History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia Part 59

Early in this month congress received despatches containing a treaty between the king of France and the United States of America. In consequence of Burgoyne's surrender and of the treaty with France, the British army (under command of Sir Henry Clinton, who had relieved Sir William Howe,) evacuated Philadelphia in June, 1778. Crossing the Delaware, they marched for New York. Was.h.i.+ngton pursued them across the Jerseys, and on the twenty-eighth of June occurred the battle of Monmouth. The result was not decisive; many died from heat and fatigue; the Americans remained on the field of battle, where Was.h.i.+ngton pa.s.sed the night in his cloak in the midst of his soldiers. It was during this action that General Charles Lee retreated before the British, who had turned upon him. He was met by Was.h.i.+ngton, who reprimanded him, ordered the division to be formed, and, with the aid of artillery under Lieutenant-Colonel Carrington, checked the enemy's advance. General Lee was arrested, tried, and convicted of disobedience of orders, of making an unnecessary and disorderly retreat, and of writing disrespectfully to the commander-in-chief, and suspended from the army for one year. Recent developments strengthen the suspicion long entertained that he acted traitorously. It is strange that, conscious of this, he should have remained among those whom he had endeavored to betray. He had previously been signally serviceable in the American cause; and at the time of his suspension there were not wanting divers leading men who thought him hardly dealt with. But a man is never better than his principles, and General Lee's were bad from the beginning. La Fayette said that Was.h.i.+ngton never appeared to better advantage than in this action, when roused by Lee's misconduct.

Colonel Richard Kidder Meade, the father of Bishop Meade, was one of Was.h.i.+ngton's aides-de-camp. The following anecdote relative to him is taken from the Travels of Anburey, who was a lieutenant in the British army, and in 1779 a prisoner of war in Virginia, and visiting the lower country on parole: "On my way to this place I stopt and slept at Tuckahoe, where I met with Colonel Meade, Colonel Laurens, and another officer of General Was.h.i.+ngton's suite. More than once did I express a wish that the general himself had been of the party, to have seen and conversed with a character of whom, in all my travels through the various provinces, I never heard any one speak disrespectfully as an individual, and whose public character has been the admiration and astonishment of all Europe." * * * * "The colonel (Meade) attributed the safety of his person to the swiftness of his horse at the battle of Monmouth, having been fired at and pursued by some British officers as he was reconnoitering. Upon the colonel's mentioning this circ.u.mstance it occurred to me he must have been the person that Sir Henry Clinton's aide-de-camp had fired at, and requesting to know the particular color of his horse, he informed me it was black, which convinced me it was him; when I related the circ.u.mstance of his meeting Sir Henry Clinton, he replied he recollected in the course of the day to have met several British officers, and one of them wore a star. Upon my mentioning the observation Sir Henry Clinton had made to his aide-de-camp,[689:A] the colonel laughed, and replied, had he known it was the commander-in-chief he should have made a desperate effort to take him prisoner."

The name of Richard Kidder is said to be derived from a bishop of Bath and Wells, who was from the same stock with the Meades of Virginia.

Andrew Meade, first of the name in Virginia, born in County Kerry, Ireland, educated a Romanist, came over to New York, and married Mary Latham, a Quakeress, of Flus.h.i.+ng, on Long Island. He afterwards settled in Nansemond, Virginia, and for many years was burgess thereof; from which it appears that he must have renounced the Romish religion. He was prosperous, affluent, and hospitable. He is mentioned by Colonel Byrd in his Journal of the Dividing Line run in 1728. His only son, David Meade, married, under romantic circ.u.mstances, Susannah, daughter of Sir Richard Everard, Baronet, Governor of North Carolina. Of the sons of David Meade, Richard Kidder Meade was aide-de-camp to General Was.h.i.+ngton; Everard Meade aide to General Lincoln. Richard Kidder, Everard, together with an older brother, David, were educated at Harrow, England, under the care of Dr. Thackeray. Sir William Jones, Sir Joseph Banks, and Dr.

Parr, were at the same time scholars there.

