[Lord Cornwallis arrives at Petersburg, May 20, 1781] When Lord Cornwallis heard, from time to time, what was going on in South Carolina, he was not cheered by the news. But he was too far away to interfere, and it was on the very day of Eutaw Springs that the toils were drawn about him which were to compass his downfall. When he reached Petersburg, on the 20th of May, the youthful Lafayette, whom Washington had sent down to watch and check the movements of the traitor Arnold, was stationed at Richmond, with a little army of 3,000 men, two thirds of them raw militia. To oppose this small force Cornwallis had now 5,000 veterans, comprising the men whom he had brought away from Guilford, together with the forces lately under Arnold and Phillips. Arnold, after some useless burning and plundering, had been recalled to New York. Phillips had died of a fever just before Cornwallis arrived. The earl entertained great hopes. His failure in North Carolina rankled in his soul, and he was eager to make a grand stroke and retrieve his reputation. Could the powerful state of Virginia be conquered, it seemed as if everything south of the Susquehanna must fall, in spite of Greene’s successes. With his soul thus full of chivalrous enterprise, Cornwallis for the moment saw things in rose colour, and drew wrong conclusions. He expected to find half the people Tories, and he also expected to find a state of chronic hostility between the slaves and their masters. On both points he was quite mistaken.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
OPERATIONS IN VIRGINIA, MAY TO OCTOBER, 1781
[His campaign against Lafayette] But while Cornwallis underrated the difficulty of the task, he knew, nevertheless, that 5,000 men were not enough to conquer so strong a state, and he tried to persuade Clinton to abandon New York, if necessary, so that all the available British force might be concentrated upon Virginia. Clinton wisely refused.
GREAT SEAL OF VIRGINIA (OBVERSE)A state like Virginia, which, for the want of a loyalist party, could be held only by sheer conquest, was not fit for a basis of operations against the other states; while the abandoning of New York, the recognized strategic centre of the Atlantic coast, would be interpreted by the whole world, not as a change of base, but as a confession of defeat. Clinton’s opinion was thus founded upon a truer and clearer view of the whole situation than Cornwallis’s; nor is it likely that the latter would ever have urged such a scheme had he not been, in such a singular and unexpected way, elbowed out of North Carolina. Being now in Virginia, it was incumbent on him to do something, and, with the force at his disposal, it seemed as if he might easily begin by crushing Lafayette. “The boy cannot escape me,” said Cornwallis; but the young Frenchman turned out to be quite capable of taking care of himself. Although not a man of original genius, Lafayette had much good sense and was quick at learning. He was now twenty-three years old, buoyant and kind, full of wholesome enthusiasm, and endowed with no mean sagacity. A Fabian policy was all that could be adopted for the moment. When Cornwallis advanced from Petersburg to Richmond, Lafayette began the skilful retreat which proved him an apt learner in the school of Washington and Greene.
