|
|
Part 10 of a series Adapted from 'Fielding Lewis and the Washington Family'; Chapter 40: 'The Beginning of a Fateful Year'
THE YEAR BEGAN unpromisingly. The British easily overran the James River, even occupying Richmond for a day and forcing the government to flee. An invasion of the Rappahannock River was feared.
No one knew the enemy's intent, but Fredericksburg and Hunter's Works were sure to be a high priority. Gov. Thomas Jefferson placed George Weedon in charge of their defense.
Over the next nine months, Gen. Weedon would assume (or be trapped in) the thankless role of provisioning and staffing not only the local militias but also the state troops on duty and the arriving Continentals under the Marquis de Lafayette.
His most frustrating task was juggling the militia pool--no more than a fourth of a county's militia could be called up at one time. Once called for a tour of duty--whether it lasted three months or three days--that unit then went to the bottom of the rotation list.
For this local defense crisis, Weedon activated 150 Stafford and 200 Spotsylvania militia; Caroline's militia was unready because of a shortage of muskets. Gov. Jefferson ordered 900 militia from the back counties to join Weedon in Fredericksburg, who posted 700 men between the town and the Potomac.
The King George militia formed three companies after a report that British ships were seen in the Rappahannock, but their commander sent word that the delivery of promised rum was essential to their performance.
In Fredericksburg, a "fatigue party" had been quickly set to making cartridges and bullets. Charles Dick, running the gun factory alone, wrote to Gov. Jefferson on Jan. 4 that "the Gentlemen of this town & even the Ladys have very spiritedly attended at the Gunnery and assisted to make up already above 20,000 Cartridges and Bullets, from which the Spots. Militia and from Caroline have been supplied, as also above 100 Good Guns from this Factory."
Virginia's defense--3,700 men--was improvised around three locations: Williamsburg, Fredericksburg and Cabin Point on the James River above Jamestown.
The American generals Weedon and Muhlenberg now both reported to Gen. Baron von Steuben, a formidable Prussian volunteer who had professionalized the Continental Army. It was Steuben who considered Fredericksburg's security critical and championed the defense of Hunter's Iron Works to Gov. Jefferson.
On Jan. 10, Jefferson instructed James Hunter to send "directly into the Country everything that is movable," and he authorized Hunter to impress wagons for the purpose. To Weedon, Jefferson wrote on Jan. 11, "Your whole attention should be pointed at Fredsbg."
Ironically, Hunter's gun-manufacturing operation had been crippled--the Virginia Assembly had repealed in 1780 the protections that it had awarded to iron manufacturers in 1777.
James Hunter informed the governor that he could not repair the arms that Jefferson had ordered to be sent to him, "my workmen in that branch of the service having all left me, and the manufactory of small arms being of consequence discontinued."
The state now owed enormous sums of money to both Fielding Lewis and James Hunter, but the governor's instructions to the auditors were not honored, and neither compensation nor financial assistance for the gun factory was forthcoming.
Lewis complained bitterly in a letter on Feb. 9 to the state treasurer:
"You may remember I was desired to borrow all the money I could for the use of the state [and lent the state] seven thousand pounds, being all that I had at the time on hand. I have distressed myself greatly and at this time am not able to pay the collector of my taxes and continue my business in the usual manner. Can it be expected that the State can be well served when its best friends are used in the manner I have been treated?"
On Feb. 26, Charles Dick acknowledged his reappointment as head of the gun factory and requested 120 yards of coarse cloth "for some Negros hired in the Factory."
None of this correspondence acknowledged either the credit or the compensation owed to Dick, Lewis or Hunter. The lack of justice, however, must be subordinated to the lack of judgment and foresight on the part of the state's government.
Unfortunately, the governor's office does not seem to have been the best use of Thomas Jefferson's talents, even making allowances for the overwhelming demands of the job--the chaos caused by the relocation of the state government from Williamsburg to Richmond and then by the British interruptions; the necessity of improvising military arrangements around the militias; and the runaway inflation.
His appointments, when proven mediocre or unsatisfactory, were not remedied. They hampered and frustrated the mission and work of the arriving Continental troops.
The importance of the factories at Fredericksburg was immediately recognized by the Continental commanders and their opinions were firmly stated to the governor.
Yet both facilities were allowed to deteriorate through sheer neglect, even while the governor was calling on them as a major repair and supply source.
Meanwhile, the assembly met in special session to deal with the state's multiple crises. The money supply had completely run out at the end of January. The Provision Law needed improvement and refining. And the manpower arrangements were increasingly deficient.
These controversial matters extended the session to three weeks, with no real remedies resulting from the debates. The supply system continued to deteriorate, partly due to the incompetence of the commissary general. No real remedies resulted from the session, but the money supply received an infusion of $10 million in unbacked paper.
(That summer, Francis Taliaferro Brooke noted in his journal that he received his officer's pay in the new paper--$33,333.60--with which he bought cloth for a coat at $2,000 a yard. The buttons cost $1,500.)
The delegates also agreed on a plan to enlist 1,400 volunteers who would receive regular training and half-pay when not called to duty.
Alexander Spotswood, who had retired from service as a colonel in 1777 after the battle at Germantown, was appointed a brigadier general to command the two new "legions." This was a position much to his liking and one for which he no doubt lobbied vigorously. In the ensuing months, Spotswood devoted much of his energy to designing the uniforms:
"The whole to be blue, or half blue & half green. The Jackets [to] button as a waistcoat as high as the pit of the Stomach and then to Turn of[f] with a narrow French lapel I think you may provide for 500 men."
