*** William Phillips, it will be remembered, was one of Burgoyne's general officers, who was made prisoner at Saratoga. He commanded the "Convention Troops," as those captives were called, while on their march to Virginia. On being exchanged, he was actively engaged at the South until his death. He was possessed of an exceedingly irritable temper, which often led him into difficulty. He was very haughty in his demeanor, especially toward the Americans, whom he affected to hold in great contempt. While lying sick at Petersburg, he dictated a letter to Governor Jefferson, and addressed it to "Thomas Jefferson, Esq., American governor of Virginia and when speaking of the American commander-in-chief, he called him "Mr. Washington." General Phillips was buried in the old Blandford church-yard, where his remains yet repose. His disease was bilious fever.
**** La Fayette was probably not aware that General Phillips was dying at Bollingbrook, or he would not have cannonaded it. British writers have charged La Fayette with inhumanity. Anburey (ii., 446) says, "A circumstance attended Phillip's death, similar to the inhumanity that the Americans displayed at the interment of General Frazer." He further asserts, that a flag was sent to the marquis, acquainting him with the condition of Phillips, but that he paid no attention to it, and continued the firing. He said a ball went through the house, just as Phillips was expiring, when the dying man exclaimed, "My God! 'tis cruel they will not let me die in peaee." This assertion proves its own inconsistency. The cannonade occurred on the tenth, and General Phillips did not die until the thirteenth. *
* Campbell says that, according to tradition, Arnold was crossing the yard when the cannonade commenced. He hastened into the house, and directed the inmates to go to the cellar for safety. General Phillips was taken there, followed by Mrs. Bolling and her family. An old negro woman, who was standing in the kitchen door, was killed by one of the balls.
Entrance of Cornwallis into Virginia.—The State in Danger.—Retirement of Governor Jefferson.—Monticello.
and there crossed the James River to the easterly side. Arnold took the chief command, on the death of General Phillips, and just one week after that event,May 20, 1781 Cornwallis, with a large force, entered Petersburg. That officer, after fighting the battle with
General Greene at Guilford Court House, had retired to Wilmington, on the Cape Fear River. Perceiving the advantages to be derived by invading Virginia at separate points, he ordered General Phillips, as we have seen, to return up the James River, while he hastened to enter the state from the south and form a junction with him at Petersburg. He marched directly north, nearly on a line with the present rail-road from Wilmington, and reached the Roanoke at Halifax, seven miles below the Great Falls, where he crossed, and entered Virginia. Lieutenant-colonel Tarleton, with a corps of one hundred and eighty cavalry and sixty mounted infantry, was sent forward as an advance guard to disperse the militia and overawe the inhabitants. The outrages committed by some of these marauding troops were pronounced by Stedman, an officer of Cornwallis's army, "a disgrace to the name of man." * Simcoe had been sent by Arnold to take possession of the fords on the Nottaway and Meherrin Rivers, the only considerable streams that intervened, and the two armies, unopposed, effected a junction at Petersburg, where Cornwallis assumed the command of the whole.
