Harold Titus's Blog, page 33

Writing "Alsoomse and Wanchese" -- Introduction

One reason that I retired from teaching at the age of 56 was to take advantage of my school district’s generous early retirement package. If I were to provide my school a specific number of hours of curriculum development during the first five years of my retirement, I would receive during those years additional retirement compensation. One of the projects I undertook was to write a somewhat novelized account of England’s first attempt to establish a colony on America’s Atlantic coastline. I refer to the colonial settlement of Roanoke, Walter Raleigh’s endeavor to establish a base that would serve two purposes: raid Spanish treasure ships passing through the Caribbean islands and discover, extract, and export to England gold, silver, and other valuable natural resources.

My “novel” was about 150 pages long. It was essentially a work of non-fiction whose people thought, spoke, and acted. Years later, after my Revolutionary War novel Crossing the River was published (2011), I reread my Roanoke manuscript to assess its flaws and decide whether I wanted to revise it.

I was disturbed that I had committed probably the worst of a novice writer’s sins. My narration summarized (told) too much; it did not demonstrate (show) enough. Here is an example.

***

The watch had alerted Arthur Barlowe of the sighting of Indians. Yes, he saw them, three, standing by a canoe that they had beached on the island near where Barlowe's ship and that of Philip Amadas had anchored two days before. They were staring back at him. Unabashedly. As though inviting him to communicate. Barlowe decided to initiate Walter Raleigh's other instructions.

He had not yet found in the great sound of water that Verrazzano had called the "Inland Sea" an island that they could easily defend. He and Amadas had left Plymouth April 27, 1584, piloted by Simon Ferdinando, the same Portuguese seaman that had explored Norambega for Humphrey Gilbert five years earlier. The two ships had picked up the trade winds at the Canary Islands, arrived at Puerto Rico in the Caribbean to take on fresh water, avoided the Caribs on Guadeloupe, entered the Gulf Stream off Cuba, and sighted the Carolina banks between Cape Fear and Cape Lookout July 4.

For nine days Ferdinando had searched for an inlet before finding one with scarcely twelve feet of water at high tide. Subsequently, the two ships had entered Pamlico Sound and anchored off Hatarask Island.

Barlowe, Amadas, and Ferdinando had immediately rowed ashore, and Barlowe had declared possession of the land in the name of the Queen. Almost immediately he had noticed the profuse growth of wild summer grape, dominating the low, sandy terrain, reaching to the very edge of the water. He believed this to be an important economic discovery; for Englishmen drank great quantities of wine, imported mostly from Spain. Here was a land that benefited from, he suspected, a warm Mediterranean climate. Additionally, there were trees, lots of trees: cedar, pine, cypress, sassafras, and tupelo. For shipbuilding. For excellent furniture, perhaps.

On their second day of discovery one of Barlowe's men had fired his arquebus at a flock of cranes. Huge flocks had ascended like an undulating wave, issuing an echoing cry, like an army of men shouting all together, Barlowe had thought. If the savages are not already aware of our presence, that sound will inform them! he had thought. He was encouraged to see their quick willingness to bear witness.

***

Another flaw was that I had focused almost entirely on English characters. The few native characters that appear in the manuscript are one dimensional. What were their fears, aspirations, internal conflicts? I asked myself. It was as though I had considered these natives superfluous. The characters in the excerpt below are essentially bodies with names. My purpose here was to provide important historical information through the use of dialogue. Conspicuously lacking is individuality of character. The scene is, succinctly stated, an information dump.

***

“The white men are not gods,” Wanchese repeated.

Several of Wingina’s advisors nodded agreement.

“I believe they are men of an old generation many years ago,” Granganimeo responded, “dead men returned to this world again. That they remain dead for a certain time only. That another generation is now in the air, invisible, waiting to follow them.”

“If they are of the sprit world, they have very large appetites,” declared Osacan, Wanchese’s friend. “They are men only lacking color, from a distant land. And their god is not to be feared.”

“Their god is to be feared. His power is in Hariot’s sword and looking-glass.”

The others faced Ensenore, Wingina’s frail father.

“Why then are they without food, helpless and starving with food about them?” Wingina asked quietly.

Ensenore spoke carefully. “They came without women and they refused our women so we believed they were gods, pale spirits as Granganimeo has said. I do not know if they are gods. If they are men, their god has given them great power over us. He has given them the skill to kill any of us without a weapon and from any distance. We suddenly are ill, and then we die. Their god wishes that we give them food. If we do not, he punishes us.”

Wingina stared at his father without speaking. He was not convinced. He wanted Lane’s men gone from his island forever. If they did not leave voluntarily, he would find a way to destroy them.

***

Finally, not one person in the manuscript is a fictional character. Any novel that attempts to recreate some aspect of the past needs invented characters. How could I portray effectively the Carolina coastal Algonquians’ way of living and thinking without them? I needed to tell stories about individual people to create a mosaic, a context to make more meaningful those major events that did occur when Englishmen and Algonquians came together and eventually clashed.

What had subjectively attracted me to this subject matter was clearly missing. Rewrite it, or chuck it. I decided to accept the challenge.

I want to explore themes like the clash of incompatible cultures, the exploitation of the vulnerable, man’s need to conquer and control, the dangers of resistance, man’s overall purpose, his need to adhere to religious beliefs. I want to create fully-dimensional characters, individuals with whom readers identify, human beings deserving emotional judgment. I want to present specifically the Algonquian point of view. I want to write a novel that demands the best of what I am able to produce.

I may not get there. At this later stage in my life writing another novel gives me a special purpose. I will be posting in future installments my difficulties and how I have attempted to surmount them. It would be fun to hear from you. My email address is jahatitus@oregonfast.net.

Thomas Nelson -- Final Years

Washington was most thankful for Nelson’s contributions. In his general orders of October 20 the commanding general wrote: “The general would be guilty of the highest ingratitude if he forgot to return his sincere acknowledgments to his excellency governor Nelson, for the succours which he received from him and the militia under his command, to whose activity, emulation, and bravery the highest praises are due. The magnitude of the acquisition will be ample compensation for the difficulties and dangers which they met with so much firmness and patriotism” (Sanderson 69).

Nelson thought now that the war would soon end. He could feel happy that he had played a necessary and important role in the battle that, he believed, had broken the back of the British. Certain problems, nevertheless, abounded. “The healthy British prisoners had to be moved to prison camps, the sick and wounded cared for, and all had to be fed. Washington urged that the Virginia military establishment be kept on a firm footing, while the men themselves tended to go home. The French, remaining in the state, created something of a problem, particularly in Yorktown, where they ousted some people from their homes to use them for winter quarters. … Accounts had to be settled between the French and the state and between the state and the Continental Congress. Large numbers of cattle which had been collected had to be disposed of and other provisions stored. Still civil strife continued in the lower Tidewater. These and many other problems weighed heavily on the governor” (Evans 120-121).

On November 20, 1781, Nelson handed to the speaker of the House of Delegates his letter of resignation. “The very low state of health to which I am reduced, and from which I have little expectation of soon recovering, makes it my duty to resign the government, that the state may not suffer for want of an executive” (Sanderson 70). His resignation was accepted. On November 30 the Assembly elected Benjamin Harrison governor. Nelson did not have many years left to live, and he probably knew it. Illness had plagued him throughout the war. The heavy responsibility he had carried as governor had had a final telling effect. Nelson wished to retire from public life. Difficulties, however, followed him.

Inhabitants from the County of Prince William sent to the legislature a petition and remonstrance protesting that Nelson had disregarded their “necessity and patriotic restraints” by authorizing “impress in a most unrestrained and arbitrary manner without the consent of the executive council.” They also “condemned him for not allowing the French to purchase provisions on the open market, and for laying an embargo on the export of certain commodities” (Evans 121). Nelson asked for an opportunity to defend himself. His wish was granted and he forwarded to the legislature a letter with his reasons “for adopting the measures which have given so much offense.” The legislature investigated the charges, found that he had been forced to impress without the council’s consent due to “peculiar circumstances” (Sanderson 70-72), and passed an act that legalized his activities. Nelson was officially indemnified and exonerated from all blame.

He had assumed the office of governor at a very critical time. “Virginia had been without a governor for three weeks; large enemy forces had been moving for six months, virtually at will, within her borders; and the state’s resources had been strained for a much longer period of time as a result of British activity in the Carolinas. At his disposal were powers greater than those of any governor preceding him, and, except for a few days in June, he did not have the restraining influence of a legislature to deal with. A tremendous responsibility, which Nelson understood and accepted, thus rested with the executive. Although a more politically minded person would have shown caution, he used the power to its fullest extent. When it appeared necessary, in the six weeks before Yorktown, Nelson exceeded his authority. He made the decision to do so without regard to the effect it would have on his own career” (Evans 122-123).