In June, 1778, Colonel Arthur Campbell wrote to the Rev. Charles c.u.mmings, of Was.h.i.+ngton County: "Yesterday I returned home, the a.s.sembly having adjourned until the first Monday in October. The acts pa.s.sed, and a list of their t.i.tles, I here enclose, together with an address of congress to the people of America, for you to publish, agreeable to the resolve. I wish you could make it convenient to preach at the lower meeting-house in this county, if it was but a week-day, as the contents of the address are of the most interesting nature, both as to the moral and political conduct of the good people of America. Providence is daily working out strange deliverances for us. The treaty with France is much more advantageous than the wisest men in this country expected. The Indians the other day were unexpectedly discomfited on Greenbrier. I think the overthrow was something similar to what happened in this county about two years ago. I must give you the intelligence at full length, as the most hardened mind must see and admire the Divine goodness in such an interposition."

The Rev. Charles c.u.mmings, by birth an Irishman, resided for some time in the congregation of the Rev. James Waddell, in Lancaster, and probably studied theology under his care. Mr. c.u.mmings married Miss Milly, daughter of John Carter, of Lancaster, and in 1773 settled near where Abingdon now stands. His meeting-house was of unhewn logs, from eighty to a hundred feet long and forty wide. Mr. c.u.mmings was of middle stature, well formed, of great firmness and dignity. His voice was of great compa.s.s, and his articulation distinct. At this time the inhabitants, during the summer months, were compelled to take shelter in forts for protection against the Indians. The men went to church armed, taking their families with them. The armed congregation, seated in the log meeting-house, presented a singular spectacle of frontier life. Mr.

c.u.mmings, when he ascended the steps of the pulpit, deposited his rifle in a corner and laid aside his shot-pouch. He was a zealous whig, and was chairman of the committee of safety of Was.h.i.+ngton County, formed as early as January, 1775. He was a Presbyterian of the old stamp, a rigid Calvinist, and a man of exemplary piety.

After the battle of Monmouth Sir Henry Clinton occupied New York. The arrival of a French fleet under D'Estaing reanimated the hopes of the Americans. Arthur Lee argued unfavorably of the removal of D'Orvilliers and D'Estaing's appointment. Was.h.i.+ngton took a position at White Plains, on the Hudson. About this time Colonel Baylor's regiment of cavalry was surprised in the night by a British corps under General Gray. Of one hundred and four privates forty were made prisoners, and twenty-seven killed or wounded. Colonel Baylor was himself dangerously wounded and taken prisoner.

In the year 1778 the town of Abington was incorporated. Virginia sent General George Rogers Clarke on an expedition to the northwest. After enduring extreme sufferings in marching through a wilderness, he and his hardy followers captured Kaskaskias and its governor, Rocheblave. In December, 1778, Hamilton, British lieutenant-governor of Detroit, under Sir Guy Carleton, governor-in-chief, took possession of the post (now the town) of Vincennes, in Indiana. Here he fortified himself, intending in the ensuing spring to rally his Indian confederates to attack Kaskaskias, then in possession of Clarke, and to proceed up the Ohio to Fort Pitt, sweeping Kentucky in the way, and finally overrunning all West Augusta. This expedition was ordered by Carleton. Clarke's position was too remote for succor, and his force too small to withstand a siege; nevertheless, he prepared to make the best defence possible. At this juncture a Spanish merchant brought intelligence that Hamilton had, by detaching his Indian allies, reduced the strength of his garrison to eighty men, with a few cannon. Clarke immediately despatched a small armed galley, with orders to force her way and station herself a few miles below the enemy. In the mean time, early in February, 1779, he marched, with one hundred and thirty men, upon St. Vincennes: many of the inhabitants of the country joined the expedition; the rest garrisoned the towns. Impeded by rain and high waters, his little army were occupied for sixteen days in reaching the fertile borders of the Wabash, and when within nine miles of the enemy it required five days to cross "the drowned lands" near that river, "having to wade often upwards of two leagues, up to our b.r.e.a.s.t.s in water." But for the unusual mildness of the season they must have perished. On the evening of February the twenty-third they reached dry land, and came unperceived within sight of the enemy; and an attack being made at seven o'clock, the inhabitants of St. Vincennes gladly surrendered it, and a.s.sisted in besieging Hamilton, who held out in the fort. On the next day he surrendered the garrison. Clarke despatching some armed boats up the Wabash, captured a convoy, including forty prisoners and 10,000 worth of goods and stores. Hamilton, and some officers and privates, were sent to the governor at Williamsburg. Colonel Shelby about the same time attacking the Cherokees, who had taken up the tomahawk, burnt eleven towns and a large quant.i.ty of corn, and captured 25,000 worth of goods.

