Part 9 (2/2)
[44] Gardner W. Allen, A Naval of the American Revolution, 2 volumes (Boston, 1913), I, 40-41.
By January 1779 the British army came into Piedmont Virginia in a totally unexpected manner. Congress declared the ”convention” (treaty of surrender) by which Burgoyne had surrendered his troops at Saratoga to be faulty and ordered some 4,000 Hessian and British soldiers imprisoned in Albemarle County. Settled along Ivy Creek, the prisoners, mostly Germans, lived in hastily built huts generously called ”The Barracks”. Several of their chief officers, among them Baron de Riedesel and General William Phillips, lived in comfort and close contact with their near neighbor, Governor Jefferson. Phillips was shortly exchanged and went to New York.
The conditions under which the troops lived steadily deteriorated, although the prisoners were so inadequately guarded that hundreds walked away. In November 1780 Governor Jefferson concluded that the convention troops should be moved from Virginia to get them away from invading British troops. The British troops moved first toward Frederick, Maryland, with the Hessians following. Again many of the prisoners drifted off into the forests never reaching Frederick.
Black Virginians in the Revolution
One particularly difficult question for the government was whether to utilize the black population in the military. Only a few thousand of the nearly 230,000 black residents were free men. The remainder were slaves.
There was a constant fear that arming free blacks would incite their slave brethren to revolt. This fear was strongest in 1775-1776 when Dunmore had encouraged slaves to flee their masters and join his troops.
Although Dunmore's black troops numbered only several hundred nearly 10,000 slaves fled Virginia during the war. Most did not better their lot, ending up as slaves in the West Indies. Many did get to Nova Scotia where they lived as free men in the large loyalist colony there. Others settled in the British West African colony of Sierra Leone.
Negro troops were present at Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, and in the ranks of Was.h.i.+ngton's first Continentals. Quickly, however, under pressure from southern colonies, notably South Carolina, Congress adopted a policy of excluding blacks from further enlistment in the Continental Army. Although most states excluded slaves from service, they did not exclude free blacks from enlisting in the militia. Virginia allowed free blacks to enlist after July 1775. This enticed slaves to run away and enlist as free blacks, a practice the a.s.sembly tried to halt by requiring all black enlistees to have certificates of freedom. Then an odd reversal occurred after 1779 when the state began to conscript white males into the militia. Taking advantage of the provision in the draft law allowing draftees to send subst.i.tutes, some slave owners offered their slaves as subst.i.tutes. This was as far as the enlistment of slaves went. James Madison proposed in 1780 that the state purchase slaves, free them, and make them soldiers. The legislature rejected the plan. On the other hand, the state did buy some slaves to work in s.h.i.+pyards, on s.h.i.+pboard, and in state-run factories.[45]
[45] For a fuller discussion of black Virginians in the Revolution, see Luther P. Jackson, Virginia Negro Soldiers and Sailors in the Revolutionary War (Norfolk, 1944), and Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution (University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 1961).
The actual number of black Virginians in the service is unknown.
Historians Luther Jackson and Benjamin Quarles suggest there were several hundred in the army and at least 140 in the small Virginia navy. Usually these men were orderlies, drummers, and support troops. In the navy they frequently served as river pilots. There were exceptions like freeman John Banks of Goochland, who fought as a cavalryman under Colonel Bland for two years, the well-known spy James Lafayette, who performed invaluable work for Lafayette in the closing days of the war, or John de Baptist, a sailor who served with distinction on the Dragon.
Peace did not bring freedom for the slaves in the services. The state-owned slaves were resold. Free men who had enlisted in the service were ent.i.tled to and did receive enlistment and pay bounties due all soldiers. Slaves whose masters had offered them as subst.i.tutes had a more difficult time. Some slave owners tried to reclaim them as slaves even though the Virginia law explicitly permitted the enlistment only of free men. Fortunately, Governor Benjamin Harrison was enraged by this duplicity at what he called a repudiation of the ”common principles of justice and humanity” and prevailed upon the legislature ”to pa.s.s an act giving to these unhappy creatures that liberty which they have been in some measure instrumental in securing for us.”
Nevertheless, although white Virginians recognized the contradiction between that liberty which they enjoyed and the slavery which existed around them, they did not see a means whereby the ideal that all men were created equal could become a practical reality. Unlike later generations, however, the Revolutionary generation made no attempt to justify slavery or to accept its extension. In 1778 Virginia became the first state to prohibit the importation of slaves, and in 1782 pa.s.sed a liberal manumission law permitting masters to free their slaves without special legislative act. Many took advantage of this law. Virginia also determined that there should be no slavery in the western lands ceded to the federal government. Jefferson saw to it that a prohibition against slavery was written into the federal Land Ordinance of 1784 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Yet, what was earlier noted bears repeating--the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence were the beginning of a great governmental experiment, not the finished product.
