day 351 rounds between sunup and sundown -- and continued into the night. On October 4 two deserters reported that “Cornwallis’s army was very sickly—two thousand men were in the hospital, they estimated—while the other troops had scarcely enough ground to live on, the horses were desperately short of forage, and their shipping was ‘in a very naked state’” (Ketchum 224). Nearly four hundred dead horses were seen floating in the river or lying on the shore near Yorktown. Lacking forage to feed them, the British had had them shot.

Before October 9, British soldiers had been questioning why the American and French batteries had not returned artillery fire. The answer was simple. They “were holding back until all their guns were in place; if they fired from each battery once it was completed, the enemy would concentrate on that one and destroy it” (Ketchum 227). At about three o’clock in the afternoon of October 9 all of the allied artillery commenced firing. General Washington put the match to the gun that fired the first shot.

“The defenders could find no refuge in or out of the town. Residents fled to the waterfront and hid in hastily built shelters on the sand cliffs, but some eighty of them were killed and others wounded—many with arms or legs severed—while their houses were destroyed.” The following day “some thirty-six hundred shots were fired by the cannon, inflicting heavy damage on ships in the harbor, killing a great many sailors as well as soldiers, after which a number of others deserted” (Ketchum 228).

After the October 9 firing started, “down on the American right General Nelson was asked to point out a good target toward which the artillerists could direct their fire. Nelson indicated a large house, which he suggested was probably Cornwallis’s headquarters. The house was his own” (Evans 119). “Two pieces were accordingly pointed against it” (Page 151). The first shot killed two officers, “indulging in the pleasures of the table” (Sanderson 67). Other balls dislodged the other tenants.

Actually, Cornwallis had established his headquarters in the house of Nelson’s uncle, Secretary Nelson, the most prominent house in Yorktown. The October 9 cannonade continued through the night and into the next day. “At noon a flag of truce appeared on the British lines. At first the allies hoped that Cornwallis was going to ask for terms, but they soon learned that the flag was raised to allow Secretary Nelson to leave the beleaguered village. The old gentleman, suffering from an attack of gout, could not walk, and his two sons in the American army, Colonel William Nelson and Major John Nelson, went across and brought their father back to General Washington’s headquarters. There the secretary recounted that the bombardment was producing great damage and had forced Cornwallis to seek refuge in a ‘grotto’ at the foot of his garden” (Evans 119).

“By October 11 the parallel directed at Cornwallis’s works was within 360 yards. … On Sunday the 14th all the American batteries concentrated on the British strongholds—notably the Number 9 and Number 10 redoubts” (Ketchum 229, 230). On October 16 the two redoubts were attacked (Number 10 by American soldiers commanded by Alexander Hamilton) and taken. “Later that night the skies clouded over and it began to rain, a steady downpour that turned the trenches into a morass of mud, making the digging miserable for the fatigue parties, whose job it was to connect the captured redoubts to the second parallel and bring up howitzers to within three hundred years of the enemy’s works” (Ketchum 234).

Aware that defeat and surrender were only two or three days from transpiring, that night Cornwallis instructed Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton to “concentrate his troops at Gloucester [across the York River], prepare the artillery to accompany the British troops in an attack against Brigadier Choisy before daybreak, and have horses and wagons ready to retreat north through the countryside,” Tarleton agreed that a retreat “‘was the only expedient that now presented itself to avert the mortification of a surrender.’ … Before eleven o’clock the light infantry, most of the Guards brigade, and the 23rd Regiment, constituting the first wave of evacuees, shoved off for Gloucester. … Cornwallis planned to accompany the second group himself, but before doing so he had to finish writing a letter to General Washington, ‘calculated to excite the humanity of that officer towards the sick, the wounded, and the detachment that would be left to capitulate.’ The first division arrived in Gloucester before midnight, and part of the second had embarked when a rain squall came up” (Ketchum 237). The squall became a violent storm, which drove the boats down the river. It became evident that the river could not be successfully crossed. At 2 a.m. Cornwallis ordered all of his soldiers that had reached Gloucester to return to Yorktown.

The allied cannonade that began at daybreak was devastating. After observing the enemy and his works, Cornwallis sent to Washington a flag of truce. He wrote to General Clinton of his decision emphasizing that it would be “wanton and inhuman to the last degree to sacrifice the lives of this small body of gallant soldiers, who had ever behaved with such fidelity and courage” (Ketchum 239). Ironically, that same day General Clinton and six thousand troops set sail from New York to attempt a rescue. Discovering that the French fleet controlled the Chesapeake, he ordered his ships and army back to New York.

The negotiations for surrender took place in the home of Thomas Nelson’s former business partner, Augustine Moore. On October 20 Nelson wrote the following to the Virginia delegates in the Continental Congress.

On the 17th at the Request of Lord Cornwallis Hostilities ceased, and yesterday the Garrison of York amounting to upwards of two thousand nine hundred Effectives, rank and file, marched out and grounded their arms. Their sick are about seventeen hundred. The Garrison of Gloucester and the men killed during the siege are computed at near two thousand, so that the whole loss sustained by the Enemy on this occasion must be between 6 and 7000 Men. This blow, I think, must be a decisive one, it being out of the Power of G. B. to replace such a number of good troops (Evans 120).

Here is a link that provides a useful map. http://www.mountvernon.org/research-c...


Works cited:

Evans, Emory G. Thomas Nelson of Yorktown: Revolutionary Virginian. Williamsburg: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1975. Print.

Ketchum, Victory at Yorktown: The Campaign That Won the Revolution. New York, Henry Holt and Company, 2004. Print.

Page, R. C. M. Genealogy of the Page Family in Virginia. New York: Jenkins & Thomas, 1883. Print.

Publications of the Virginia Historical Society. “Letters of Thomas Nelson.” New Series, No. 1, 1874. Print.

Sanderson, John. Biography of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence. Second Edition. Philadelphia: William Brown and Charles Peters, 1828. V. Print.