Henry returned to Virginia in August and found himself summoned to his own military command. Remarkably, despite his lack of military experience, the Virginia Convention named him commander in chief of Virginia’s regular forces. Patrick Henry had won immense popularity in Virginia because of his advocacy of war. Now he would lead Virginia into that war against the greatest military power of the eighteenth century.
6
“TO CUT THE KNOT”
Independence
ON SEPTEMBER 18, 1775, Patrick Henry was commissioned as a colonel and as the leader of Virginia’s armed forces. Standing before the Virginia Committee of Safety, con-Standing before the Virginia Committee of Safety, convened in Hanover, he solemnly declared, “I, Patrick Henry, do swear that I will be faithful and true to the colony and dominion of Virginia; that I will serve the same to the utmost of my power, in defense of the just rights of America, against all enemies whatsoever.” He further promised to lay down arms when instructed by the assembly. “So help me God,” he intoned.1
Edmund Pendleton, president of the committee, presented Henry with a signed commission on parchment, directing him to “resist and repel all hostile invasions, and quell and suppress any insurrections which may be made or attempted against the peace and safety of this his majesty’s colony and dominion.” Even in this document of rebellion, the commission still acknowledged Virginia as the dominion of “his majesty,” the British king. With George Washington out of the colony, serving with the army in the North, that radical advocate for liberty, Patrick Henry, had become the most powerful man in Virginia. And, some thought, the most dangerous.2
OTHERS SAW LORD DUNMORE, the royal governor, as the colony’s most dangerous man. On November 7, 1775, Dunmore irredeemably alienated many of the remaining colonists who still supported him or sought to negotiate with him. Ever since Henry’s “Liberty or Death” speech in March, Dunmore had been threatening to free Virginia’s slaves. Now, in what he called “a most disagreeable but absolutely necessary step,” Dunmore declared “all indented servants, negroes, or others, (appertaining to rebels,) free that are able and willing to bear arms, they joining His Majesty’s troops as soon as may be.” Even though Dunmore (a slave owner himself) offered freedom only to those slaves who took up arms for the king, this was an unprecedented step toward emancipation. White Virginians were horrified. As colonel over Virginia’s armed forces, Henry warned county officers that the proclamation was “fatal to the public safety.” He called on all masters to monitor their slaves carefully, and advised slave patrols to watch for runaways.3
Even though Virginians such as Henry and Thomas Jefferson were fighting for liberty for Anglo-Americans, they could not fathom Dunmore’s declaration of liberty for slaves. In the Virginia of fall 1775, there existed no greater catalyst for independence than Dunmore’s proclamation; it convinced even reluctant rebels that the British meant to destroy them. The conflict between the colonists’ ideals of freedom and the realities of slave-owning and war produced contradictory positions in white Virginians. In the short term, freedom for white southerners meant keeping the slaves under control. At the same time, the patriots’ rhetoric of human liberty also forged the argument for the eventual freedom of slaves. Whatever slaveholding patriots, such as Jefferson, meant when they said “all men are created equal,” they could not keep their words from implicating slavery. The Revolution, in this ironic sense, set the stage for the Civil War and emancipation.
THE VIRGINIA CONVENTION DID NOT OFFER Henry his colonelship without reservation. Moderates such as Robert W. Carter worried that Henry was too radical. “I really fear trusting him, as he is very popular, and I know his principles,” Carter wrote to his father. Henry actually lost the first vote for command of Virginia’s First Regiment, but won a majority in a runoff. The convention made it clear to Henry that he was authorized to act only on their orders and that he was forbidden from taking off on any more unauthorized expeditions like the one following Dunmore’s seizure of the gunpowder. The convention believed that because of his popularity, Henry was the right choice for the job, and indeed he would find it relatively easy to recruit soldiers for his regiment, encamped near the College of William and Mary. Still, Henry’s radical tendencies worried them. To control their new military leader, the convention appointed a Committee of Safety to direct the war effort, with the moderate Edmund Pendleton as its chair. Henry would continuously clash with this committee during his brief tenure in charge of Virginia’s military.4
Henry’s exclusive command quickly came into question. In late October, the Committee of Safety ordered Colonel William Woodford, an officer with experience from the Seven Years’ War, to go to Norfolk to head off a British attack they feared would be launched there. They even granted Woodford authority to “give notice” to Henry if Woodford needed more men. Woodford’s regiment prevented the British from burning the town of Hampton, but the colonel’s action incited controversy over Henry’s precise role in the Virginia militia. By early November, a group of Henry’s officers complained to the Committee of Safety, a move that elicited a rebuke from Pendleton and the committee, who blamed Henry for his officers’ “irregular” meeting, which they viewed as a “mark of [the officers’] suspicion of our judgment and prudence in providing for the safety of this place.”5
Henry did continue to garner some admirers during his time as Virginia’s military commander. Philip Mazzei, an Italian businessman in Virginia who would play an active role in the Revolution, recalled meeting Henry, whom he called “a man who has no superior in eloquence or in patriotism,” on the way to Hampton. Henry movingly thanked the volunteers for coming on the expedition, even though they had not yet engaged the British directly. Mazzei and his Italian friends, along with the Virginia troops, were charmed.6
