Colonel George Mercer, of Stafford, who had been compelled to resign the office of stamp collector before the commencement of the revolutionary struggle, retired to England. George Mason, who was related to him, in October, 1778, addressed him a letter, in which he said: "If I can only live to see the American Union firmly fixed, and free governments well established in our western world, and can leave to my children but a crust of bread and liberty,[693:B] I shall die satisfied, and say with the Psalmist: 'Lord! now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.' God has been pleased to bless our endeavors in a just cause with remarkable success. To us upon the spot, who have seen step by step the progress of this great contest, who know the defenceless state of America, and the numberless difficulties we have had to struggle with; taking a retrospective view of what is passed, we seem to have been treading upon enchanted ground."
Washington, in compliance with the resolutions of congress, had ordered the removal of the convention troops of Saratoga, then quartered in Massachusetts, to Charlottesville, Virginia. Congress, whether from distrust in the British prisoners, or from reasons of state, resolved not to comply with the articles of the convention, allowing the prisoners to embark for England on parole, until the convention should be ratified by the English government. Burgoyne had sailed for England in May, and from that time the command of the British troops of convention, quartered at Cambridge, had devolved upon General Phillips. Colonel Bland, with an escort, conducted the prisoners of war to Virginia. Upon their arrival, in December, at their place of destination, on Colonel Harvey's estate, about six miles from Charlottesville, they suffered many privations, being billeted in block-houses without windows or doors, and poorly defended from the cold of an uncommonly rigorous winter. But in a short time they constructed better habitations, and the barracks assumed the appearance of a neat little town. In the rear of each house they had trim gardens and enclosed places for poultry. The army cleared a space of six miles in circumference around the barracks. A representation of the barracks is given in Anburey's Travels. The officers were allowed, upon giving parole, to provide for themselves lodging-places within a circuit of a hundred miles.[694:A] Mr. Jefferson exhibited a generous hospitality toward the captives; and his knowledge of French, his taste for music, his fine conversational powers, and his fascinating manners, contributed not a little to relieve the tedium of their captivity. Governor Henry afforded them every indulgence in his power; and the amiable disposition of Colonel Bland, who commanded the guard placed over the convention troops, still further ensured their quiet and comfort. General Phillips, described by Mr. Jefferson as "the proudest man of the proudest nation on earth," occupied Blenheim, a seat of Colonel Carter's; General the Baron de Riedesel occupied Colle, a residence belonging to Philip Mazzei, Mr. Jefferson's Italian neighbor; and the Baroness, whose romantic sufferings and adventures are so well known, has given, in her Memoirs, an entertaining account of her sojourn among the picturesque mountains of Albemarle. Charlottesville at this period consisted of a court-house, a tavern, and about a dozen dwelling-houses.[695:A]
Anburey has given a graphic picture of the manners, customs, and the grotesque scenes that he witnessed at Charlottesville and in its vicinity.
Violent dissensions convulsed congress; some of the members were suspected of treasonable designs. Early in May, Richard Henry Lee wrote from Philadelphia to Mr. Jefferson, hoping that he "would not be blamed by him and his other friends for sending his resignation to the assembly, and averring that he had been persecuted by the united voice of toryism, speculation, faction, envy, malice, and all uncharitableness," so that nothing but the certain prospect of doing essential service to his country could compensate for the injuries he received. But he adds: "It would content me indeed to sacrifice every consideration to the public good that would result from such persons as yourself, Mr. Wythe, Mr. Mason, and some others being in congress. I would struggle with persevering ardor through every difficulty in conjunction with such associates."