Nelson’s home in York had been destroyed. Some of his landed estates had been and might be sold. He moved temporarily to a little estate called Offley, in Hanover County. He had built it during the war as a place of protection for his family. It was not a very healthful area in which to live. His son Robert used to sing these two lines about the place:

“Send comfort down from thy right hand

To cheer us in this barren land.”

R. C. M. Page wrote that the house was probably gone, but the Offley pond, “that well-known source of chills and fever for the whole neighborhood, yet stands” (Page 151)

The young aide-de-camp Baron Von Closen, accompanying General Rochambeau, visiting the Offley estate in January 1782, gives us an excellent description of Nelson, his wife, and the property.

“This worthy man gave us the most cordial reception possible; we were served an excellent supper, and immediately afterwards retired to our rooms … After an excellent lunch, we inspected the farm and the approaches to the house, which are rather pretty; there are two others near-by and many negro cabins. General Nelson was one of the richest Personages in Virginia; he had 700 negroes before the war. He has now only 80 to 100.

“He is a man of the greatest integrity, is devoted to the cause of his compatriots, and serves his fatherland with the zeal and disinterestedness characteristic of an upright man, even at the cost of his fortune, which had been considerably reduced.

“… His family is one of the happiest with which I am acquainted; his wife, who is no longer young, has 13 living children and is respected for the upbringing that she gives them. She is an excellent and thrifty housekeeper and provided very good meals for us” (Von Closen 216, 217).

Historian Emory G. Evans disagrees with assertions made by 19th and 20th Century historians that Nelson was reduced to poverty by the time of his death (1789). He believes that the story of a very wealthy man losing his entire fortune in the valiant service of his country was too good a story to reduce to objective boundaries. This myth lives today in respected historical publications. “… the sketch of Nelson in the Dictionary of American Biography tells how he ‘sacrificed his private means to pay his public debts, accumulated for Virginia’s loan of 1780 and in fitting out and provisioning troops. This course … left him a poor man’” (Evans 139). Nelson indeed had financial difficulties before his death, but he also was wealthy.

“… business had been virtually at a standstill since the outbreak of the war, and even at that time he had been deeply in debt. In the meantime his family had continued to grow, placing further demands on his straitened finances—a situation not improved by his having pledged his own security for significant sums during the loan drives of 1780. Some of his creditors were already pressing him for payments, and as early as August 1782 he was advertising the sale of twenty to thirty Virginia-born Negroes. He sold more slaves in December and in January, and also delivered 184,000 pounds of tobacco to Benjamin Harrison and Company and David Ross and Company in payment of bonded debts” (Evans 126).

But Nelson “was far from destitute. Substantial sums of money were owed him, and he still ranked among the ten largest property owners in Virginia. Nelson possessed well over twenty thousand acres spread through five counties. … In addition he owned approximately four hundred slaves, five hundred head of cattle and one hundred horses and mules as well as sheep and hogs. … These were immense holdings, even for that time, but only the end of the war and the return of more normal business conditions could tell what he would be able to do with them” (Evans 126).

Nelson was not entirely inactive publicly following his resignation as governor. He was returned to the York County Court in the fall of 1782. In November he assumed his seat in the House of Delegates. Not until May of 1783 did he begin to take on the duties of his office. Peace with Great Britain was declared in the autumn of 1783. Nelson spent a good amount of his time seeing to the repair of his house in Williamsburg, his house in Yorktown still in a state of disrepair. After two weeks of service in the fall session of the Assembly, he fell ill.

“For a week in early December he was under the intensive care of Williamsburg physician John M. Galt. Dr. Galt prescribed a variety of medicines used at that time for the treatment of coughs and the removal of phlegm associated with ‘humoral asthmas.’ He also applied several plasters to Nelson’s chest, including one that used cantharides (dried blister beetles) as the main specific. Nelson recovered from this attack, in spite of Dr. Galt’s medications, and over a year passed before this particular ailment again plagued him. But his generally poor health seems to have convinced him that he should retire from public life, even though some of his friends were entreating him not to do so” (Evans 128).

Visitors came frequently to Williamsburg and Yorktown to visit him. No man was more welcome than the Marquis de Lafayette in the fall of 1784. His small house was crowded with many of the town’s notables, including James Madison. Nelson “reportedly told his guests that they could blame their being over-crowded on the skill of the French artillery at the siege of Yorktown” (Evans 129).

Pleased as he was with the respect accorded him by distinguished visitors, his financial difficulties increasingly unsettled him. If he could only collect the money owed him, both by private individuals and the public! “In June 1784 he petitioned the House of Delegates first to pay 91 pounds owed him for board while commander of the state militia, and, more important, to repay the loans he had obtained by pledging his own security during the loan drive of February 1780” (Evans 129). Legislation was taken up to effect that, but Nelson was never reimbursed. Perhaps this was because Nelson could not present clear documentation. Perhaps crucial documentation had been lost. Perhaps the House, due to uncertain documentation, “did not want to leave itself open to a host of claims that might be less just than Nelson’s” (Evans 131).

The failure to be reimbursed was a crushing blow. He continued to attempt to clear his debts. “… by August of 1786 he was advertising the sale of land in Hanover and Gloucester counties. He also announced that he would have to sell about eighty of his Negroes unless persons indebted to him would ‘discharge their bonds, notes, and open accounts.’ Court action was promised against those who did not provide for payment. … Nelson’s creditors were also taking him to court, and between the end of the war and his death in 1789 judgments against him amounted to” (Evans 132, 133) six thousand pounds.

Nelson wrote to Edmund Berkeley in 1787: I know by my own feelings that nothing can be more disagreeable than to be dunn’d. I am however unfortunately reduc’d to the necessity of dunning, or parting with more property than I can spare from my numerous family” (Evans 133).

In the spring of 1786 Nelson’s younger brother Nathaniel, a York delegate to the Virginia House of Delegates, died. Nelson decided to replace him. The following year the Articles of Confederation Congress called for a convention composed of representatives of each state to meet in Philadelphia in May 1787 to consider revising the Articles of Confederation. The Virginia legislature selected seven prominent Virginians. When Patrick Henry declined to serve – smelling “a rat” – Governor Edmund Randolph appointed Nelson to replace him. The state of his business affairs and his poor health forced Nelson to decline.

In Philadelphia a new frame of government was being drafted. “George Washington sent Nelson a copy of the completed document immediately on his return to Virginia. In a covering letter he told his friend that the Constitution was the ‘best that could be obtained at this time….’ The ‘political concerns of this country,’ he continued, are ‘suspended by a thread,’ and he was convinced that if the convention had not agreed on a plan ‘anarchy would soon have ensured….’Under these circumstances Washington thought ‘the adoption of it … desirable.’ Nelson, and a number of other Virginias, did not agree” (Evans 135-136).

Three parties had formed in Virginia: “those who would ratify without amendments; those who did not ‘object to the substance of the Government’ but favored ‘a few additional guards in favor of the Rights of the States and the people; and those who opposed the ‘essence of the System’ and preferred ‘an adherence to the principle of the existing Confederation.’ In light of Nelson’s career to this point it is reasonable to assume that he was one of the middle group” (Evans 136).

In early June 1788 Nelson was very ill. From then “his condition grew progressively worse. Not only did recurrent attacks of what was probably asthma plague him, his whole physical condition seems to have deteriorated. Furthermore, the serious state of his business affairs contributed to his depression.” He was nearly thirteen thousand pounds in debt. “The fear that he would not be able to straighten out his affairs, and therefore be unable to provide for his numerous family, weighed on Nelson’s mind. Late in December his condition had become so bad that he took the step of drawing up his last will and testament. … The will was signed on December 26. Less than two weeks later, on January 4, 1789, Thomas Nelson, fifty years of age, died at his plantation Montclair in Hanover County” (Evans 138).

Newspapers carrying accounts of his death were edged in black. “One stated that as ‘a citizen there is but one to whom his country [Virginia] is more indebted’” (Evans 138). According to ancestor R. C. M. Page, Nelson’s widow would live to be 80, being blind her last 17 years. She would leave twenty dollars to her minister and freedom to her only servant.


Works cited:

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

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

Sanderson, John. Biography of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence.

Second Edition. Philadelphia: William Brown and Charles Peters, 1828. V. Print.

