Part 8 (2/2)

Simpler life styles became the order of the war.

The plainer way of life was not just a patriotic morale-builder. It was a necessity. The natural trade routes between the Chesapeake and Britain were closed and the tobacco trade was ruined. To finance the war the a.s.sembly taxed nearly everything which could be taxed. Many taxes were those which the Virginians had rejected when imposed by parliament, including legal papers and gla.s.s windows. The difference was the necessity or war and the source of the tax laws--the people's own elected representatives.

Taxes, alone, however have never financed a major war. As in the French and Indian War, Virginia issued paper money and floated state loans.

Between 1776-1780 the state debt reached 26,000,000 and in the following two years nearly doubled. By 1779 loans and taxes were not enough and the a.s.sembly levied taxes on commodities as well as currency. Taxpayers had to make payments in grain, hemp, or tobacco rather than inflated paper money alone. Inflation set in. By 1780 coffee, when you could get it, sold for $20 per pound, shoes were $60 per pair, and better grades of cloth were bringing $200 a yard. The exchange rate of Virginia money to hard coins (specie) was 10-1 in 1778, 60-1 in early 1780, and then spiraled upwards to 150-1 in April 1780, 350-1 in July, and was going out of sight as Cornwallis' army ravaged the state. It never reached the ratio of 1,000-1 as did the Continental Congress currency, but the phrase ”not worth a Continental” might equally have applied to Virginia money.

Few of those who served Virginia and the new nation, whether as officers, footsoldiers, governors, judges, or clerks, did so without suffering substantial financial losses. In many cases they were never reimbursed even for actual expenses.[40] Unfortunately there were many who reaped profits by exploiting the situation.

[40] For a good description of the economic impact of the war on one dedicated Virginian, read Emory Evans' Thomas Nelson of Yorktown: Virginia Revolutionary (University Press, Charlottesville, 1975), 65-123.

There also were thousands who moved across the mountains to new lands in the Valley, southwestern Virginia, and Kentucky. In fact, Virginia had to head off an attempt by North Carolinians, headed by Richard Henderson, to detach Kentucky from Virginia. The state had to watch attempts by other states to claim Virginia lands in the Ohio country. To forestall these attempts Virginia took two steps. In 1776 the a.s.sembly divided Fincastle County into three counties--Kentucky, Montgomery, and Was.h.i.+ngton and established local governments there; and she agreed to ratify the new Articles of Confederation only upon the condition that all other states agree to give up their claims to the Ohio country and that all new states created from those territories have the same rights and privileges as the original states. In so doing, Virginians, under the leaders.h.i.+p of Jefferson, formulated a colonial policy for the western lands which a.s.sured equality for the new states, a most important guarantee that there would be no superior and inferior states in the new United States.

All states would be equal.

It should be remembered that this was never a total war. Independence simply demanded that Was.h.i.+ngton, the Continental Congress, and the states keep an army in the field and a fleet on the seas until the British accepted the fact that they could not defeat the Americans or until they decided victory was not worth the cost. Whenever the call came, Virginians poured forth in sufficient numbers and with sufficient supplies in the crucial days of 1777-1778 and 1780-1781 to prevent defeat. And in 1781 they were there in enough numbers to insure victory at Yorktown.

Part V:

The War for Independence

[Sidenote: ”_He has abdicated government here...._”]

Virginia's partic.i.p.ation in the Revolutionary War military operations developed in seven stages: (1) the initial conflict with Lord Dunmore in the Norfolk and Chesapeake areas in 1775-1776; (2) the thousands of Virginians who joined the Continental Army and campaigned throughout the country; (3) the b.l.o.o.d.y Cherokee war in the southwest from 1775-1782; (4) George Rogers Clark's audacious and spectacular victory in the Northwest; (5) the British invasion and ravaging of Virginia throughout 1780-1781; (6) the southern campaigns of Generals Gates and Greene in 1780 and 1781; and (7) the final victory at Yorktown in the fall of 1781.[41]

[41] The best general survey of the war is by John Alden, A History of the American Revolution (Knopf: New York, 1969). The best detailed account is by Christopher Ward, The War of the Revolution, 2 volumes. (MacMillan: New York, 1952). Both have been utilized in this section.

