Revolutionary Reader: Reminiscences and Indian Legends

by Sophie Lee Foster

The British had built a fort for their defence, the Virginians had breastworks.

Fort Nelson.

"During the Revolution Sovereign Virginia erected Fort Nelson to resist Lord Dunmore, should he ever attempt to return to the harbor of Norfolk and Portsmouth. It was named for the patriot Governor Nelson, who gave his private fortune to aid the credit of Virginia, and risked his life and sacrificed his health on the battlefields of the American Republic. On account of its location it was never the scene of any bloody battle, but like the 'Old Guard,' it was held in reserve for the emergencies of war. On the 9th of May, 1779, a great British fleet, under Admiral Sir George Collier entered Hampton Roads, sailed up Elizabeth river, and landed three thousand royal soldiers under General Matthews in Norfolk County, where Fort Norfolk now stands, to flank this fortification and capture its garrison composed of only 150 soldiers. Maj. Matthews, the American commander, frustrated the designs of the British general by evacuating the fort, and retired to the northward. On the 11th of May, the British took possession of the two towns, and gave free hand to pillage and destruction. Sir George Collier, after satisfying his wrath sailed back to New York. Varying fortunes befell Fort Nelson during the remainder of the war until the evacuation by Benedict Arnold, after which no British grenadier ever paced its ramparts. After the close of the Revolution, it was rebuilt and for many years was garrisoned by regular soldiers of the United States; but since, abandoned as a fortification, it has been a beautiful park and a home for sick officers and sailors of our navy.

"The garrison of Fort Nelson, under the glorious stars and stripes, on the 22nd of June, 1813, stood to their shotted guns, to meet the British invaders, who were defeated at Crany Island, by our Capt. Arthur Emerson and other gallant heroes. Here thousands of soldiers marched in response to the call of Virginia in 1861."

In the naval park at Portsmouth, the site of Fort Nelson, there is a monument whose granite body embraces a real Revolutionary cannon. This gun was selected from a number of guns known to be of the period of the American Revolution. It is believed that one, at least, of these was mounted at Crany Island for the defense of Portsmouth and Norfolk. The honor of erecting this monument is due to the ladies of the Fort Nelson Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and to Admiral P. F. Harrington of the United States Navy, and also Medical Director R. C. Person of the navy. It is said that with proper care this gun will last centuries and "It will carry down to distant generations a memorial of the patriots of the American Revolution, a mark of the formation of a nation and the token of the later patriots, the Daughters of the American Revolution, to whose efforts is due this important national service to which the gun has been dedicated."

After these first assaults, for about three years of the war, there was almost no fighting in Virginia, but during that term she was furnishing her full quota of men, money and inspiration to the cause, with devoted loyalty, assisting in the north and in the south, wherever an attack was made. Directing her attention to the main army she built no defences of any importance on her own territory east of the Alleghanies. "The British success in the north and followed by still more decided victories in the south. Thus later the English began to look forward, with certainty, to the conquest of the entire country, and as Virginia was regarded as the heart of the rebellion, it was decided to carry their victorious arms into the state, as the surest way of bringing the war to a speedy conclusion." We had no time, then, for building forts, and when we recall the traitor Arnold's advance on Richmond, with the two days he spent there destroying public and private property—his taking of Petersburg, burning the tobacco and vessels lying at the wharves, with Col. Tarleton's raids, scouring the country of every thing; in fact all of Cornwallis' reign of terror, which was soon to end in that imposing scene at Yorktown, we realize truly that "the battle is not to the strong, nor the race to the swift," but that a country's bulwark often are not forts and strong towers, but her courageous heart, and her staunch friends, such men as Lafayette, De Rochambeau, De Grasse and Steuben, who with Washington, led the allied Americans and French forces at Yorktown, and besieged the British fortification, the surrender of which virtually closed the Revolutionary War on the 19th of October, 1781. The place is sacred, their devotion reverenced.

Forts of the Northwestern Territory, Kaskaskia, Cahokia and Vincennes.

"While the communities of the sea coast were yet in a fever heat from the uprising against the stamp act, the first explorers were toiling painfully to Kentucky, and the first settlers were building their palisaded hamlets on the banks of the Wautauga. The year that saw the first Continental Congress saw also the short grim tragedy of Lord Dunmore's war. The battles of the Revolution were fought while Boone and his comrades were laying the foundation of their Commonwealth. Hitherto the two chains of events had been only remotely connected, but in 1776, the year of the Declaration of Independence, the struggle between the king and his rebellious subjects shook the whole land and the men of the western border were drawn headlong into the full current of the Revolutionary war. From that moment our politics became national, and the fate of each portion of our country was thenceforth in some sort dependent upon the welfare of every other. Each section had its own work to do; the east won independence while the west began to conquer the continent, yet the deeds of each were of vital consequence to the other. The Continentals gave the west its freedom, and took in return, for themselves and their children, a share of the land that had been conquered and held by the scanty bands of tall backwoodsmen."

Kentucky had been settled chiefly through Daniel Boone's instrumentality in the year that saw the first fighting of the Revolution, and had been added to Virginia by the strenuous endeavors of Major George Rogers Clark of Albermarle, Virginia, whose far seeing and ambitious soul prompted him to use it as a base from which to conquer the vast region northwest of the Ohio. "The country beyond the Ohio was not like Kentucky, a tenantless and debatable hunting ground. It was the seat of powerful and warlike Indian confederacies, and of cluster of ancient French hamlets which had been founded generations before Kentucky pioneers were born. It also contained forts that were garrisoned and held by the soldiers of the British king." It is true that Virginia claimed this territory under the original grant in her charter, but it was almost an unknown and foreign land, and could only be held by force. Clark's scheming brain and bold heart had long been planning its conquest. He looked about to see from whence came the cause of the Indian atrocities on the whole American frontier, and like Washington he saw that those Indian movements were impelled by some outside force. He discovered that the British forts of Detroit, Kaskaskia and St. Vincent were the centers from which the Indians obtained their ammunition and arms to devastate the country. He resolved to take these forts. "He knew that it would be impossible to raise a force to capture these forts from the scanty garrisoned forts and villages of Kentucky, though he knew of a few picked men peculiarly suited to his purpose, but fully realized that he would have to go to Virginia for the body of his forces. Accordingly, he decided to lay the case before Patrick Henry, the governor of Virginia. Henry's ardent soul quickly caught the flame from Clark's fiery enthusiasm, but the peril of sending an expedition to such a wild and distant country was so great, and Virginia's forces so exhausted that he could do little beyond lending Clark the weight of his name and influence. Finally though, Henry authorized him to raise seven companies, each of fifty men, who were to act as militia, and to be paid as such. He also advanced him a sum of twelve hundred pounds and gave him an order on the authorities at Pittsburg for boats, supplies and ammunition; while three of the most prominent gentlemen of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, George Mason and George Wythe, agreed, in writing, to do their part to induce the legislature to grant to each of the adventurers three hundred acres of the conquered land, if they were successful. Clark was given the commission of colonel with the instruction to raise his men from the frontier counties west of the Blue Ridge, so as not to weaken the sea coast region in their struggle against the British." To this instruction he did not strictly adhere. There was a company of soldiers from Bedford County, Virginia, under his command, a list of whose names are on our county records. Two of these are connections of the mother of Mrs. R. B. Clayton, the regent of the Peaks of Otter Chapter of Virginia Daughters, which facts enhance our pride and interest in the capture of the western forts by Colonel Clark, which perhaps, prevented a vast and beautiful region of our country from being a part of a then foreign and hostile empire.