William and Mary Quarterly Historical Magazine. “The Journal of Baron Von Closen.” Series 3. X. 1953. Print.

Thomas Nelson -- Victory at Yorktown

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.

Thomas Nelson -- Closing the Trap

Let us leave temporarily Thomas Nelson’s efforts to support George Washington’s attempt to trap British General Cornwallis and focus on the French naval contributions and British naval and military blunders that led to American and French victory.

The Battle of the Capes, so vital to George Washington’s victory at Yorktown, commenced September 5. Luck played a considerable part in the French naval victory.

Here are four useful maps.

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

http://www.ohwy.com/history%20picture...

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_rFs0uVY_4rE...

http://xenophongroup.com/mcjoynt/cape...

British Admiral George Rodney, responsible for neutralizing the French fleet in American waters, prior to returning to London because of ill health, had sent a dispatch to Admiral Mariot Arbuthnot in New York warning him that a large French squadron was heading west across the Atlantic and that “you may be upon your guard.” By the time the dispatch reached New York, Arthunot had been replaced by Admiral Thomas Graves, a self-important, lackadaisical, obdurate commander. Ignoring Rodney’s warning, Graves sailed his fleet along the Atlantic coast north of New York in search of a possible French convoy of merchantmen rumored to be transporting to America money, clothing, and military stores, the convoy “escorted by one ship of the line, another armed en flute, and two frigates. … The admiralty [had] advised Graves that the British Government felt a most serious blow would be struck if the colonies were deprived of these essential succours, and gave orders to the commander of the North American fleet to keep a sharp lookout for the convoy and to determine upon the most likely places to station cruisers for the purpose of intercepting it” (Capes 1). Graves, therefore, was absent when a second dispatch sent by Rodney, declaring that French Admiral Francois de Grasse was in the West Indies and Graves should take his fleet to Virginia, arrived. The captain of the sloop of war that had carried the dispatch to New York had thereupon sailed eastward in search for Graves. Attacked by three Yankee privateers, he was forced to throw the message overboard.

Admiral Samuel Hood, in the West Indies, had thereafter replaced Rodney. The “energetic Hood—who knew that de Grasse was somewhere in the vicinity, but who was unsure whether he had sailed for the mainland or was still in the Caribbean—headed at once for New York with fourteen warships, determined to join Admiral Graves and seek out de Grasse or [Admiral Comte de] Barras [at Newport, Rhode Island] before they [de Grasse and Barras] could combine forces” (Ketchum 188). En route he looked in at the Chesapeake Bay and saw only several picket vessels on patrol for General Cornwallis. De Grasse had left the West Indies almost a week ahead of Hood but had sailed up the American coast past Charleston, where he captured three British ships. Hood, some distance out in the Atlantic, had sailed past de Grasse without seeing him. As Hood sped for New York, de Grasse, hugging the coastline, entered Chesapeake Bay with his transports carrying 3,000 soldiers and supplies and thirty warships.

Arriving in New York, Hood discovered that Graves believed that de Grasse had probably gone to Havana to join the Spaniards and Washington and Rochambeau were in motion in the Jerseys to threaten Staten Island. Hood declared “that no time was to be lost, that they should sail immediately” for Virginia. That evening Graves received a message that Barras had left Rhode Island and was sailing south. However, Graves, feeling the need to repair five of his ten warships, delayed leaving for the Chesapeake. When his fleet departed, he had nineteen ships, carrying nineteen hundred guns. It never caught sight of Barras’s much slower force, which succeeded to elude him.

The squadron arriving off the Chesapeake on the morning of September 5, the lookout of the lead British ship “called out that he saw a forest of masts in the harbor, about ten miles distant. The captain didn’t believe him; they must be trees, he said. It was soon apparent, however, that they were not trees but French ships, and they were putting to sea with decks cleared for action. De Grasse had twenty-four ships of the line, carrying seventeen hundred guns” (Ketchum 190).

It was the hurricane season along the Virginia capes. The outcome of the impending battle would be determined substantially by the quirky winds and currents. Around three o’clock “the French ships were ordered to run full so the entire fleet could produce the heaviest possible fire when they came alongside the British; about an hour later the action began” (Ketchum 190) at a distance of a musket shot.

At five o’clock the wind shifted and de Grasse signaled his captains to lay on canvas and head after the enemy as best they could. Graves’s squadron, severely punished, took advantage of the wind and kept its distance until sunset when the engagement ended. On September 6, the wind being feeble, both fleets made repairs. The following day was also calm. Repairs continued. On September 8 the wind shifted and Graves attacked. De Grasse reacted immediately. Recognized his peril, Graves ordered his fleet to turn and run before the wind. By the night of September 8, the two fleets had drifted about a hundred miles to the south to the latitude of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. No longer seeing the British fleet, de Grasse, fearing “a change in the wind might permit the British fleet to get ahead of him and attack Barras, who was carrying the vitally important siege artillery, signaled his captains to return to the Chesapeake” (Ketchum 191).

“Luck—or Providence—had been with the Americans in every instance that counted. First of all, Graves never received Rodney’s warning. Then, inexplicably, the British under Graves failed to attack de Grasse’s ships one by one as they emerged from Chesapeake Bay. Another stroke of luck was that the lethargic Graves—not the aggressive Rodney-- … was commanding the British squadron. Yet another was that Barras and his ships made it safely from Rhode Island to Virginia without detection by either Hood or Graves. In the naval engagement that decided the Yorktown campaign, only one ship was lost, and that was scuttled by the British” (Ketchum 191-192).

Early on, General Cornwallis had had the opportunity to escape the planned allied entrapment. “At the moment the French fleet appeared on August 31, Cornwallis’s avenue of escape was wide open. De Grasse had not disembarked any troops, and the army under Washington and Rochambeau was several weeks’ march away….” Cornwallis, however, stayed put. ”His best chance of keeping his army intact would have been to attack Lafayette’s weak force …, but at this moment he received Clinton’s promise of relief and opted for inaction, while his soldiers continued working day and night on the outworks …” (Ketchum 204).

“As late as September 8, Cornwallis had no reason to think he would not be relieved and rescued. French troops [de Grasse]—3,800 of them—had landed. Lafayette was at Williamsburg, and reportedly the allied armies would arrive soon. Nevertheless, the British were ready for them and had taken a very strong position just outside town …” (Ketchum 206).

The following day Admiral Graves sent a shocking message to Commanding General Henry Clinton. He “was sorry to inform the general that ‘the enemy have so great a naval force in the Chesapeake that they are absolute masters of its navigation.’ … The French appeared to have suffered, he continued, but his fleet had taken much heavier damage” (Ketchum 206). On September 14, having received Graves’s message, Clinton held a council of war. The key questions to be debated and answered were that since Cornwallis’s “garrison could evidently defend the post for at least three weeks, was it advisable to commit a reinforcement of five or six thousand men ‘to the hazards of the sea during our present inferiority and endeavor to relieve Lord Cornwallis at all costs” or “should they await further accounts from Admiral Graves and see how Admiral Robert Digby’s squadron [reportedly to have left England] might affect their chances of success” (Ketchum 207). After much discussion their decision was to wait for more favorable accounts from Graves or for Digby’s arrival. “How these senior military officers could possibly imagine that Graves would give them a more favorable account is difficult to imagine, but since Digby had not been sighted and no one knew how many vessels he had with him, surely it would be safe to delay decision until he arrived” (Ketchum 207). (Digby arrived September 24 with three ships of the line) On September 17 Clinton held another council of war. Having been informed by Cornwallis that he had provisions for six weeks, “once again they stalled for time, deciding that any attempt to ‘throw in supplies and reinforcements ought to be deferred until it could be undertaken with less danger than at present.’ … Since an army could not act there alone without the cooperation of the fleet, it would be ‘highly improper to add considerably to the numbers already in Virginia’ until such time as the presence of the fleet became practicable” (Ketchum 208. 209).

On September 16, Cornwallis wrote to Clinton: “‘I am of opinion that you can do me no effectual service but by coming directly to this place’” (Ketchum 208). “Given the situation in which the possibility of rescue was virtually nil, he [Cornwallis] had only one option, which was to escape at any cost before the arrival of Washington’s [and Rochambeau’s] troops shut the trap. … Major Alexander Ross, Cornwallis’s aide, persuaded the earl that Clinton’s promise of relief left him no choice but to hold his post. This was absurd, and Cornwallis had to know it …” (Ketchum 205).