Virginians and the Continental Army, 1775-1779

The decision to make George Was.h.i.+ngton commander-in-chief of the Continental armies was undoubtedly a political act meant to bind the southern colonies to the war and to blunt charges that this was a New England revolution. Seldom has a political decision borne greater positive benefits. Was.h.i.+ngton is an enigma and he always will remain so to his countrymen. His greatness as a man and as a commander are difficult to fathom. The contradictions are best summarized by military historian John Alden:

Faults have been, and can be, found in Was.h.i.+ngton as commander. He did not have the advantages of a good military education. He did not know, and he never quite learned, how to discipline and to drill his men. He was not a consistently brilliant strategist or tactician....

(Often) he secured advantage ... by avoiding battle. Actually he was quite willing to fight when the odds were not too heavily against him. He retreated only when he was compelled to do so, during the campaigns of 1776 and 1777.... On occasion he was perhaps too venturesome. His generals.h.i.+p improved as the war continued. However, his defeats in the field were more numerous than his victories; and he had to share the laurels of his great triumph at Yorktown, with the French. If Was.h.i.+ngton had his shortcomings as a tactician, he nevertheless performed superbly under the most difficult conditions.

He gave dignity, steadfast loyalty, and indomitable courage to the American cause.... Indeed Congress supplied historians with convincing evidence of Was.h.i.+ngton's greatness. It not only appointed him as commander in chief, but maintained him in that post year after year, in victory and defeat, in prosperity and adversity, until the war was won.[42]

[42] Alden, American Revolution, 183-184.

At first Congress was not certain Was.h.i.+ngton could command and eagerly sought European officers for field command positions. Charles Lee and Horatio Gates, two of the four major-generals appointed to serve under Was.h.i.+ngton, were residents of Virginia. Both were English army officers who had left the British army, settled in Berkeley County, and become ardent advocates of the colonials' cause. Lee, the well-bred son of English gentry had served under Braddock in the ill-fated Fort Duquesne expedition of 1756, was later wounded, left the army after the war, and became interested in western land schemes. He came to Virginia in 1775 after a stint as a general in the Polish army. Lee was courageous, ambitious, and vain. He could command when necessary, but had difficulty following Was.h.i.+ngton's orders. Given credit for stopping the British attack on Charleston, South Carolina, in June 1776, he came back north and was captured in New Jersey in December 1776. Exchanged by the British, he resumed command in 1778. However, his scandalous behavior at Monmouth in June 1778 resulted in his court martial. He was finally dismissed from the service by Congress in 1780.

Gates was the son of an English servant. Somehow he received a regular army commission, serving in the colonies during the French and Indian War. He resigned as a major in 1772 and moved to Virginia. Whereas Lee was haughty, Gates was pleasant and amiable. He also was ambitious and constantly sought military commands whose demands exceeded his talents.

Commander of the northern army which won the great victory at Saratoga in 1777, Gates was willing to take over as commander in chief in the dark days of 1777-1778, but his friends in Congress could not displace Was.h.i.+ngton. Over Was.h.i.+ngton's recommendation, Congress elected him commander of the southern armies in 1780. He left that command after the blundering defeat at Camden, South Carolina, in August 1780. Gates retired to Virginia where he lived to an old age, much honored as an Englishman who loyally supported independence.

The English generals from Virginia did not give Was.h.i.+ngton his eventual victories, however. His command strength came from Virginians who learned by experience, were devoted to the Revolutionary cause, and were loyal to the general. They were with the Continental Army in its darkest days at Morristown in the winter of 1776-1777 and Valley Forge in 1777-1778.

These included Colonel Theodorick Bland and his cavalry who fought at Brandywine in 1777 and Charleston in 1780; General William Woodford, the victor at Great Bridge, who commanded Virginia Continentals fighting at Brandywine and Germantown in 1777, and Monmouth in 1778, was captured at Charleston in 1780 and died in a New York prison that December; Colonel William Was.h.i.+ngton and his cavalry who fought in nearly all the battles in southern campaigns; Colonel Peter Muhlenberg, who raised the German Regiment from the Valley and Piedmont around his Woodstock home and commanded them with distinction at Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, and Stony Point, and later led Virginia militia against Cornwallis in 1781; and the gallant Colonel Edward Porterfield, who died with many of his troops, called ”Porterfield's Virginians” at Camden.

There also was a distinguished group of young men like John Marshall, James Monroe, and Henry ”Light Horse Harry” Lee who achieved distinction and displayed loyalty to the national cause which they never surrendered.

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