Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace,—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery: Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, Give me Liberty or Give me Death.[31 ]
Backed by Jefferson, Thomas Nelson, Jr., and Richard Henry Lee, who were determined that Virginia should not be as timid as the Continental Congress had been, Henry carried the day by a close vote. A committee of 12 was elected and included Henry, Lee, Washington, Andrew Lewis of Botetourt and Adam Stephens of Berkeley, fresh from victories over the Indians in Dunmore's War just a few weeks earlier, William Christian of Fincastle and Isaac Zane of Frederick, both experienced Indian fighters, Jefferson, Nicholas, Benjamin Harrison, Pendleton, and Lemuel Riddick of Nansemond.
The committee was a consensus of all opinions. It was a mark of the Virginia legislatures, both the burgesses and the conventions, that once a decision was made, opposition ceased and the delegates went forward together. One has to be careful not to talk too much about conservatives and radicals. They were all patriots together. The process by which Virginians moved in unison to revolt was summarized by Jefferson:
Sensible however of the importance of unanimity among our constituents, altho' we (Jefferson, Henry, Lees, Pages, Masons, etc.) often wished to have gone faster, we slackened our pace, that our less ardent colleagues might keep up with us; and they, (Pendleton, Bland, Wythe, Randolph, etc.) quickened their gait somewhat beyond that which their prudence might of itself have advised, and thus consolidated the phalanx which breasted the power of Britain. By this harmony of the bold with the cautious, we advanced with our constituents in undivided mass, and with fewer examples of separation (Tories) than perhaps existed in any other part of the Union.[32 ]
The committee quickly went to work and authorized formations of at least one infantry company and one cavalry troop in each county. Supplies would be furnished as quickly as possible. Each company would commence drilling at once.
Throughout the spring of 1775 Virginia was alive with signs of rebellion. County committees and associations coaxed, cajoled, and frequently coerced reluctant colonists, particularly the Scots merchants, to comply with non-importation, non-consumption agreements. Militia troops drilled, often in disorderly fashion with little hint of being a threat to British redcoats. Fashionable gentry took to wearing the plain clothes of frontiersmen, and shirts emblazoned with the words "Liberty or Death" were everywhere. County courts had ceased operations, nearly all their justices were now members of the extra-legal committees which ruled Virginia.
On April 19, 1775, General Thomas Gage, learning that the Massachusetts independent militia had armed itself, marched on known caches of arms and powder at Lexington and Concord. The colonial militia under Captain John Parker, warned by Paul Revere and William Dawes, drove the British regulars from the two villages and harrassed them all the way back to Boston. The next night, in a totally unrelated incident, Governor Dunmore of Virginia, for the same reasons, seized the gunpowder in the magazine at Williamsburg. Fighting in Virginia was narrowly averted when the governor paid for the powder. In Massachusetts fighting continued and the British were soon penned up in Boston, surrounded by 13,000 ill-armed but determined New Englanders. In both places the situation was clear enough—the colonists were armed and prepared to fight to defend their rights.
Small wonder then that Lord Dunmore worried over the gunpowder in the Williamsburg magazine. On the night of April 20-21 marines from the H.M.S. Magdalene stealthily carried away the powder. Dunmore coyly suggested he had ordered the powder removed for safekeeping to prevent a rumored slave insurrection. Although his lame excuse fooled no one, quiet returned to Williamsburg after a brief flurry of excitement and marches to the Governor's Palace by the Williamsburg independent company.
The Powder Magazine Raid might have come to nothing if word of the Lexington-Concord attacks had not arrived. This news first reached Virginia by rider on April 29. Gage's raid on the Lexington-Concord magazines and Dunmore's seizure of the Williamsburg powder seemed too coincidental for Patrick Henry and 300 militiamen from Hanover and surrounding counties. Henry, who always fancied himself a general, led his men from Newcastle on May 2 toward Williamsburg. Dunmore sent Lady Dunmore and their children to the H.M.S. Fowey at Yorktown and garrisoned the palace in anticipation of attack. Fighting was averted when Henry's troops reached Richard Corbin's house in King and Queen County and demanded that Corbin's wife pay for the powder from her husband's funds. Corbin, the receiver-general of royal customs, was away. Upon hearing about the demand he sent a secured note for £300 which Henry finally accepted for the powder. With that the militiamen returned to Hanover.