Having arrived in Virginia September 13 ahead of their armies, Washington and Rochambeau met almost immediately with de Grasse on the admiral’s flag ship. De Grasse told them that he had been instructed to leave on October 15, “but he would, on his own, stretch that until the end of the month. That gave Washington almost six weeks in which to force Cornwallis to surrender” (Ketchum 210). Several days later, having learned that Admiral Digby had arrived in New York, de Grasse informed Washington by messenger “that since the enemy was now nearly equal to him in strength [not so] and it would be imprudent to remain in a position where he could not readily attack them, he would leave several frigates to block the James and two ships at the mouth of the York while he put to sea with the fleet. ‘I will sail with my forces towards New York,’ he said, ‘and I may possibly do more for the common cause than by remaining here as an idle spectator. … I shall set sail as soon as the wind permits’” (Ketchum 211-212). Washington sent Lafayette immediately to meet with de Grasse to attempt to change his mind. Rochambeau sent a letter to de Grasse via Lafayette. Before the Frenchman arrived, probably because his officers had expressed their disapproval of his plan, de Grasse recanted his decision.

On September 28, Washington, Rochambeau, and the two allied armies began their march from Williamsburg to the environs of Yorktown. The French had about 7,800 troops. The Americans (counting 3,000 Virginia militia commanded by Thomas Nelson) had 8,845. “Astonishingly, … the roads that the British should have defended foot by foot were uncontested” (Ketchum 214). The army “formed camp in a great curve extending from York River. … The French held the left flank while the Americans held the right. Nelson and his troops, stationed at the extreme right, made up a reserve for Lafayette’s regulars” (Evans 118). Countering the French and American forces were about 7,200 British soldiers. The trap was set.


Works cited:

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

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

“Second Naval Battle of the Virginia Capes (1781).” http://xenophongroup.com/mcjoynt/cape.... Net.

Thomas Nelson -- Trapping Cornwallis

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.

Thomas Nelson -- Thomas Jefferson Escapes

Here are links to two maps to help you locate the rivers and cities referenced below.

http://www.virginiaplaces.org/chesbay...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...


Lafayette returned to Annapolis after American and French efforts to trap General Benedict Arnold in Portsmouth were abandoned. Not long afterward, General William Philllips and 2,600 redcoat soldiers reinforced Arnold. Virginia forces had dwindled to 1,200 men. Only 700 were positioned south of the James River. Lafayette was expected to return with about 1,200 soldiers. A new group of militia was being desperately called up. Neither source of reinforcements, however, would be useable before the end of April. Consequently, General von Steuben withdrew his troops from Portsmouth and stationed them at Richmond. Given free reign, on April 18, 1781, Arnold and 2,500 British troops left Portsmouth to move up the James River to plunder.

They launched an attack on the supply depot of Petersburg. Generals Steuben and Muhlenburg, with 1,000 militiamen, defended stubbornly. At the end of the day Steuben ordered a withdrawal. Arnold advanced into Petersburg where he destroyed four thousand hogsheads of tobacco. He destroyed at Osbornes, a small village on the James River 15 miles below Richmond, what passed for the Virginia navy. General Phillips burned barracks and stores at Chesterfield Court House. Both generals then moved toward Manchester, just across the James from Richmond.

Thomas Nelson, having recovered from his illness, gathered a handful of militiamen hoping somehow to defend the capitol city. “Fortunately the British did not get to Manchester until the morning of April 30, and on the previous afternoon General Lafayette had marched his nine hundred weary troops into Richmond, after a forced march that had taken them only ten days in miserable weather to cover the 150 miles from Annapolis. Thus, when the British arrived in Manchester, they were confronted across the river by Lafayette’s troops located in good position. Though superior in numbers, the British decided not to attack, and after burning some tobacco they dropped down the river, and by May 6, were below Jamestown” (Evans 99). To put Richmond beyond further attack, Lafayette moved Nelson and his militia to Williamsburg and his own forces between that city and the capitol.

In May, General William Cornwallis came driving up into Virginia from North Carolina. He had won a costly victory at Guilford Court House in March and had then moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, where he had made plans to march into Virginia to join Arnold and Phillips at Petersburg. He did so May 20, Lafayette, being outnumbered, forced to withdraw to Richmond. For a week and a half neither Lafayette nor the British made any further move.

On May 10, the state legislature had decided to convene two weeks later not in Richmond but in Charlottesville. In Richmond, Lafayette reorganized his army, now totaling 900 Continentals and the 1,200 to 1,500 militia divided into two brigades commanded by Nelson and Muhlenburg. After Cornwallis’s arrival May 20, British forces totaled about 7,200 men.

During this time Nelson had had to deal with numerous disloyal acts. “In early May, he was forced to take twelve disaffected persons into custody, including Williamsburg merchant John Greenhow, who had advised a ‘militia officer to lay aside his Sword because we were already conquered.’ Horses, which might strengthen an already superior British cavalry, had to be removed from Cornwallis’s path. Owners who did not cooperate were to have their animals seized. Nelson also had to oversee the impressment of horses for Lafayette’s cavalry. A condition approaching martial law prevailed” (Evans 100).

On May 24, Cornwallis marched out of Petersburg, crossed the James River, and headed toward Richmond to attack Lafayette. Wanting to keep his army intact and determined to prevent Cornwallis from getting between him and General Anthony Wayne, who was marching from Pennsylvania with reinforcements, Lafayette retreated northward toward Fredericksburg. On the last day of the month, Cornwallis ended his pursuit, deciding to direct his aggressive activities elsewhere.

Cornwallis wanted to destroy a main supply depot fifty miles above Richmond, capture the Virginia legislature in session in Charlottesville, and seize Governor Thomas Jefferson. Lieutenant Colonel John Simcoe and 500 troops destroyed the depot. Steuben and 400 militiamen ordered to defend it retreated. “Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton and 250 cavalry, assigned the second objective, fell upon Charlottesville early on the morning of June 4. Had it not been for the ride of Captain Jack Jouett from Cuckoo Tavern to warn the legislature and the governor, the plan would have been successful” (Evans 101). Here is how The Meriwether Society, Inc., on the internet, narrates this event.

***

On May 28th, the first day a quorum was present for the reconvened Assembly, Governor Jefferson wrote George Washington pleading he bring the Continental Army to Virginia to bolster the weary patriots, “That your appearance among them I say would restore full confidence of salvation…” Soon afterwards, General Washington wrote Jefferson almost apologetically, “The progress which the enemy are making in Virginia is very alarming…,” only daring to hint at his plans for the British, which would only be secured by a Naval Superiority not yet in place.

…

The Green Dragoons moved easily through the countryside between the North and South Anna Rivers on “a rainy dark day”. The heat of the weather obliged a rest around noon to refresh the men and horses. Then they pressed on into the night, and at a small crossroads in eastern Louisa County (the junction of today’s US 33 and US 522), tradition has it that their motions were then observed. About 10:00pm there at the Cuckoo Tavern, a young member of the Virginia militia, John Jouett (of Huguenot origins), watched the British cavalry sweep past along the main road. Whether they stopped is unknown; perhaps some officers entered the Tavern and Jouett overheard them talking, or maybe in watching from a window he just guessed what they were up to. A native of Charlottesville, Jouett’s father was the keeper of the Swan Tavern there, a stopping place and meeting room for many delegates to the Virginia Assembly. Figuring the British would take the main road, Jouett inconspicuously left the area, then mounted a horse said to be the finest in 7 counties, and (thoroughly familiar with the region) rode 40 miles over back roads in the middle of the night, which had nearly a full moon though it was probably overcast. He traveled through a maze of vines, brambles, and potholes, to Monticello where at 4:30am June 4 he awoke Jefferson and several prominent members of the legislature, effectively warning them. It is said he paused only briefly before continuing to Charlottesville. Jouett’s descendants say he wore the scars of brambles and branches from that ride the rest of his life.

Meanwhile, Tarleton’s troops arrived at the Louisa County Courthouse at 11:00pm. They remained on a “plentiful plantation” in Louisa until 2:00am June 4, 1781, then resumed their march. Before dawn, they burned a caravan of 12 supply wagons with stores of arms and clothing headed for South Carolina.

…

… Tarleton ordered Dr. Walker and his wife to prepare breakfast for the British Legion. It is said the Walkers knew or guessed of the plan to capture Jefferson, so while Mildred Walker “ordered the cooks to be slow in preparing breakfast, Dr. Walker was busy mixing mint juleps for… Tarleton and his troops.” … He [Tarleton] was still at that point counting on the surprise he might gain from the approximately 70 mile distance covered that night and the previous day.

