The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 1 (of 9)

The circumstances of the defeat of General Gates's army, near Camden, in August, 1780, being of historical notoriety, this statement is omitted.

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Battle of Camden, August 16th, 1780.

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TO LIEUTENANT COLONEL NISBET BALFOUR, COMMANDER AT NINETY-SIX

I have the happiness to inform you, that on Wednesday the 16th instant, I totally defeated General Gates's army. One thousand were killed and wounded, about eight hundred taken prisoners. We are in possession of eight pieces of brass cannon, all they had in the field, all their ammunition wagons, a great number of arms, and one hundred and thirty baggage wagons; in short, there never was a more complete victory. I have written to Lieutenant Colonel Turnbull, whom I sent to join Major Johnson on Little river, to push on after General Sumpter to the Waxhaws, whose detachment is the only collected force of rebels in all this country. Colonel Tarleton is in pursuit of Sumpter. Our loss is about three hundred killed and wound, chiefly of the thirty-third regiment and volunteers, of Ireland. I have given orders that all the inhabitants of this province, who have subscribed and taken part in this revolt, should be punished with the greatest rigor; also, that those who will not turn out, may be imprisoned, and their whole property taken from them, and destroyed. I have also ordered that satisfaction should be made for their estates, to those who have been injured and oppressed by them. I have ordered, in the most positive manner, that every militia man who has borne arms with us and afterwards joined the enemy, shall be immediately hanged. I desire you will take the most rigorous measures to punish the rebels in the district in which you command, and that you will obey, in the strictest manner, the directions I have given in this letter, relative to the inhabitants of this country.

    Cornwallis.

August, 1780.

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About the 22d of Oct. 1780, a British fleet made its appearance in the Chesapeake, having on board some three thousand troops, under the command of General Leslie. Different detachments were landed near Portsmouth, Hampton, and on the bay-side of Princess Anne. The whole force was subsequently collected at Portsmouth; but Leslie, probably disappointed in his expectation of forming a juncture with Cornwallis, suddenly re-embarked for South Carolina. On the 29th of the following December, Arnold made his appearance, with twenty-seven sail of vessels, within the Virginian capes, and commenced his invasion. On 26th of March, 1781, he was superseded in his command by General Phillips, who joined him at Portsmouth with some two thousand troops.—Ed.

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TO LORD CORNWALLIS

    Portsmouth, Virginia, November 4th, 1780.

My Lord,—I have been here near a week, establishing a post. I wrote to you to Charleston, and by another messenger, by land. I cannot hear, for a certainty, where you are: I wait your orders. The bearer is to be handsomely rewarded, if he brings me any note or mark from your Lordship.

    A. L.

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Probably addressed to General Gates.

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After the battle of Camden—August 16th, 1780—Congress removed General Gates from the command of the Southern army, and placed General Green at its head. In December, 1780, he assumed the command.

97

One of the Convention prisoners, in Albemarle.

98

This letter has no address, but it was probably to General Muhlenburg.

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Governor of North Carolina.

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General Greene, after taking command of the Southern army, divided his force, and sent one division of it, under General Morgan, to the western part of South Carolina. Cornwallis, who was now nearly prepared to invade North Carolina, unwilling to leave Morgan in his rear, sent Tarleton in pursuit of him. The two detachments met on the 17th of January, 1781, when the battle of Cowpens was fought, and Tarleton defeated. Cornwallis, after the defeat of Tarleton, abandoned the invasion of North Carolina for the present, and started in pursuit of Morgan. Greene, suspecting his intention, hastened to join Morgan, and, after a fatiguing march, effected a junction at Guilford Court House. During this march he was closely pursued by Cornwallis, who, as stated in the above letter, "burnt his own wagons in order to enable himself to move with greater facility." After this junction at Guilford Court House, Greene crossed the Dan, into Virginia—again narrowly escaping the pursuit of Cornwallis, who now retired to Hillsborough, where, erecting the royal standard, he issued his proclamation, inviting the loyalists to join him, and sent Tarleton with a detachment to support a body of them collected between the Havre and Deep Rivers. Greene, having despatched Generals Pickens and Lee to watch the movements of Tarleton, and having been reinforced in Virginia, now returned into North Carolina, and fought the battle of Guilford Court House on the 8th of March, 1781.—Ed.

101

M. de Marbois was attached to the French Legation in Philadelphia.—Ed.

102

On the 15th of June, 1781, Mr. Jefferson was appointed, with Mr. Adams, Dr. Franklin, Mr. Jay, and Mr. Laurens, Minister Plenipotentiary for negotiating peace, then expected to be effected through the mediation of the Empress of Russia—Ed.

103

In 1781, the depredations of the enemy, and the public and private losses which they occasioned, produced the ordinary effect of complaint against those who had charge of the public defence, and especially against Mr. Jefferson (the Governor of Virginia). A popular clamor was excited against him, and, under the impulses of the moment, Mr. George Nicholas, a member from Albermarle, moved his impeachment.

The charges were, 1. That he had not, as soon as advised by General Washington of the meditated invasion, put the country in a state of preparation and defence; 2. That during the invasion, he did not use the means of resistance which were at his command; 3. That he too much consulted his personal safety, when Arnold first entered Richmond, by which others were dispirited and discouraged; 4. That he ignominiously fled from Monticello to the neighboring mountain on Tarleton's approach to Charlottesville; and 5. That he abandoned the office of Governor as soon as it became one of difficulty and danger.

Mr. Jefferson has been long since acquitted of these charges by the almost unanimous voice of his countrymen.—Ed.

104

The battle of Yorktown.

105

The title of Virginia to the Northwestern territory was controverted, as early as 1779, by some of the other States, upon the ground that all lands, the title of which had originally been in the crown and had never been alienated, were the common property of the Confederation, by right of conquest—the revolution having transferred the title from the British sovereign to the Confederation. This view was resisted by Virginia in an able remonstrance to Congress in October, 1779. The question, however, never came to an issue; for Virginia, moved by a patriotic impulse, and ready to sacrifice her individual interest to the general good, made a voluntary cession of the whole territory to the Confederation.

106

Mr. Jefferson's reasons for now accepting this appointment, which he had previously declined, are thus explained by himself:—"I had, about two months before, lost the cherished companion of my life [his wife], in whose affection, unabated on both sides, I had lived the last ten years in unchequered happiness." On the 19th of December, 1782, he left Monticello for Philadelphia, where he intended to embark for Europe; but the French Minister Luzerne, offering him a passage in the French frigate Romulus, then lying below Baltimore, he accepted the offer. The sailing of this frigate being delayed by ice, and a British fleet on the coast, information, in the meantime, reached America that a provisional treaty of peace had been signed by the American Commissioners, to become absolute on the conclusion of peace between France and England. On the arrival of this information, Mr. Jefferson was released from his mission, and returned to his home in Virginia on the 15th May, 1783.—Ed.

107

The death of Mrs. Jefferson.

108

BY THE UNITED STATES IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED:

    February 14, 1783.

The committee consisting of Mr. Jones, Mr. Rutledge, and Mr. Wilson, to whom was referred a letter of the 7th from the Honorable Thomas Jefferson, reported thereon, whereupon on motion of Mr. Gorham, seconded by Mr. Wolcott, ordered: That the Secretary for Foreign Affairs inform Mr. Jefferson, that it is the pleasure of Congress, considering the advices lately received in America and the probable situation of affairs in Europe, that he do not proceed on his intended voyage until he shall receive their further instructions.

    Charles Thompson, (copied)
    Secretary.

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