By late November 1775, Virginia was descending into chaos. Lord Dunmore’s notorious proclamation had heightened fears of violence among Virginians, but some in the colony warned slaves not to be duped by the British. Dunmore had offered slaves freedom only if they did his bidding, noted a writer in the Virginia Gazette. This writer—likely addressing white patriots more than slaves—said the Americans were the true friends of freedom, claiming they had long tried to stop the “horrid traffic” in chattel slavery and reminding readers of failed attempts by the House of Burgesses to ban the importation of slaves. The writer also warned the slaves that Dunmore might only sell them to the West Indies. “Be not then, ye negroes, tempted by this proclamation to ruin yourselves,” the Gazette cautioned.7
Nevertheless, Dunmore’s proclamation immediately led hundreds of slaves to join his forces. All told, somewhere between 800 and 1,500 Virginia slaves responded to the governor’s call. Aggravating the alarm among Virginians were rumors that the British agents in the backcountry were trying to recruit Native Americans to fight against the patriots, in attacks that would amount to a pincer movement with Dunmore’s slaves. The threats from slaves and Native Americans, combined with the presence of Loyalists in the Tidewater region, made the patriots fear what December might bring. Dunmore went on to occupy Norfolk, sending patriots streaming into the colony’s interior. The Goochland County Committee promised to take in refugees and called on fellow Virginians to “put their trust and confidence in the Supreme Being, whose arm is mighty to save, and who will, in due time, defend the cause of the oppressed.”8
The first sign of relief for the patriots came December 9, when, in the first major armed confrontation of the Revolution in Virginia, William Woodford won a critical battle against Dunmore at Great Bridge, near Norfolk. Woodford and Dunmore set up fortifications on opposite sides of the Elizabeth River, north of Norfolk. Fearing impending rebel reinforcements, Dunmore ordered British troops across the bridge, only to have them brutally repulsed. The battle showed Virginians the hellish nature of armed conflict, with one participant writing that he saw “the horrors of war in perfection, worse than can be imagined; 10 and 12 bullets through many; limbs broke in 2
or 3 places; brains turning out. Good God, what a sight!” Woodford tartly boasted that Great Bridge was “a second Bunker’s Hill affair, in miniature, with this difference, that we kept our post.” Patriots marched captive slaves and Loyalists in chains to the Williamsburg jail. Eager to get the imprisoned slaves out of Virginia, the patriots sold them to traders in the West Indies and reimbursed their Virginia owners—at least those masters who were not Loyalists.9
The patriot victory at Great Bridge did not resolve tensions over Henry’s position as commander in chief of Virginia’s military. If anything, Woodford’s success exacerbated the dissension between them. Henry hardly relished hanging back in the capital while Woodford confronted the hated Dunmore. Shortly before the Great Bridge battle, Henry complained to Woodford that he wasn’t receiving intelligence about the situation at Norfolk, plaintively telling Woodford that “in case you think any thing could be done to aid and forward the enterprise you have in hand, please to write it.” Henry was impatient for battle but could only wait to receive reports from Woodford. He continued to complain to the Committee of Safety, which lightly chastised Woodford two weeks after Great Bridge. They told Woodford that although he had a separate command from Henry’s, he ought to communicate promptly with the commander in chief about the status of his regiment and explained that Woodford was subject to Henry’s orders “when the Convention or Committee of Safety are not sitting, but that whilst either of these bodies are sitting he ought to receive his orders from one of them.”10
The Committee of Safety’s actions only postponed a resolution of Henry’s role. Some officials had begun to question Henry’s military skills, suggesting that his meteoric celebrity, not military qualifications, had led him to receive his command, and wondering whether Henry should return to a legislative role. Edmund Pendleton, Henry’s antagonist on the Committee of Safety, wrote directly to Woodford and expressed concerns about Henry’s competence. Pendleton told Woodford that “the unlucky step of calling that gentleman from our councils where he was useful, into the field in an important station, the duties of which he must in the nature of things, be an entire stranger to, has given me many an anxious and uneasy moment.” Even George Washington wrote caustically in February 1776 that “my countrymen made a capitol mistake when they took Henry out of the Senate to place him in the field; and pity it is he does not see this, and remove every difficulty by a voluntary resignation.” Henry had not done anything wrong except to make moderates nervous, but officers such as Washington legitimately preferred leaders in the field who had military experience.11
Henry’s closest friends also suspected his talents were better suited for the civil sphere than for the military. John Adams, one of Henry’s firmest patriot allies outside of Virginia, believed Henry would be useful in the army at this point because his oratorical gifts would motivate men for war. But he believed that Henry and Pennsylvania’s John Dickinson were “better statesmen than soldiers, though I cannot say they are not very good in the latter character. Henry’s principles, and systems, are much more comfortable to mine than the others, however.”12
The uproar over Henry’s position in the army climaxed when the Continental Congress merged regiments of the Virginia military into the Continental army. The Congress retained Henry as colonel over the First Virginia Regiment but took away his position as commander in chief. Moderates in Virginia, especially Edmund Pendleton, undoubtedly played a role in Henry’s demotion. When the Committee of Safety offered Henry his commission as colonel, he “declared he could not accept of the same” and abruptly retired from military service.13