It was already clear in the spring of 1781, however, that there was no way to supply Spotswood's legions with provisions. In May, Capt. J. Williams with the 6th Virginia Regiment in Fredericksburg reported that "the men are obliged to beg for food."
It is doubtful that either the men or provisions for Spotswood's legions were ever assembled. The fate of the 500 uniforms remains unknown.
Charles Dick, among others, was not an admirer of Spotswood. "I am happy he has not called for one musket yet," he would later write to the com-missioner of war.
Fearing that Fredericksburg's defense was now being neglected, and with armed vessels sighted in the Potomac, James Mercer, as a member of the Executive Council, stated the town's case strongly in a letter to Gov. Jefferson on April 1.
"There is not in this state a place more deserving of public attention than this town and its appendage Mr. Hunter's Iron Works every camp kettle has been supplyed for the continental and all other troops employed in this state & to the southward this year past . I need not inform you that the public manufactory of Arms is here there is not one spot in the state so generally useful in our military operations--full one third of all new lines rendezvous here; all the troops from north to south & south to north must pass through this town, where wagons are repaired, horses shoed the troops get provisions here to the next state & no place is so convenient to a very extensive & productive Country for the reception of Grain & other articles of provision . Can it be doubted that the Enemy will consider it as one of their first objects?"
In the home of Fielding Lewis, the family was experiencing personal misfortune. Mrs. Washington ("the old lady," as Col. Lewis called her in a letter to George Washington on April 24) had been ill but was now recovering. Lewis himself, however, had been an invalid confined to his home since October.
Except for the approaching marriage of his daughter Betty to Charles Carter, his other news to Washington was grim. "The enemy is still among us," Lewis wrote Washington. The Loyalist merchants across the state who had refused to take the oath of allegiance had been expelled by Gov. Jefferson in 1779, and most of the Scottish factors had left voluntarily. But some had remained, and Lewis was dissatisfied with their patriotism.
(A few never left Fredericksburg at all. A few more returned after the war to become citizens. Among them was Robert Patton, who married Hugh Mercer's daughter and became the ancestor of Gen. George Patton of World War II fame.)
In mid-April, Gen. Weedon returned on a furlough to relocate his family and to see to the defenses of Hunter's Iron Works. He was also to report on the activities of a small British fleet that had entered the Potomac.
Just as Weedon arrived in Fredericksburg, the British at Portsmouth launched a full-scale invasion with 2,500 men under Gen. Phillips. They swept up the James, occupied Williams- burg, and marched toward Petersburg in pursuit of the Americans at Chesterfield Courthouse. On April 25, 1,000 Virginia militia made a creditable showing against 2,300 British near Petersburg before retreating.
On the day of the confrontation at Petersburg, Lafayette arrived from Maryland with the Continental troops under his command. Weedon hastily rounded up 2,000 recruits, militia and veterans to supplement Lafayette's 1,200 Continentals, who marched quickly toward Richmond. Arriving on April 29, they were just in time to deter Gen. Phillips from his plan to capture the city.
With Richmond no longer an objective, Lafayette concluded that the risk to Fredericksburg was all the greater. He instructed Weedon to look for advantageous positions for defense and to have the public stores ready to be moved. Weedon encamped on the hills above Hunter's Iron Works.
Weedon had little success in recruiting riflemen to join Lafayette's forces. There had already been opposition and even protest riots against recruiting and impressment, and now it was spring planting time. Few came from the back counties, most of them unarmed. The militia from the counties around Fredericksburg were also unarmed, and Lafayette had first claim on any arriving armaments and supplies.
But now a major change occurred in British strategy. Gen. Cornwallis elected to forgo further confrontation with Nathanael Greene's forces in North Carolina, having paid a very high price at the battle of Guilford Courthouse in March. Cornwallis marched his men to Petersburg, arriving May 20. There, with the sudden demise of Gen. Phillips from an illness, Cornwallis found himself in sole command of 7,000 men, all of the British forces in Virginia.
While awaiting orders from his superior in New York, Cornwallis set out in pursuit of Lafayette, who, greatly outnumbered, abandoned Richmond. This time, it was clear that Cornwallis' target was not only Lafayette but also Hunter's works at Fredericksburg.
Lafayette sent word to Weedon to call out the militia and evacuate all supplies and military stores. He also ordered Weedon to rendezvous on one day's notice at the Mattaponi Church on the Ta River on the first of June.
Weedon's many emergency assignments kept him from the rendezvous. He was occupied directing the militia he had summoned to Stafford Heights.
Suddenly, the local crisis was over. Cornwallis had learned that the town had been evacuated and that Hunter's works were in disrepair. He abandoned Fredericksburg as a target and sought other opportunities for damage.
At the North Anna River, Cornwallis turned his men southwestward. The assembly had been meeting at Charlottesville since April, and when the news of Cornwallis' altered direction reached them, they were ill prepared and retreated in disarray. Gov. Jefferson had to flee into the woods to escape capture.
A disorganized assembly managed to reconvene at Staunton on June 7.
The immediate and humiliating consequence of this debacle was that the state's systems had collapsed in shambles--the currency, the military and the government.
Not one person could have predicted the astounding reversal of Virginia's fortunes that was about to take place.
Next week: An unexpected and glorious victory
PAULA S. FELDER of Fredericksburg is a historian and author specializing in the area's 18th-century past. She will accept questions about the series or specific neighborhoods. Contact her by mail in care of Gwen Woolf, The Free Lance-Star, 616 Amelia St., Fredericksburg, Va. 22401, or by e-mail to gwoolf@freelancestar.com. "Fredericksburg's Origins" also can be followed on The Free Lance-Star's Web site at fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/Projects/cityhistory/index_html.