The British Move South, 1780-1781
The British s.h.i.+fted their armies southward in 1779, hoping to cut off the lower southern states, break the morale of the rest of America, and force a negotiated peace. Their princ.i.p.al hopes rested on exploiting loyalist strength in the fiercely divided Carolinas where much of the fighting since 1775 had been colonial against colonial, patriot against Tory. In early 1780 General Henry Clinton sailed from New York with 8,000 troops, outmaneuvered General Benjamin Lincoln, and captured Charleston. The defeat was a severe blow to the Americans costing them their chief southern seaport, several thousand Continentals and militiamen from the Carolinas and Virginia, and Generals Lincoln and William Woodford.
Clinton sailed back to New York, leaving his troops with Lord Cornwallis.
The most daring of the British generals, Cornwallis decided to leave Charleston and invade the Carolinas. With excellent support from Colonel Banastre Tarleton, Lord Rawdon, and Major Patrick Ferguson he swept all before him. Tarleton, the best cavalry officer in either army, and Ferguson led partisan loyalist units. Tarleton's troopers, known as the British Tory Legion, needed no introduction to Virginians. They had slaughtered without quarter unarmed Virginians under Colonel Abraham Buford in May 1780 at the Waxhaws, south of Charlotte, North Carolina.
From then on he was known as ”b.l.o.o.d.y Tarleton”.
Congress elected Horatio Gates to replace Lincoln in the southern command. Gates hurried south with several thousand Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina militiamen and Continental troops. Stumbling into Cornwallis' army at Camden, South Carolina, he planned and executed a faulty battle plan. Cornwallis executed perfectly and completely routed Gates. For the only time in the war Virginia militiamen behaved badly, fled the field, and were a major contributing factor to the disaster. Not only did Gates lose 600 men, many of them battle-hardened Continentals, he lost two outstanding officers, General Jean de Kalb, the tough German officer, and Colonel Edward Porterfield from Virginia. Facing almost sure defeat in the Carolinas, Congress replaced Gates with Nathaniel Greene of Rhode Island, taking care not to embarra.s.s the Englishman who had given so much to Patriot cause.
Greene turned out to be the man to baffle Cornwallis. With a constantly underequipped and often inadequate army he managed to keep Cornwallis at bay. He was moved by one desire--to force Cornwallis into costly battles, but never expose his whole army to capture. Flee if necessary, but be able to fight another day. He was inventive and unorthodox. With an army much smaller than Cornwallis' he divided it into thirds, plus compelling Cornwallis to divide his own army. Greene knew that Cornwallis, victorious as he might have been, was detached from Charleston and had to live off the land. He would fight a war of attrition and wear Cornwallis down. His strategy worked, although not without fateful moments. He had great faith in his command officers and gave them considerable leeway.
They rewarded him with two stunning victories--King's Mountain, North Carolina in October 1780 and Cowpens, South Carolina in January 1781.
King's Mountain was a unique battle for it was fought almost completely between Americans, Major Ferguson and his South Carolina, New York, and New Jersey Tories on the British side and North Carolina and Virginia frontier riflemen under Colonels Isaac Shelby, fiery William Campbell, and John Sevier for the United States. Although Ferguson's position from the outset was nearly impossible, he refused to surrender, knowing what was in store if he did. He was correct. The hatred which only the Carolina civil war unleashed during the Revolution burst forth. Only the intervention of Shelby and Campbell kept the frontiersmen from annihilating Ferguson's Tories. As it was, the British lost 1,000 men, 700 of them captives. Ferguson was killed.
Cowpens was a personal victory for General Daniel Morgan who felt he had been slighted by congress. Greene gave him a full command and sent him off to find Tarleton. He found him at Cowpens, not too far from King's Mountain. Morgan utilized his riflemen, light infantry, and cavalry and Continental regulars in an unconventional manner. He thoroughly whipped Tarleton, who up until that time had been invincible. Morgan's men killed 100 British, captured 800, and seized Tarleton's entire supply train.
The combination of King's Mountain and Cowpens completely disrupted Cornwallis' plan and led him into the series of mistakes which ended at Yorktown.[46]
[46] Ward, American Revolution, II, 792.
Even when he suffered defeat or a stalemate, as he did at Guilford Courthouse (Greensboro, North Carolina) in March 1781, Greene made Cornwallis pay such a heavy price that the British general could not afford the cost of victory. Wandering aimlessly after Greene across North Carolina and unable to live off the barren countryside, Cornwallis retreated eastward to Wilmington. There in the spring of 1781, with only 1400 of his original 3,000 troops left, he decided to move north and join Benedict Arnold's troops who had invaded Virginia on December 30, 1781.
The Invasion of Virginia, 1781
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