…

Just ahead of the British on the morning of June 4, 1781, militia rider John Jouett reached Charlottesville, an 18-year-old town described by a visitor at the time as “a courthouse, one tavern, and about a dozen houses.” He warned the Virginia Assembly members staying there about the approaching raid. They hastily convened, and arranged to reconvene in Staunton, safely across the Blue Ridge Mountains in 3 days time. Their main business of electing a new Governor, because Jefferson’s term had expired June 1, would have to wait. A then little-known Colonel Daniel Boone and some others started loading up wagons with some of the public records.

Not far behind, British Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton and his troops were on the way, refreshed after a quick breakfast at Castle Hill. …

…

… About that time the former Governor had just left Monticello after seeing his family safely off via carriage toward Enniscorthy, the Coles plantation about 14 miles distant in southern Albemarle County. Jefferson had ordered his favorite riding horse to be shod and brought to the road (about where state highway 53 is today) in the valley between his mountaintop home and the nearby Carter’s Mountain … According to a popular folktale of the time, as the British approached, Jefferson walked a ways up Carter’s Mountain to a good viewing point, and gazed from a telescope. He looked down at the streets of Charlottesville and saw nothing out of order. Jefferson started to walk away, but it is said he noticed his light walking sword had slipped from its sheath, so he returned to retrieve it, and then took another look through his telescope, this time to see the streets swarming with Dragoons, identifiable by the color of their uniforms--green for the British Legion, and red for the Fusiliers. Jefferson then mounted his horse and briskly made his escape. [The Jeffersons’ eventual destination was their family’s Poplar Forest plantation further south.]

… with the help of Jouett’s early warning and the Walker family’s strategic delay, Jefferson, his family, and guests (including the Speakers of the State Senate and House, and some others) all had narrowly escaped, missing the British by just 10 minutes. …

Down in Charlottesville, the British were raiding the town, burning goods and seizing firearms. The numbers vary according to different sources. The British said they destroyed 1,000 muskets, 400 barrels of powder, 7 hogsheads of tobacco, and a quantity of Continental soldier’s clothing and “accoutrements”, while the American estimates were much lower. Also, invaluable county legal records were destroyed, that are still missing from 1748-1781, burned on the Courthouse green. About 20 prisoners, remnants from the neighborhood of The Barracks prisoner-of-war camp on the West side of town, were liberated.

… Elsewhere in Charlottesville, a British officer overtook Daniel Boone, dressed inconspicuously in frontier hunting shirts and leggings, with John Jouett walking away. The former was questioned and dismissed, then the latter. According to Boone family tradition, as their relative walked away, Jouett (probably exhausted and/or still full of adrenaline) absentmindedly called out Colonel Daniel Boone’s rank and name so that he could catch up with him. The British officer overheard and promptly arrested Boone.

…

After the drama and violence of the early June days and nights in 1781, life in Charlottesville gradually returned more to its routines. The most hunted General Assembly in Virginia’s history reconvened at the Old Trinity Church in Staunton with most of its members, somewhat riled by their recent harrowing experiences. Some placed blame on Jefferson for their lack of security.

… The Assembly later voted to exonerate Jefferson of any blame. A year later, Jouett traveled Daniel Boone’s Wilderness Road to Kentucky, serving well as a progressive delegate in State Assemblies. …

… unsuccessful in the main goal of his mission, Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton and his Green Dragoons sometime between June 6-9 made it back to join General Cornwallis at Point of Fork, where the Rivanna River meets the James River (near present day Columbia). He reported “the attempt to secure Mr. Jefferson was ineffectual.” Their main prisoners from the raid were then paroled, including Daniel Boone.

***

Jefferson’s term of office had expired on June 2. “The gentle Virginian was not a military man, his second term had been a frustrating one, and he was determined to step aside for someone better fitted for the position. A little over a week later, the Assembly meeting in Staunton chose General Thomas Nelson as Jefferson’s successor” (Evans 101).

Washington’s decision to remain north proved to be fortunate. General Henry Clinton, commander-in-chief of all British forces in the Colonies, situated in New York City, feeling uneasy about Washington’s near presence, ordered Cornwallis to take a defensive position at Williamsburg and York and send to him every man he could spare. Then, seeming to regain his composure, Clinton ordered Cornwallis to send no reinforcements. But Clinton did not countermand his order instructing Cornwallis to take a defensive position. Consequently, on August 2 Cornwallis positioned at York his 4,500 men.


Works cited:

Long, Stephen Meriwether. “British Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton and the American Revolution: Drama on the Plantations of Charlottesville.” The Meriwether Society, Inc. http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.co.... Net.

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

Thomas Nelson -- Benedict Arnold Invades

Of great aid to the Americans would be the French fleet. It would be most valuable at the Battle of Yorktown. But the fleet had to be kept in provisions and armament, and it was America’s responsibility to see that it was. Early in June of 1780 the Continental Congress called for $2,000,000 to be placed in the Continental Congress Treasury to help provide for the French fleet. Thomas Nelson set out personally to raise as much money as he could in Virginia. His excursions took him through most of the southern counties of the state, but he had great difficulty finding people willing to advance their money. The resources of the state were drained and people were poor. Those who possessed money were afraid to trust it to no better security than that of the government, already too deeply involved financially to extricate itself from its difficulties. Nelson was turned down everywhere. But seeing that the need of the money was great, he decided he would add his own personal security to that of the government. The people of the state trusted Nelson, and many accepted Nelson’s offer of security and loaned to the government what money they could spare. Ultimately, Nelson succeeded in raising a good sum of money, through his own personal efforts, and through the efforts of his agents, whom he sent out with authority to use his name and pledge his fortune.

Nelson would take a great financial beating in this enterprise. It seems that he kept a record of the amount of money he pledged to back these loans. But during the year of war that came to Virginia the records were lost. When it came time for the loans to be redeemed, the government was practically without funds. And Nelson was forced to pay back the debts personally. Nelson could not furnish the Continental Congress with an accurate record of these expenditures. Consequently, he was never reimbursed for his losses.

In 1780 the British, under the generalship of Charles Cornwallis, opened in earnest their campaign to recover the southern colonies. Having already captured Savannah in December of 1778, the British seized Charlestown in May 1780. The Carolinas had little to oppose Cornwallis but hastily drawn militia. Congress then sent Horatio Gates with an army of regulars south to aid the southern militia. Gates was soundly beaten August 16 at Camden, South Carolina, and was replaced soon afterward by the competent Nathanial Greene. Moving though Virginia on his way southward, Greene left General von Steuben as the temporary commander-in-chief of the Continental forces in Virginia and Greene’s personal representative. Greene would need reinforcements from Virginia, and he thought this could be accomplished more easily with von Steuben in Virginia. Thomas Nelson placed himself and his state militia under von Steuben’s authority.

On December 31, 1780, Thomas Nelson received a letter from a citizen informing him that 27 sails had been sighted entering the capes. The arrival of the French fleet in Virginia had been eagerly awaited. But no one knew yet whether this fleet was friend or enemy. Nelson immediately informed Governor Jefferson of the fleet, and Jefferson sent the general down into the southern area of the state with full power to “take such steps as the exigencies of the moment might require” (Bowers 262).

Learning that the fleet was British, but believing it to be another raiding party, the governor called out half of the militia of the counties closest to the enemy, as well as one fourth of the militia from the more distant counties. Jefferson intended to put 4,600 militiamen in the field. On January 3, 1781, a force of 1,500 men sailed up the James River under the command of the recent American patriot turned traitor, Benedict Arnold. At this time Nelson was about 13 miles above Williamsburg on the Chickahominy River watching the advance of the enemy and waiting for bands of militia to gather. He wrote Jefferson in Richmond January 4 that the enemy had passed by the former state capitol and seemed headed for either Richmond or Petersburg. He theorized that the enemy would “proceed as high up the river as they can for fear of desertion among their troops, to which they are much disposed” (Kimball 132). Then, Nelson wrote the same day that the enemy had landed their full force at Westover and were marching for Richmond. With militiamen from the counties of King William, King and Queens, Gloucester, and New Kent arriving daily, he expected his strength to be about 350 in a day. He would then follow the movements of the enemy from the rear.

The enemy was able to reach Richmond and capture the town, but not before Jefferson had been able to flee to safety. The militia had not gathered in time to join von Steuben’s regulars to attempt to turn back Arnold. But soon the American forces were large enough to exert pressure. However, considerable lack of supplies and ammunition handicapped them. “Muskets and cannon that had been hidden from the British could not be found, other weapons had been handled so roughly in the excitement that they were unserviceable, and it was difficult to get wagons to transport usable arms to the troops who needed them” (Evans 92-93). Von Steuben, on the south side of the James River, wrote to Greene about this time complaining bitterly of the shortage of arms, and of the lack of “tents and camp kettles. It is impossible to describe the situation I am in – in want of everything” (Malone 141).