Henry’s demotion and resignation nearly caused mutiny in the First Regiment. Patriot soldiers admired Henry’s leadership record and questioned whether they could keep serving leaders who treated their hero this way. When they got the news of his resignation, the troops went into “deep mourning” and told Henry that they applauded his “spirited resentment to the most glaring indignity.” Henry tried to reassure them, saying “I leave the service, but I leave my heart with you. May God bless you, and give you success and safety, and make you the glorious instruments of saving our country.” The day the news reached his troops, Henry dined with many of the soldiers at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, where some of the men threatened to resign in protest of Henry’s demotion, saying they would not serve under any other commander. To quell this revolt, Henry stayed an extra night in Williamsburg, assuring the soldiers that they could keep serving in good conscience and that he would work for the patriot cause in a legislative capacity. This quieted the surge of unrest, and the Virginia Gazette reported that the men were “pretty well reconciled” again to the American cause.14
The controversy over Henry’s demotion and resignation churned in Virginia newspapers throughout March 1776, only months before the colony would declare independence from Britain. “A Friend to Truth” gave an account of the affair in the Virginia Gazette and claimed that the Committee of Safety had not meddled in Congress’s decision. It was a matter of military policy, not personal rivalry, that had dictated the change in leadership. In the same issue, “An Honest Farmer” countered that jealous moderates had tried to neutralize Henry by confining him to a meaningless position. No one could keep Henry down, the Honest Farmer asserted, because he was Virginia’s “able statesman, the soldier’s father, the best of citizens, and liberty’s dear friend. Clad with innocence, as in a coat of mail, he is proof against every serpentile whisper.”15
The squabbling between Henry and the Virginia moderates had almost created a revolt in the army, but by late March, Richard Henry Lee wrote that it gave him “pleasure to find the mutinous spirit of our soldiery so well subdued.” As Washington had noted, Henry probably was not suited to military leadership. Ironically, the shabby treatment he received from the Committee of Safety may have produced an outcome in Virginia’s best interest: Henry’s return to the political stage, where he had belonged all along.16
PATRICK HENRY HAD LONG PUSHED Virginians to resist parliamentary authority and to fight for America’s liberty. But in 1776, he and his fellow patriots had to confront the most difficult decision they would face in all their years of advocating for the rights and liberties of Americans: declaring independence. It may seem strange that the fighting with the British commenced more than a year before Americans finally declared their commitment to self-rule, but this delay indicated how fearsome the prospect of independence was for most colonists. Independence entailed not only resistance to an unjust government but also an outright rejection of the king himself. It would indisputably cast America’s political leaders like Henry as traitors, and require the formation of new alliances with European powers, such as the long-despised French. Even radicals, including Henry, seemed to take a collective breath before venturing into the uncharted landscape of independence.
Lord Dunmore had made independence a more compelling option for most of Virginia’s colonists through his offer to emancipate slaves, but the patriots still had to make the case publicly. In Virginia, as elsewhere, the anonymous publication of Tom Paine’s provocative pamphlet Common Sense in early 1776 electrified the debate over independence. Paine was almost the same age as Henry but had moved to Philadelphia from England only in 1774, leaving behind a ruined marriage and ruinous finances, and the specter of debtor’s prison. What he brought with him was a phenomenal talent for rhetoric. Paine’s brilliant, passionate writing matched Henry’s oratory, and they became the two greatest catalysts of the Revolution.
In February, the Virginia Gazette printed a lengthy excerpt from Common Sense, ending with Paine’s proclamation that the battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775 had sealed his contempt for King George III: “No man was a warmer wisher for reconciliation than myself, before the fatal 19th of April 1775; but the moment the event of that day was made known I rejected the hardened, sullen-tempered Pharaoh of England forever, and disdain the wretch, that, with the pretended title of father of his people, can unfee
lingly hear of their slaughter, and composedly sleep with their blood upon his soul.” British sympathizers thought Common Sense was deplorable. A cranky Briton in Virginia named Nicholas Creswell, who was desperately trying to find a way to ship out of the colony, wrote in January 1776 that “a pamphlet called ‘Commonsense’ makes a great noise. One of the vilest things that ever was published to the world. Full of false representations, lies, calumny, and treason, whose principles are to subvert all kingly governments and erect an independent republic. I believe the writer to be some Yankey Presbyterian, member of the Congress.” A week later, Creswell harrumphed that “nothing but independence will go down. The Devil is in the people.” 17
Paine and other advocates for independence had their work cut out for them, both in Virginia and in the other colonies. Writing from Cambridge, Massachusetts, in early April, George Washington acknowledged that agreeing to independence would represent a major break with the past for Virginians. “My countrymen I know, from their form of government, and steady attachment heretofore to royalty, will come reluctantly into the idea of independency; but time, and persecution, brings many wonderful things to pass.” Washington thought Paine’s pamphlet had clinched the argument: “by private letters which I have lately received from Virginia, I find Common Sense is working a powerful change there in the minds of many men.” 18
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