The a.s.sembly of Virginia afterwards presented to General Clarke an honorary sword, on the scabbard of which was inscribed: "Sic semper tyrannis;" and on the blade: "A tribute to courage and patriotism, presented by the State of Virginia to her beloved son, General George Rogers Clarke, who, by the conquest of Illinois and Vincennes, extended her empire and aided in defence of her liberties." In his latter years he was intemperate.

FOOTNOTES:

[687:A] The Rev. Dr. Hill told Mr. Grigsby that he had seen the marks of the flogging on Morgan's back.

[688:A] Cooper's History of North America, 106.

[689:A] To wit, that he ought by no means to have fired at the American, as he probably might have wished to speak to him and give him intelligence.

CHAPTER XCIV.

1779.

Condition of Affairs--Mason's Letter--Convention Troops removed to Charlottesville--Miscellaneous--Church Establishment abolished--Clergy and Churches--Suffolk burnt--D'Estaing's Siege of Savannah--Lincoln surrenders--Gates defeated at Camden--Sumpter defeated--Battle of King's Mountain--Colonel Campbell--Colonel Ferguson.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON looked upon the early part of 1779 as more fraught with danger than any preceding period of the war, not on account of the strength of the enemy, but owing to the spirit of selfish speculation, money-making, and stock-jobbing that prevailed, the depreciation of the paper currency, the States employing their ablest men at home, the idleness and dissipation of men in public trust, and the dissensions in congress. The demoralizing influences of war were making themselves manifest.[693:A]

Colonel George Mercer, of Stafford, who had been compelled to resign the office of stamp collector before the commencement of the revolutionary struggle, retired to England. George Mason, who was related to him, in October, 1778, addressed him a letter, in which he said: "If I can only live to see the American Union firmly fixed, and free governments well established in our western world, and can leave to my children but a crust of bread and liberty,[693:B] I shall die satisfied, and say with the Psalmist: 'Lord! now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.' G.o.d has been pleased to bless our endeavors in a just cause with remarkable success. To us upon the spot, who have seen step by step the progress of this great contest, who know the defenceless state of America, and the numberless difficulties we have had to struggle with; taking a retrospective view of what is pa.s.sed, we seem to have been treading upon enchanted ground."

Was.h.i.+ngton, in compliance with the resolutions of congress, had ordered the removal of the convention troops of Saratoga, then quartered in Ma.s.sachusetts, to Charlottesville, Virginia. Congress, whether from distrust in the British prisoners, or from reasons of state, resolved not to comply with the articles of the convention, allowing the prisoners to embark for England on parole, until the convention should be ratified by the English government. Burgoyne had sailed for England in May, and from that time the command of the British troops of convention, quartered at Cambridge, had devolved upon General Phillips.