In writing to Jefferson January 8 Nelson exhibits great disappointment at not being able to help prevent Arnold’s capture of Richmond.

“I am pained to the very soul that we have not been able to prevent the return of the enemy, but even the elements have conspired to favor them. On Saturday night a flood of rain poured down as to render my plan abortive by almost drowning the troops, who were in bush tents that they (the enemy) may not go off without some injury. I have ordered two pieces of cannon to be planted … where I am told we may do them mischief. These cannon I propose to defend by infantry as long as I can … It is better to lose the guns than not to attack somewhere” (Kimball 142-143).

On January 13 Nelson reported the enemy’s withdrawal from Richmond and felt certain it intended “nothing further on the North side of James River at present” (Boyd 351). He was right. Arnold returned to Portsmouth, where he could feel safe from American resistance. Von Steuben, “a fine organizer and trainer of troops, was not noted for brilliant tactical leadership in the field; he was, in fact, overly cautious and his brigade commanders soon appeared to be of similar inclination” (Evans 94). He met with Nelson in Williamsburg January 20. They decided that an attack on Arnold would be inadvisable. Von Steuben decided instead “to concentrate on trying to contain Arnold at Portsmouth, keeping him from again raiding the heart of the state” (Evans 94).

Although Virginia’s forces outnumbered Arnold’s troops, the numbers were illusory. “Absence from home and expiring enlistments were not the only things that made militia hard to keep. Food, though plentiful, reached the troops only with difficulty and consisted largely of corn meal. The men were housed badly in brush huts or tents, which in a typically cold, wet, Virginia winter was a circumstance not conductive to the highest moral. … Through late January and early February of 1781 Nelson wrestled with these problems, but despite his efforts his force dropped to eight hundred men” (Evans 95).

Arnold seemingly content to remain in Portsmouth, Virginia’s leaders hoped for the arrival of the greater portion of the French fleet. With the fleet blockading all possible retreat by the sea after destroying Arnold’s ships, and American land forces engulfing Portsmouth on all other sides, Arnold’s army would be forced to surrender. When three French ships (one 64 gun ship and two frigates of 36 guns each) arrived at the posts below Williamsburg on the James River, Nelson felt the time for Arnold’s destruction had arrived. To von Steuben, February 14, he wrote, “What you expected has taken place. I give you joy with all my soul. Now is our time. Not a moment ought to be lost” (Boyd 678n). However, Nelson’s enthusiasm was dashed the next day after consulting the commander of the small fleet, Captain Arnaud Le Gardneur de Tilly. The Captain’s three ships blocked Arnold’s passage out of the Elizabeth River into the James River and Chesapeake Bay; but one of Arnold’s ships had managed to slip past “which was reportedly dispatched to New York, and de Tilly, fearing that if he lingered he would be caught by a superior fleet, decided to leave” (Evans 97). The Frenchman told Nelson that he would cruise off the capes to intercept British supplies, distress the enemy, and watch for the possible arrival of a superior British force. In fact, he sailed directly to Newport, Rhode Island to join the main French fleet.

Nelson was ill in Williamsburg February 19 with a severe cold. He remained sick for a month. Not surprisingly, he was bitter about de Tilly’s departure. He wrote to Jefferson that Arnold would now “make use of all the Advantages which their Command of the Water gives them over us” (Boyd 650-651). Because of some losses at the hands of the French fleet they would probably “wreck their Vengence on the Parts of the State most exposed,” especially Hampton, that had furnished pilots for the French. “It gives me the utmost pain that I find myself unable to give them the Protection they merit” (Kimball 153). He had now only a force of about 400 men.

“As February drew to a close, Nelson began to regain his strength, but a relapse forced him to remain in bed throughout the month of March. Steuben was especially upset, for he had come both to like Nelson and to depend on his advice.” In March he wrote Nelson that the Virginian’s indisposition “deprives me of your council and assistance at a time I am in the greatest want of it. You are better acquainted with the Strength and weakness of this state and you have the confidence of the People – judge then how much I regret your absence” (Evans 98).

Washington had also hoped that Arnold’s troops could be bottled up and taken. Accordingly, the commander-in-chief sent to Virginia in March the French patriot, Marquis de Lafayette, and an estimate 1,200 troops, the “elite corps” of Washington’s army, the Light Brigade. Rear Admiral Charles René Dominique Sochet, Chevalier Destouches’ fleet, sent to augment Lafayette, was driven away March 16 near the mouth of Chesapeake Bay in the Battle of Cape Henry by a British fleet commanded by Vice Admiral Mariot Arbuthnot. Destouches returned immediately to Newport, while Arbuthnot protected the bay for the arrival of land forces dispatched from New York to reinforce General Arnold. Lafayette had landed in York March 14. Because he had been deprived of the fleet, the plan for trapping Arnold was abandoned.


Works cited:

Bowers, Claude G. The Young Jefferson 1743-1789. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1945. Print.

Boyd, Julian F., ed. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1951, IV. Print.

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

Kimball, Marie. Jefferson War and Peace 1776 to 1784. New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1947. Print.

Malone, Dumas. Jefferson the Virginian. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1948. Print.

Thomas Nelson -- Invasion, Insolvency

“On February 18, 1779, Nelson presented his credentials to the [Continental] Congress and immediately entered into the business of government. He was terribly concerned with the critical situation of the country. Never, ‘since the commencement of the war,’ he wrote, had America ‘been in so much danger’” (Evans 80). The British had turned their attention from the north and now looked to the south as a means of bringing an end to the war. They had captured Savannah in December of 1778, and soon they would be marching though the Carolinas. Equally frightening was the depreciation in value of the Congress’s and the state’s paper currency and both governmental bodies’ inability to raise money to finance their efforts to wage war. Nelson “was regular in his attendance, served on a variety of committees, and took part in the two serious debates during his stay in Philadelphia” (Evans 80): what should America’s demands be in a peace settlement with Great Britain and how to settle an emerging conflict between the Southern and New England states regarding free navigation of the Mississippi River and fishing off the banks of Nova Scotia.

To the end of his life close confinement and severe mental exertions preceded Nelson’s illnesses. A relapse in early April provided him the opportunity to leave Congress, which seemed incapable of accomplishing anything, to serve more meaningfully his state. “He later told Washington that he left Congress ‘with reluctance,’ but it is reasonably clear that he had always intended to resign and run for a seat in the House of Delegates.” It is puzzling that as with previous sicknesses in Philadelphia, “Nelson returned home to take on tasks as strenuous as those he left behind” (Evans 81).

Not long after Nelson had returned from Philadelphia, sails were sighted in the capes, as they had two years earlier. This time the enemy did not sail up the Chesapeake. Commanded by Major General Edward Mathew, the British landed 2,000 men at Portsmouth, captured Norfolk, and then marched 18 miles to Suffolk. At Suffolk they burned all buildings except a church; in Portsmouth they seized 3,000 hogshead of tobacco. Altogether, their operation destroyed 100 small vessels. Over 2,000 militiamen were called up to respond to the invasion.

Whether or not Nelson -- elected to the Assembly in May -- commanded the militiamen is open to debate. Many members of the General Assembly had wanted General Charles Scott -- one of Washington’s brigade commanders and a Virginian who, fortuitously, was in the state -- to take command. Some of the members had “felt that to appoint Scott would be treating Nelson unjustly.” Hearing of the Assembly’s preference, Nelson “announced that he would be honored to serve under General Scott for the duration of the invasion. … The record does not show whether Scott was actually named” (Evans 82). In any event, Nelson did collect what militia forces he could, stationing most of them at Yorktown, where he expected that the main attack would occur. Striking instead south of the James River, Mathew’s soldiers had met little opposition. Having accomplished what they had intended, on May 26 they left the Portsmouth area on British ships to return to New York.

Although Nelson had been able to do little about the raid, he made sure that the families of the poorer men in York County that had been called into the militia would not suffer from their absence. Nelson sent all of his York plantation laborers and some of his domestic servants to assist them until their men returned.

