A schooner on April 9, 1781, ascended the Potomac as far as Alexandria, landing at every house on the way, burning, destroying, stealing, loudly declaring their errand to "burn out the traitors, George Washington and George Mason."
On the 12th six armed vessels ascended the river, and the counties of Stafford, Prince William, and Fairfax became the "scene of war." Fifty miles from Fredericksburg, Cornwallis was encamped with his main body of the British army. Twenty miles from Fredericksburg, Lafayette was protecting, with his small force, the homes of the mother, wife, and sister of the commander-in-chief. "Before this letter reaches you," warned Colonel Bannister, "the enemy will have penetrated to Fredericksburg."
To be brave and serene became the high duty of the commander's family. They must present an example of fortitude and courage. This was the obligation laid upon them by their position. Nor did they demand, because of this position, anything more than the protection accorded to all. No sentries or guards were posted around their dwellings, no force detailed for their special protection. When Mary Washington's daughter expressed alarm, her mother reminded her that "the sister of the commanding General must be an example of fortitude and faith." Even the general himself could not repress a cry of anguish when he heard of the desolation of his native state. "Would to God," he said, "would to God the country could rise as one man and extirpate Cornwallis and his whole band!"
The general's family held their posts in calm silence, expressing no excitement or alarm. Tarleton's cavalry—mounted on Virginia's race-horses—were dashing all over the country, and liable at any moment to appear wherever it pleased him. For Mary Washington there was no security, no peace, save in the sanctuary of her own bosom. Virginia was the battle-ground, convulsed through her borders with alarms! Finally, General Washington could bear it no longer. Despite her remonstrance he removed his mother to the county of Frederick, in the interior of the state, where she remained for a short time to escape the Red Dragoons of the dreaded Tarleton.
"As for our present distresses," he wrote to George Mason, "they are so great and complicated that it is scarcely within the powers of description to give an adequate idea of them. We are without money and have been so for a long time; without provision and forage, without clothing, and shortly shall be (in a manner) without men. In a word; we have lived upon expedients till we can live no longer."
The eventful year of 1781—destined to bring so great a deliverance to the country—brought infinite sorrow to Mary Washington and her daughter. The good man and pure patriot, Fielding Lewis, died in January. Always too frail in health to bear arms, he had sent his sons to the front, advanced £7000 for the manufacture of arms, and so impoverished himself by advances of money to the colony that he was unable to pay his taxes (Calendar State Papers, Vol. i, p. 503; Henings Statutes, Vol. ix, p. 71).
In the same year Samuel Washington died at his home, "Harewood," in Jefferson County. The family bond was close in Mary Washington's household and no one was dearer than her son Samuel!
Washington's letters in 1780 repeat the story of Valley Forge. "The present situation of the army" (Jan. 8, 1780) "is the most distressing of any we have experienced since the beginning of the war. For a fortnight past the troops, both officers and men, have been almost perishing from want. The troops are half starved, imperfectly clothed, riotous, and robbing the country people of their subsistence from sheer necessity." In April things had not improved. "We are on the point of starving," he wrote to Reed of Pennsylvania. "I have almost ceased to hope. The country in general is in such a state of insensibility and indifference to its interests that I dare not flatter myself with any change for the better." And he adds, like a sigh of hopeless anguish, "In modern wars the longest purse must chiefly determine the event."