CHAPTER XXIX.

Greene carries the war into South Carolina.-Lee detached to join Marion.-Cornwallis invades Virginia.-Singular occurrence to Lee's Legion.-Lee and Marion move against Fort Watson and advance against Col. Watson,-Operations around Camden and battle of Hobkirk's Hill.-Marion and Lee move against Col. Watson.-Greene crosses the Wateree.-Rawdon evacuates Camden.-Fort Motte taken by Marion and Lee.- Orangeburg taken by Sumter.-Lee takes Fort Granby.-Greene joins the Light Corps.-Rawdon retires to Monk's Corner.-Lee takes Fort Galphin.Joins Pickens and Clarke before Augusta.-They take Fort Grierson.-Death of Major Eaton.-Greene besieges Ninety-six.-Fall of Augusta.-Various operations resulting in the evacuation of Ninety-six.-Skirmishes and manoeuvres.-Greene retires to the high hills of Santee.-Col. Hampton disperses and captures a body of mounted refugees.-Affair at Quimby Bridge.-The Light Corps join the main army at the High Hills.--Reflections on the campaign.

THE hostile army being separated, General Greene turned his attention to the improvement of his unresisted possession of the field.

and Greene the regulated statesman-the élène of Montesquieu and Lockethat Greene would have occasioned the same strictures, which were actually applied to Jefferson. Hence, from these distinct forces, arose our federal and democratic parties-' ex illo fonte derivata clades.' The men of the sword who defended the country necessarily for the most part became federalists-the men of the pen who taught the nature and value of liberty, and snuffed the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.' became democrats, adhered more literally to the true grounds of the revolution, and had to protect liberty from her most devoted friends. I cannot pursue this interesting subject at present any further, but it is my intention in a work which I propose commencing as soon as I get out this second edition of my father's, to unfold from this foundation the history and character of our political parties-their relation to the events of the revolution, and their operations on the structure and administration of our government. I have ventured to trouble you with this reference to the subject, in hopes of obtaining in addition to such matter as may relate to your own history, lights that may lead and quicken me in developing this branch of our annals. I will add, that I think the effect of this division has on the whole been useful, and that I hope to explain in what manner, and in what degree. Of course I use the word clades in the quotation, not as Horace intended it. With veneration and esteem, your ob't serv't,

"MR. JEFFERSON, Monticello."

"H. LEE. "MONTICELLO, May 15, 1826.

"DEAR SIR, -The sentiments of justice which have dictated your letters of the third and ninth instant, are worthy of all praise, and merit and meet my thankful acknowledgments. Were your father now living, and proposing as you are, to publish a second edition of his memoirs, I am satisfied, he would give a very different aspect to the pages of that work, which respect Arnold's invasion and surprise of Richmond, in the winter of 1780-1. He was then, I believe, in South Carolina, too distant from the scene of these transactions, to relate them on his own knowledge, or even to sift them from the chaff of rumors, then afloat, rumors which vanished soon before the real truth, as vapors before the sun obliterated, by their notoriety, from every candid mind, and by the voice of the many, who, as actors or spectators, knew what had truly passed. The facts shall speak for themselves.

"General Washington had just given notice to all the governors on the sea

Whether to approach Wilmington, with a view of opposing Cornwallis's operations at the threshold; or to take a more salubrious

board, north and south, that an embarkation was taking place at New York, destined for the southward, as was given out there, and on Sunday, the 31st of December, 1780, we received information that a fleet had entered our Capes; it happened fortunately, that our legislature was at that moment in session, and within two days of their rising. So that, during these two days, we had the benefit of their presence, and of the counsel and information of the members, individually. On Monday, the 1st of January, we were in suspense, as to the destination of this fleet, whether up the bay or up our river. On Tuesday, at 10 o'clock, however, we received information that they had entered the James River; and, on general advice, we instantly prepared orders for calling in the militia, one half from the nearer counties, and a fourth from the more remote, which would constitute a force of between four and five thousand men; of which orders the members of the legislature, which adjourned that day, took charge, each to his respective county, and we began the removal of every thing from Richmond. The wind being fair and strong, the enemy ascended the river as rapidly as the expresses could ride, who were dispatched to us from time to time to notify their progress. At 5 P. M. on Thursday, we learnt that they had The whole militia of the adjacent counties were now called for, and to come on individually, without waiting any regular array. At 1 P. M. the next day (Friday), they entered Richmond, and on Saturday, after twenty-four hours' possession, burning some houses, destroying property, &c., they retreated, encamped that evening ten miles below, and reached their shipping at Westover, the next day (Sunday).

then been three hours landed at Westover.