Mathew’s raid made clear that Virginia’s vast coastline with its many rivers emptying into Chesapeake Bay and the sparse population that inhabited the area made invasion by the British an easy endeavor. Worse, Virginian had little resource to defend itself. It possessed a flotilla of four little vessels with a total of five dozen guns, and three armed boats. “Nowhere was there fortifications strong enough to resist a stout British frigate” (Padover 48). And what military forces there were consisted mostly of poorly armed, untrained, and undisciplined militia.

In June Patrick Henry’s third term as governor expired. The new state constitution prohibited the governor from serving more than three consecutive yearly terms. A new person had to be elected to replace him. Succeeding Henry may have been one of the reasons why Nelson had wanted to quit Congress. His two opponents for the office were Thomas Jefferson and John Page. Nelson and Jefferson had been friends since the 1760’s. To each, John Page was a closer friend. Page had been an intimae friend of Jefferson’s at William and Mary. Nelson had come to know him when Page had settled in York.

On the first ballot Jefferson received 55 votes, Page 38, and Nelson 32. Jefferson had received a plurality, but not a majority. Nelson withdrew from the race and Jefferson received a sufficient number of votes to win - 67 votes to Page’s 61. Jefferson’s political support had come chiefly from the back counties where he was regarded as “being with Henry rather than against him” (Malone 303). Nelson and Page had been favored by the Tidewater voters. Page had served as lieutenant governor under Henry.

“Certainly he [Nelson] was disappointed and he may have been miffed by the fact that Page, who had taken a far smaller part in the Revolution, had killed his chances of election. Nelson was ambitious and he wanted to serve the American cause to the fullest extent possible.” Rather than to devote all of his attention either to the military or to politics, he had chosen to do both and, thereby, had not been entirely successful with each. “Military service agreed with him and he told Washington that he had ‘often lamented … not taking the field with you at the commencement of this War.’ But now it was too late, … ‘for to enter in a subordinate rank would not suit my own feelings,’ and to take a rank higher than those ‘who had borne the brunt of the war’ would indicate ‘a want of generosity’ on his part. On June 4, perhaps to rest and restore his wounded feelings, he got permission to be absent from the House of Delegates for seven days” (Evans 82, 83).

In June the General Assembly spent a considerable length of time debating whether to move the capital to Richmond. The Tidewater members violently opposed it; the “up country” members, in the majority, pushed it. Of more importance were the army’s need for men and supplies and the necessity of controlling inflation. The legislature eventually amended previous legislation to allow the sale of British estates, the proceeds of which would go to the state. In July the legislature adjourned. The freeholders of York County met to discuss ways and means of helping the government restore the value of paper currency. “Nelson served on a committee of fourteen that recommended a ceiling on prices. The suggestion, though sensible, seems to have gained no support. To be effective, it would have had to be not only statewide, but nationwide, almost an impossibility considering the weakness of the Continental Congress” (Evans 83).

In September the Continental Congress stopped issuing paper money. This placed the main burden of supporting the war on the states. The state assembly during its fall session tackled its insolvency problem, with little success. Seeing no alternative to agreeing to a “humiliating, inglorious and disadvantageous peace,” the assembly “authorized the state to borrow 5 million pounds from its citizens and, to provide for the interest and principal on the loan, they fixed a tax of ‘thirty pounds of inspected tobacco’ per year for the next eleven years on every tithable person, except free white tithables between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one” (Evans 84). The legislation that had authorized the sale of British estates was amended to correct the problems of estate purchases being tied up in the courts and the estates of Virginia citizens absent from the country being seized and auctioned. The estates of absent citizens were protected, litigation proceedings were streamlined, and buyers of estates were given “ironclad guarantees respecting the validity of their purchases. … Returns from the sale of British estates and the payment of British debts were meager and the money that did come in was rendered almost worthless by the continued depreciation of Virginia currency” (Evans 84-85).

Saddled now with a 26 million pound debt, in February 1780 the state floated a loan of 5 million pounds. “But very little money trickled in because people who had funds could get as high as 20 percent interest on private loans, whereas the state paid only 6 percent. … Jefferson and the Council … appealed to Virginia’s citizens to support the loan drive. The government also requested certain individuals, who were concerned with the plight of the state, to solicit loans” (Evans 85). Nelson did so. He encountered great resistance. People doubted the government’s ability to repay the loans. Consequently, Nelson, and others, pledged to pay back what the government could not. Nelson managed to raise 10,974 pounds out of the total of about 60,000 pounds raised for the state.

Prices rose. People with money bought “back lands on the river Ohio” and complained about heavy taxation, and candidates for state office who promised tax relief – “men of mean abilities and no rank” – were predominately elected. The newly-elected assembly met in 1780 in Richmond, the new capitol. The Continental Congress had asked the states to continue to raise 15 million dollars monthly for its use. On May 30 the Congress requested an appropriation of $1,953,200 by June 15. “A large French expeditionary and naval force was expected soon to act in conjunction with the American army, and congress did not have the funds to support any offensive action” (Evans 86). The Assembly on June 1 resolved that money be borrowed from private individuals and be supplemented by the sale of 600,000 pounds of state tobacco. Those who loaned cash were to be repaid in December or have the amount discounted from their taxes at the rate of 6 percent. Nelson was one of seven men authorized to receive the loans.

He canvassed vigorously his own locality and, afterward, solicited south of the James River. “As was the case in February, Nelson found that many people were unwilling to lend money on the shaky security of the state. Again Nelson pledged his own security for the payment of these loans in case the state was unable to fulfill its obligations” (Evans 87). He raised 41,601 pounds. Altogether, Virginia raised $1,430,239, some $500,000 short of its goal.

“Nelson’s contribution, over the past three years, toward American independence had been exceptional. … Thomas Nelson had ‘exerted every nerve,’ and rarely had he allowed his own personal interests to interfere with those of the country. His fortune, time, energy, and considerable political influence had all been enlisted in the cause. Much had been asked of him and he had given freely. Yet the end was not in sight” (Evans 87).


Sources Cited:

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

Malone, Dumas. Jefferson the Virginian. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1948. Print

Padover, Saul K. Jefferson. New York, A Mentor Book, 1953. Print.

Thomas Nelson -- Raising Troops

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.

Thomas Nelson -- "At War"

Thomas Nelson must have left Philadelphia in the fall of 1776 harboring doubts about the future of his country’s newly proclaimed independence. Surely the doubts must have increased as General William Howe pushed George Washington’s outmanned forces out of New York into New Jersey. Would America’s independence for which its signers could quite probably lose their lives be so terribly short lived? Nelson had cast his lot for independence quite early, regardless of consequences. If those consequences were bad, worse than bad, he would be a man about it. He would fight for his country’s future until it was no longer possible to fight. His aid might not accomplish much, but he would do what he could. Earlier in the year he had provided for a number of families in York that had been driven from their homes by Lord Dunmore’s troops. Now, as Washington was retreating across New Jersey, Nelson would travel north, to help his former House of Burgesses friend some way. Then it would be time for the Continental Congress, again, to meet, providing it had a place to meet. Nelson was 39. Many people that winter would not live to see their next birthday.

Washington was not about to relinquish his country’s future. Having put the Delaware River between Howe and himself, the Virginian re-crossed it, struck detachments of Howe’s forces at Princeton and Trenton, and netted Americans two great morale-building victories. Howe retired to New York and Washington established his winter quarters at Morristown, New Jersey, 30 miles from the big city.

Following the victory at Trenton, Nelson, in Baltimore, sent a letter to his friend Thomas Jefferson, in Virginia, that reflected clearly the renewed hope of the revolutionaries. “Our affairs have had a black appearance for the two last months, but they say the Devil is not as black as he is painted. We have at last turn’d the Tables upon those Scoundrels by surprise…” But the country’s situation was very dangerous; Nelson knew it. All the hate for the British comes forward as Nelson continues: “Could we but get a good Regular Army we should soon clear the continent of these damn’d Invaders. They play the very Devil with the Girls and even old Women to satisfy their libidinous appetites. There is Scarcely a Virgin to be found in the part of the Country that they have pass’d thro’ and yet the Jersies will not turn out. Rapes, Rapine, and Murder are not sufficient provocations I despair of anything working them up to opposition” (Boyd 3).

With Howe in New York, the Continental Congress left Baltimore, where it had fled, to convene in Philadelphia. Placed on several committees, Nelson worked in his customary energetic fashion. On May 2, while seated in the hall of Congress, he was suddenly seized with a violent headache which forced him immediately to leave the room. His ailment persisted. Nelson wrote to his friends that his memory was so impaired that he had great difficulty recollecting things. He was reluctant to leave his post, hoping that he would gradually recover. Recovery did not occur; he resigned from the Congress May 22.