In 1779 the legislature rejected a scheme of a general assessment for the support of religion. Patrick Henry was in favor of it. The glebe-lands were also declared to be public property; and thus was destroyed the last vestige of a religious establishment in Virginia. During the Revolution, the loyalist clergy of Virginia who remained, found themselves in a deplorable condition. The prohibition to pray for the king was strictly enforced upon them by the incensed people: some ministers omitted the obnoxious petitions; others abandoned the churches and offered no prayer in public; while a few appeared disposed, if possible, to resist the popular tide, but were compelled eventually to succumb to it. In 1775 Virginia contained sixty-one counties, ninety-five parishes, one hundred and sixty-four churches and chapels, and ninety-one clergymen of the establishment. During the interval of the war part of the parishes were extinguished, and the greater number of the rest were deprived of ministerial help; but few ministers were able to weather the storm and remain at their former posts; the others having been compelled to seek precarious shelter and support in other parishes. Some of the churches, venerable for age and connected with so many interesting associations, were left roofless and dismantled; others used as barracks, or stables, or lodging-places of prisoners of war; and the moss-grown walls of some were pulled down by sacrilegious hands, and books and vessels appurtenant to holy services pillaged and carried off.
Until this year the British arms had been chiefly directed against the Middle and Northern States; but they were now turned against the South. Georgia soon fell a prey to the enemy, and South Carolina was invaded. In May a squadron under Sir George Collier anchored in Hampton Roads, and General Matthews took possession of Portsmouth. The enemy destroyed the public stores at Gosport and Norfolk, burnt Suffolk, and destroyed upwards of a hundred vessels, including several armed ones. The Virginia navy had been reduced previously, and many of the vessels ordered to be sold, and from this time the history of those remaining is a series of disasters.
Upon the approach of six hundred British infantry upon Suffolk, the militia and greater part of the inhabitants fled; few could save their effects; some who remained for that purpose were made prisoners. The enemy fired the town, and nearly the whole of it was consumed: hundreds of barrels of tar, pitch, turpentine, and rum, lay on the wharves, and their heads being staved, the contents flowing in commingled mass and catching the blaze, descended to the river in torrents of liquid flame, and the wind blowing violently, the splendid mass floated to the opposite shore in a conflagration that rose and fell with the waves, and there set on fire the dry grass of an extensive marsh. This broad sheet of fire, the crackling flames of the town, the lurid smoke, and the occasional explosion of gunpowder in the magazines, projecting ignited fragments of timber like meteors in the troubled air, presented altogether an awful spectacle of the horrors of civil war. The enemy shortly after, laden with plunder, embarked for New York.
While Sir Henry Clinton was encamped near Haerlem, and Washington in the Highlands on the Hudson,[697:A] Major Lee, of Virginia, surprised in the night a British post at Paulus Hook, and with a loss of two killed and three wounded, made one hundred and fifty-nine prisoners, including three officers. Soon after this a fleet, commanded by Admiral Arbuthnot, arrived at New York with re-enforcements. D'Estaing returned to the southern coast of America with a fleet of twenty-two ships-of-the-line and eleven frigates, and having on board six thousand soldiers. He arrived so unexpectedly that the British ship Experiment of fifty guns, and three frigates, fell into his hands. In September, Savannah, occupied by a British force under General Prevost, was besieged by the French and Americans, commanded by D'Estaing and Lincoln.[697:B] In an ineffectual effort to storm the post the French and Americans suffered heavy loss. The siege was raised, and D'Estaing, who had been wounded in the action, sailed again for the West Indies, after this second abortive attempt to aid the cause of independence. The condition of the South was now more gloomy than ever.
Clinton, toward the close of the year, embarked with a formidable force in Arbuthnot's fleet, and sailed for South Carolina. In April, 1780, Sir Henry laid siege to Charleston; and General Lincoln, undertaking to defend the place, contrary to his own judgment, and in compliance with the entreaties of the inhabitants, after an obstinate defence was compelled to capitulate.[698:A] Shortly after this disaster Colonel Buford's regiment was cut to pieces by Tarleton. Georgia and South Carolina now succumbed to the enemy: it was the bending of the willow before the sweep of the tempest. In June, General Gates was appointed by congress to the command in the South. Having collected an army he marched toward Camden in South Carolina, then held by the enemy. While Gates was moving from Clermont toward that place in the night,[698:B] Cornwallis marched out with a view of attacking the American army at Clermont. Thus the two armies, each essaying to surprise the other, met unexpectedly in the woods, at about two o'clock in the morning. At the first onset the American line was thrown into disorder; but a body of light infantry, and in particular a corps under command of Colonel Porterfield, of Virginia, maintained their ground with constancy. This brave officer, refusing to give way, fell mortally wounded. The battle was resumed in the morning, and Gates' army was utterly discomfited: the militia fled too soon; the regulars fought too long. The fugitives retreating in promiscuous disorder, were pursued by the unrelenting sabres of cavalry; and the horrors of the rout baffle description. Thus Gates, verifying General Lee's prediction, "turned his Northern laurels into Southern willows." The defeated general retired to North Carolina to collect the scattered remains of his army. In August, Sumpter was overwhelmed by Tarleton; and for a time the British army were in the ascendant throughout the South.