Colonel Bland, with an escort, conducted the prisoners of war to Virginia. Upon their arrival, in December, at their place of destination, on Colonel Harvey's estate, about six miles from Charlottesville, they suffered many privations, being billeted in block-houses without windows or doors, and poorly defended from the cold of an uncommonly rigorous winter. But in a short time they constructed better habitations, and the barracks a.s.sumed the appearance of a neat little town. In the rear of each house they had trim gardens and enclosed places for poultry. The army cleared a s.p.a.ce of six miles in circ.u.mference around the barracks. A representation of the barracks is given in Anburey's Travels. The officers were allowed, upon giving parole, to provide for themselves lodging-places within a circuit of a hundred miles.[694:A] Mr. Jefferson exhibited a generous hospitality toward the captives; and his knowledge of French, his taste for music, his fine conversational powers, and his fascinating manners, contributed not a little to relieve the tedium of their captivity. Governor Henry afforded them every indulgence in his power; and the amiable disposition of Colonel Bland, who commanded the guard placed over the convention troops, still further ensured their quiet and comfort. General Phillips, described by Mr. Jefferson as "the proudest man of the proudest nation on earth," occupied Blenheim, a seat of Colonel Carter's; General the Baron de Riedesel occupied Colle, a residence belonging to Philip Mazzei, Mr. Jefferson's Italian neighbor; and the Baroness, whose romantic sufferings and adventures are so well known, has given, in her Memoirs, an entertaining account of her sojourn among the picturesque mountains of Albemarle. Charlottesville at this period consisted of a court-house, a tavern, and about a dozen dwelling-houses.[695:A]

Anburey has given a graphic picture of the manners, customs, and the grotesque scenes that he witnessed at Charlottesville and in its vicinity.

Violent dissensions convulsed congress; some of the members were suspected of treasonable designs. Early in May, Richard Henry Lee wrote from Philadelphia to Mr. Jefferson, hoping that he "would not be blamed by him and his other friends for sending his resignation to the a.s.sembly, and averring that he had been persecuted by the united voice of toryism, speculation, faction, envy, malice, and all uncharitableness," so that nothing but the certain prospect of doing essential service to his country could compensate for the injuries he received. But he adds: "It would content me indeed to sacrifice every consideration to the public good that would result from such persons as yourself, Mr. Wythe, Mr. Mason, and some others being in congress. I would struggle with persevering ardor through every difficulty in conjunction with such a.s.sociates."

In 1779 the legislature rejected a scheme of a general a.s.sessment for the support of religion. Patrick Henry was in favor of it. The glebe-lands were also declared to be public property; and thus was destroyed the last vestige of a religious establishment in Virginia.

During the Revolution, the loyalist clergy of Virginia who remained, found themselves in a deplorable condition. The prohibition to pray for the king was strictly enforced upon them by the incensed people: some ministers omitted the obnoxious pet.i.tions; others abandoned the churches and offered no prayer in public; while a few appeared disposed, if possible, to resist the popular tide, but were compelled eventually to succ.u.mb to it. In 1775 Virginia contained sixty-one counties, ninety-five parishes, one hundred and sixty-four churches and chapels, and ninety-one clergymen of the establishment. During the interval of the war part of the parishes were extinguished, and the greater number of the rest were deprived of ministerial help; but few ministers were able to weather the storm and remain at their former posts; the others having been compelled to seek precarious shelter and support in other parishes. Some of the churches, venerable for age and connected with so many interesting a.s.sociations, were left roofless and dismantled; others used as barracks, or stables, or lodging-places of prisoners of war; and the moss-grown walls of some were pulled down by sacrilegious hands, and books and vessels appurtenant to holy services pillaged and carried off.

Until this year the British arms had been chiefly directed against the Middle and Northern States; but they were now turned against the South.

Georgia soon fell a prey to the enemy, and South Carolina was invaded.

In May a squadron under Sir George Collier anch.o.r.ed in Hampton Roads, and General Matthews took possession of Portsmouth. The enemy destroyed the public stores at Gosport and Norfolk, burnt Suffolk, and destroyed upwards of a hundred vessels, including several armed ones. The Virginia navy had been reduced previously, and many of the vessels ordered to be sold, and from this time the history of those remaining is a series of disasters.

Upon the approach of six hundred British infantry upon Suffolk, the militia and greater part of the inhabitants fled; few could save their effects; some who remained for that purpose were made prisoners. The enemy fired the town, and nearly the whole of it was consumed: hundreds of barrels of tar, pitch, turpentine, and rum, lay on the wharves, and their heads being staved, the contents flowing in commingled ma.s.s and catching the blaze, descended to the river in torrents of liquid flame, and the wind blowing violently, the splendid ma.s.s floated to the opposite sh.o.r.e in a conflagration that rose and fell with the waves, and there set on fire the dry gra.s.s of an extensive marsh. This broad sheet of fire, the crackling flames of the town, the lurid smoke, and the occasional explosion of gunpowder in the magazines, projecting ignited fragments of timber like meteors in the troubled air, presented altogether an awful spectacle of the horrors of civil war. The enemy shortly after, laden with plunder, embarked for New York.