Nelson returned to York, and then to his simple plantation, Offley Hoo, “located far back in Hanover County, where, separated from the world’s problems, he could hope to recover his health in peace and quiet. … his system that spring of 1777, sustained a shock from which it would never fully recover. … But the possibility of an enforced absence from political life did not stop him from fretting about the critical situation of his country.” To George Wythe, speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, he urged “that a delegate be appointed speedily to fill his place in Congress, … ‘now engag’d in forming the [Articles of] Confederation, in which Virginia is deeply interested.’ In closing he made this apology: ‘Nothing but necessity could have induced me to leave Congress at this critical time, and I hope I shall stand excus’d’” (Evans 64).

Neither the Virginia House of Delegates nor General Howe allowed him the opportunity to rest. Before he had returned home., the freeholders of York County had elected him (and Joseph Prentis) to be their representatives in the House of Delegates. In late May, Nelson journeyed to Williamsburg to begin his state legislative duties. He sponsored a bill to provide tents or barracks for the housing of state soldiers instead of allowing the continuance of quartering them in private dwellings. Nelson was elected to the newly created, influential Council of State. On June 27, the last day of the Assembly, he declined the position and returned to Yorktown to spend what he hoped would be a quiet July.

The British high command, meanwhile, had devised a plan, mostly of General John Burgoyne’s making, to bring a swift conclusion to the war. Burgoyne would bring an army of approximately 10,000 men “south from Canada into New York. Making their way along Lake Champlain to the Hudson River, they would continue south, eventually reaching Albany (a mid-sized port city and convenient meeting point). Once in Albany, they would set up winter quarters and open communications lines with the City of New York, also in British hands” (Saratoga 1). A second British army was to depart from Lake Ontario and invade New York via the Mohawk River. It was to join Burgoyne’s army at the Hudson River. General William Howe’s forces, situated in New York City, would push north up the Hudson River toward Albany. “The American forces would, in theory, have no choice but to divide and address both invading armies at the same time. It was hoped the smaller American force facing Burgoyne would provide little resistance; the small American force further south would become stuck between then-British held Albany and British held New York City” (Saratoga 1).

“Howe realized a potential flaw in the plan. American General George Washington, whose forces had been chased out of New York City the year before, were somewhere in the north part of New Jersey. If Howe proceeded northward into New York, Washington could conceivably retake New York City. His solution was to attack Philadelphia and draw Washington's army into open battle” (Saratoga 1). Rather than travel by land, he would attack Philadelphia from the south, transporting his soldiers up the Chesapeake Bay to land them in Maryland, leaving behind a residual number of soldiers in New York City under the command of General George Clinton.

It was on the 16th day of August that the government in Williamsburg learned of a British fleet entering the capes. The first real British invasion of Virginia soil seemed imminent. The county militias, approximately four thousand in number, were quickly ordered to march to Williamsburg, York, Portsmouth, and other places that seemed likely to be attacked. Virginia’s commander-in-chief in 1775, Patrick Henry, was now governor. Responsible citizens favored Nelson as the new commander-in-chief. The Council of State appointed him a brigadier general in full charge of Virginia’s forces. Nelson accepted the appointment August 19, refusing to receive a salary. The Virginia Gazette’s report of the appointment was very flattering.

“The appointment of a gentleman so universally beloved and esteemed for his zealous attachment to our sacred cause, cannot fail of giving the most unfeigned pleasure to every friend to his country, who reflects, that, except our noble general in the north, there is not a native of America to whose standard so great a number of warm friends and respectable persons would repair as to that truly noble and worthy gentleman’s” (Virginia Gazette 1).

Six days after the British fleet had been sighted in the Capes, Nelson sent a letter to George Washington in which he expressed his fear that his lack of military experience might hinder his efforts to defend Virginia. Nelson explained how he had divided his troops among Portsmouth, York, Hampton, and Williamsburg. Washington’s return letter offered Nelson thoughtful advice.

“The want of military experience you mention, is no obstacle to your serving your Country in the Capacity in which you have undertaken. In our infant state of War, it cannot be expected, we should be perfect in the business of it; But I doubt not, that your zeal and assiduity will amply supply any deficiency, your diffidence of yourself leads you to suppose … It is without doubt a disagreeable task to Command Militia, but we must make the best of circumstances, and use the means we have … The reasons you assign for a garrison at Portsmouth are good; but I can by no means think it would be prudent to have any considerable Stationary force at Hampton and York. These by being upon a narrow neck of land, would be in danger of being cut off. The enemy might very easily throw up a few ships into York and James’s River … and land a body of men there, who by throwing up a few Redoubts, would intercept their retreat and oblige them to surrender at discretion” (Fitzpatrick 163-164). Washington’s warning, ironically, foreshadowed British General Henry Cornwallis’s surrender to Washington on the York Peninsula in 1781.

After it became evident that Howe’s intention was not to invade Virginia, Nelson fell out of favor with the House of Delegates’ Council of State. For financial reasons, the Council wanted Nelson’s militiamen disbanded; Nelson, fearing a reappearance of the enemy, wanted a majority of the militia kept on duty. By the thirtieth of September all were discharged. Nelson, thanked for his “Activity, Diligence & good Conduct,” was discharged as well. He pressed the Council to send Virginia forces, 5,000 men, to reinforce Washington. Persuaded, the Council ordered the state quartermaster general to gather tents, camp utensils, horses, and wagons to accommodate such a force. Washington received Nelson’s letter relating his desire to reinforce the Continental Army September 12, a day after the Battle of Brandywine Creek.

Washington had made a stand against Howe’s advance toward Philadelphia, had been outflanked, and had retreated northward. Howe captured Philadelphia September 26. On September 27, Washington responded to Nelson’s letter: “I am exceedingly obliged by your readiness to afford me any assistance in your power. Were the Season not fast approaching when the Weather will be cold, I should perhaps request it. But as that is the case, and the Militia cannot be provided with the necessary Clothing and covering, I must decline it” (Fitzpatrick 271-272).

By then, the execution of the British high command’s plan to split the colonies in half had reached its climax. Burgoyne had advanced as far south as the upper Hudson River. In early September, after a brief stay at a supply depot (Fort Edwards) on the river, his army had resumed its march southward. “Soldiers marched on the river road, while many of the supplies were floated on boats down the Hudson.” On September 12, the Northern Department of the American Army, commanded by General Horatio Gates, had begun “to build formidable defenses on Bemis Heights. This ridge of bluffs, two miles north of the village of Stillwater, overlooked both the Hudson River and the river road. … Cannons there could hit the river and the road. Fortified lines on the flood plain controlled the road. The natural ‘bottleneck’ in the river valley would funnel the British right into American gunsights. Nor could the British go east around the position, for the rough terrain there and lack of good roads prevented much movement.” On September 19, fighting had begun “on the farm of John Freeman, a loyalist who had gone north to Fort Edward to meet up with Burgoyne's army.” On September 22, Burgoyne had gotten word from Clinton that he could send troops north from New York City. Expecting assistance, Burgoyne had thereupon ordered his troops to dig in and wait.

While Thomas Nelson read and thought about George Washington’s letter declining Virginia reinforcements, Clinton's men, moving northward, were capturing several American forts. Then, in mid-October, Howe, occupying Philadelphia, worried about what Washington might do to him from New Jersey, believing he needed reinforcements, ordered Clinton back to New York City.

“Burgoyne's army grew short on time, supplies, and manpower; their now 6800-man army had been on half-rations for the last two weeks, and winter wasn't far away.” Burgoyne ordered a tentative attack on one position of the now 13,000 men American defenses. It was beaten back. Eventually, Burgoyne’s army attempted to retreat northward. “They trudged through cold rain, mud, and hunger until reaching the village of Saratoga. Finding themselves boxed in by American militiamen north, west, and east of the village, they set up a fortified camp and waited. Two days later, the Americans had completely surrounded them” (Saratoga 1). On October 17, 1777, after a week of negotiations, Burgoyne surrendered.


Works Cited:

Boyd. Julian P., ed. “Nelson to Jefferson, January 2, 1777.” The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1951. II. Print.

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

Fitzpatrick, John C., ed. “Washington to Nelson, September 2, 1777.” The Writings of George Washington. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1933. IX. Print.

Fitzpatrick, John C., ed. “Washington to Nelson, September 27, 1777.” The Writings of George Washington. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1933. IX. Print.

“Saratoga: History and Culture.” National Park Service. http://www.nps.gov/sara/learn/history.... May 30, 2015. Net

Virginia Gazette, May 23, 1777. Microfiche.