Cornwallis[698:C] detached Colonel Ferguson, a gallant and expert officer, across the Wateree, with one hundred and ten regulars; and in a short time tory recruits augmented his numbers to one thousand; and, confident of his strength, he sent a menacing message to the patriot leaders on the western waters. This was, for the South, "the time that tried men's souls:" many of the leading patriots captives or exiles, the country subjugated, British and tory cruelty desolating it, hope almost extinct,—Marion alone holding out in his fastnesses. The spirit of the hardy mountaineers was aroused, and hearing that Ferguson was threatening to cross the mountains, a body of men in arms were concentrated by the twenty-fifth on the banks of the Watauga—four hundred from Washington County, Virginia, under Colonel William Campbell; the rest from North Carolina, under Colonels Shelby, Sevier, McDowell, Cleveland, and Winston. Crossing the mountains they advanced toward Ferguson, who began to retreat, and took up a position[699:A] on an eminence of about one hundred and fifty feet, called King's Mountain. It is situated in the northern part of South Carolina, near the North Carolina line, its sides steep and rocky, a brook flowing at its foot,—the surrounding scenery thickly wooded, wild, and picturesque. It was resolved to pursue the enemy with nine hundred picked men. Near the Cowpens, where Ferguson had encamped on the fourth, and about thirty miles from King's Mountain, the mountaineers were re-enforced by four hundred and sixty men, the greater part of them from South Carolina, under Colonel Williams. Here, at about nine o'clock of the evening, Colonel William Campbell was appointed to the chief command. The mountain horsemen rode on in the night through a rain, with their guns under their arms to keep the locks dry; the leader in front, and each colonel at the head of his troops. In the morning they halted for half an hour to eat a frugal breakfast, and at twelve o'clock, when the sky cleared, they found themselves within three miles of the British camp. They halted, and the order passed along the line: "Tie up overcoats, pick touch-holes, fresh prime, and be ready to fight." At three o'clock in the afternoon of the seventh of October an express from Ferguson to Cornwallis was captured, and his despatches, declaring his position on King's Mountain impregnable, were read to the troops. Galloping off they came in twenty minutes within sight of the British camp. They dismounted on the banks of the little stream, tied their horses to the limbs of trees, and left them in charge of a small guard. The force being divided, the mountain was surrounded. As each column moved on to the attack it was driven back a short distance by the charge of the British, who were soon compelled to wheel, in order to face another column advancing on the opposite side. Ferguson, finding his troops hemmed in and huddled together on the summit of the mountain, fought with desperate valor, and fell, charging at the head of his men and cheering them on. The white flag was now raised. Of Ferguson's force, amounting to rather more than eleven hundred men, two hundred and forty were killed and two hundred wounded; upwards of seven hundred were taken prisoners, with all the arms, ammunition, and camp equipage. The loss of the patriots was thirty killed and fifty wounded. The gallant Williams was slain, as also was Major Chronicle, and several other officers. The battle lasted one hour. A number of the tories were hung on the next day. The sword used by Colonel Campbell on this occasion is preserved in possession of William Campbell Preston, of South Carolina, the orator, his grandson; it is more than two centuries old, and was wielded by the ancestors of Colonel Campbell in Scotland in the wars of the Pretenders. One of the rifles employed at King's Mountain is also preserved. This battle was the turning-point of the war in the South.