While Sir Henry Clinton was encamped near Haerlem, and Was.h.i.+ngton in the Highlands on the Hudson,[697:A] Major Lee, of Virginia, surprised in the night a British post at Paulus Hook, and with a loss of two killed and three wounded, made one hundred and fifty-nine prisoners, including three officers. Soon after this a fleet, commanded by Admiral Arbuthnot, arrived at New York with re-enforcements. D'Estaing returned to the southern coast of America with a fleet of twenty-two s.h.i.+ps-of-the-line and eleven frigates, and having on board six thousand soldiers. He arrived so unexpectedly that the British s.h.i.+p Experiment of fifty guns, and three frigates, fell into his hands. In September, Savannah, occupied by a British force under General Prevost, was besieged by the French and Americans, commanded by D'Estaing and Lincoln.[697:B] In an ineffectual effort to storm the post the French and Americans suffered heavy loss. The siege was raised, and D'Estaing, who had been wounded in the action, sailed again for the West Indies, after this second abortive attempt to aid the cause of independence. The condition of the South was now more gloomy than ever.

Clinton, toward the close of the year, embarked with a formidable force in Arbuthnot's fleet, and sailed for South Carolina. In April, 1780, Sir Henry laid siege to Charleston; and General Lincoln, undertaking to defend the place, contrary to his own judgment, and in compliance with the entreaties of the inhabitants, after an obstinate defence was compelled to capitulate.[698:A] Shortly after this disaster Colonel Buford's regiment was cut to pieces by Tarleton. Georgia and South Carolina now succ.u.mbed to the enemy: it was the bending of the willow before the sweep of the tempest. In June, General Gates was appointed by congress to the command in the South. Having collected an army he marched toward Camden in South Carolina, then held by the enemy. While Gates was moving from Clermont toward that place in the night,[698:B]

Cornwallis marched out with a view of attacking the American army at Clermont. Thus the two armies, each essaying to surprise the other, met unexpectedly in the woods, at about two o'clock in the morning. At the first onset the American line was thrown into disorder; but a body of light infantry, and in particular a corps under command of Colonel Porterfield, of Virginia, maintained their ground with constancy. This brave officer, refusing to give way, fell mortally wounded. The battle was resumed in the morning, and Gates' army was utterly discomfited: the militia fled too soon; the regulars fought too long. The fugitives retreating in promiscuous disorder, were pursued by the unrelenting sabres of cavalry; and the horrors of the rout baffle description. Thus Gates, verifying General Lee's prediction, "turned his Northern laurels into Southern willows." The defeated general retired to North Carolina to collect the scattered remains of his army. In August, Sumpter was overwhelmed by Tarleton; and for a time the British army were in the ascendant throughout the South.

Cornwallis[698:C] detached Colonel Ferguson, a gallant and expert officer, across the Wateree, with one hundred and ten regulars; and in a short time tory recruits augmented his numbers to one thousand; and, confident of his strength, he sent a menacing message to the patriot leaders on the western waters. This was, for the South, "the time that tried men's souls:" many of the leading patriots captives or exiles, the country subjugated, British and tory cruelty desolating it, hope almost extinct,--Marion alone holding out in his fastnesses. The spirit of the hardy mountaineers was aroused, and hearing that Ferguson was threatening to cross the mountains, a body of men in arms were concentrated by the twenty-fifth on the banks of the Watauga--four hundred from Was.h.i.+ngton County, Virginia, under Colonel William Campbell; the rest from North Carolina, under Colonels Shelby, Sevier, McDowell, Cleveland, and Winston. Crossing the mountains they advanced toward Ferguson, who began to retreat, and took up a position[699:A] on an eminence of about one hundred and fifty feet, called King's Mountain.

It is situated in the northern part of South Carolina, near the North Carolina line, its sides steep and rocky, a brook flowing at its foot,--the surrounding scenery thickly wooded, wild, and picturesque. It was resolved to pursue the enemy with nine hundred picked men. Near the Cowpens, where Ferguson had encamped on the fourth, and about thirty miles from King's Mountain, the mountaineers were re-enforced by four hundred and sixty men, the greater part of them from South Carolina, under Colonel Williams. Here, at about nine o'clock of the evening, Colonel William Campbell was appointed to the chief command. The mountain hors.e.m.e.n rode on in the night through a rain, with their guns under their arms to keep the locks dry; the leader in front, and each colonel at the head of his troops. In the morning they halted for half an hour to eat a frugal breakfast, and at twelve o'clock, when the sky cleared, they found themselves within three miles of the British camp.

They halted, and the order pa.s.sed along the line: "Tie up overcoats, pick touch-holes, fresh prime, and be ready to fight." At three o'clock in the afternoon of the seventh of October an express from Ferguson to Cornwallis was captured, and his despatches, declaring his position on King's Mountain impregnable, were read to the troops. Galloping off they came in twenty minutes within sight of the British camp. They dismounted on the banks of the little stream, tied their horses to the limbs of trees, and left them in charge of a small guard. The force being divided, the mountain was surrounded. As each column moved on to the attack it was driven back a short distance by the charge of the British, who were soon compelled to wheel, in order to face another column advancing on the opposite side. Ferguson, finding his troops hemmed in and huddled together on the summit of the mountain, fought with desperate valor, and fell, charging at the head of his men and cheering them on. The white flag was now raised. Of Ferguson's force, amounting to rather more than eleven hundred men, two hundred and forty were killed and two hundred wounded; upwards of seven hundred were taken prisoners, with all the arms, ammunition, and camp equipage. The loss of the patriots was thirty killed and fifty wounded. The gallant Williams was slain, as also was Major Chronicle, and several other officers. The battle lasted one hour. A number of the tories were hung on the next day. The sword used by Colonel Campbell on this occasion is preserved in possession of William Campbell Preston, of South Carolina, the orator, his grandson; it is more than two centuries old, and was wielded by the ancestors of Colonel Campbell in Scotland in the wars of the Pretenders.

One of the rifles employed at King's Mountain is also preserved. This battle was the turning-point of the war in the South.

Colonel William Campbell was a native of Augusta County, and removed early to the County of Was.h.i.+ngton. Fame has awarded him the t.i.tle of "the hero of King's Mountain." Colonel Ferguson was an excellent marksman, and brought the art of rifle shooting to high perfection. He invented a gun of that kind which was said to surpa.s.s anything of the sort before known, and he was said to have outdone even the Indians in firing and loading and hitting the mark, standing or lying, and in no matter what position of the body. It was reported that General Was.h.i.+ngton owed his life, at the battle of Brandywine, to Ferguson's ignorance of his person, as he was within his reach.[700:A] He afterwards, upon discovering the fact, remarked that he was not sorry that he did not know him.

FOOTNOTES:

[693:A] From verses supposed to have been written about this time by St.

George Tucker:--

"Virtue and Was.h.i.+ngton in vain To glory call this prostrate train."

* * "Each eager votary hugs his reams, And h.o.a.rds his millions in his dreams.

Ruin with giant strides approaches, And quartermasters loll in coaches."

[693:B] The expression is from Smollet's Ode to Independence.

[694:A] Anburey mentions a Dr. Fauchee as resident at Charlottesville--probably Foushee.

[695:A] Colonel Bland, in some verses written during this year, alludes thus to Mr. Jefferson:--

On yonder height I see a lofty dome;[695:B]

But, hapless fate, the master's not at home.

His high aspiring soul aloft had towered, That like a G.o.d he was by men adored.

But envy now has placed him in Jove's car To rule the tempest of the mighty war, That he, like Phaeton, may tumble down, And by his fall astonish all the town.

[695:B] Monticello.

[697:A] August eighteenth.

[697:B] October ninth.

[698:A] May twelfth.