"By this time had assembled three hundred militia under Colonel Nicholas, six miles above Westover, and two hundred under General Nelson, at Charles City Court-House, eight miles below; two or three hundred at Petersburg bad put themselves under General Smallwood, of Maryland, accidentally there on his passage through the State; and Baron Steuben with eight hundred, and Colonel Gibson with one thousand, were also on the south side of James River, aiming to reach Hood's before the enemy should have passed it; where they hoped they could arrest them. But the wind having shifted, carried them down as prosperously as it had brought them up the river. Within the first five days, therefore, about twenty-five hundred men had collected at three or four different points ready for junction.

"I was absent myself from Richmond, but always within observing distance of the enemy, three days only; during which I was never off my horse but to take food or rest; and was everywhere, where my presence could be of any service; and I may, with confidence, challenge any one to put his finger on the point of time when I was in a state of remissness from any duty of my station. But I was not with the army!-True: for, 1st. Where was it? 2d. I was engaged in the more important functions of taking measures to collect an army and, without military education myself, instead of jeopardizing the public safety by pretending to take its command, of which I knew nothing, I had committed that to persons of the art-men who knew how to make the best use of it; to Steuben, for instance, to Nelson and others, possessing that military skill and experience of which I had none.

Let our condition, too, at that time, be duly considered; without arms, without money of effect, without a regular soldier in the State, or a regular officer, except Steuben; a militia scattered over the country and called at a moment's warning to leave their families and friends, in the dead of winter, to meet an enemy ready marshalled and prepared at all points to receive them! Yet had time been given them by the tardy retreat of that enemy, I have no doubt but the rush to arms, and to the protection of their country, would have been as

and distant position, with Virginia in his rear, and there to wait his lordship's advance toward his long-meditated victim, became at first

rapid and universal as in their invasion during our late war; when at the first moment of notice our citizens rose in mass, from every part of the State, and, without waiting to be marshalled by their officers, armed themselves, and marched off by ones and by twos, as quickly as they could equip themselves. Of the individuals of the same house, one would start in the morning, a second at noon, a third in the evening; no one waiting an hour for the company of another. This I saw myself on the late occasion, and should have seen on the former, had wind and tide, and a Howe, instead of an Arnold, slackened their pace ever so little.

"And is the surprise of an open and unarmed place, although called a city and even a capital, so unprecedented as to be matter of indelible reproach?—Which of our capitals during the same war, was not in possession of the same enemy, not merely by surprise and for a day only, but permanently? That of Georgia? of South Carolina? North Carolina? Pennsylvania? New York? Connecticut? Rhode Island? Massachusetts? And, if others were not, it was because the enemy saw no object in taking possession of them-add to the list in the late war, Washington also, the metropolis of the Union, covered by a fort, with troops, and a dense population; and, what capital on the continent of Europe (St. Petersburg and its regions of ice excepted) did not Bonaparte take and hold at his pleasure? Is it then just that Richmond and its authorities alone should be placed under the reproach of history, because, in a moment of peculiar denudation of resources, by the coup de main of an enemy, led on by the hand of fortune, directing the winds and weather to their wishes, it was surprised and held for twenty-four hours? Or, strange that that enemy, with such advantages should be enabled then to get off without risking the honors he had achieved by burnings and destructions of property, peculiar to his principles of warfare? We at least may leave these glories to their own trumpet.

"During this crisis of trial I was left alone, unassisted by the co-operation of a single public functionary; for, with the legislature, every member of the council had departed, to take care of his own family, unaided even in my bodily labors, but by my horse, and he, exhausted at length by fatigue, sank under me in the public road, where I had to leave him, and, with my saddle and bridle on my shoulders, to walk a-foot to the nearest farm, where I borrowed an unbroken colt, and proceeded to Manchester, opposite Richmond, which the enemy had evacuated a few hours before.

"Without pursuing these minute details, I will here ask the favor of you to turn to Girardin's History of Virginia, where such of them as are worthy the notice of history are related in that scale of extension, which its objects adınit. That work was written at Milton, within two or three miles of Monticello; and at the request of the author, I communicated to him every paper I possessed on the subject, of which he made the use he thought proper for his work (see his pages 453, 460, and the Appendix xi.-xv.). I can assure you of the truth of every fact he has drawn from these papers, and of the genuineness of such as he has taken the trouble of copying. It happened that during these eight days of incessant labor, for the benefit of my own memory, I carefully noted every circumstance worth it. These memorandums were often written on horseback, and on scraps of paper taken out of my pocket at the moment, fortunately preserved to this day, and now lying before me. I wish you could see them. But my papers of that period are stitched together in large masses, and so tattered and tender, as not to admit removal farther than from their shelves to a reading table. They bear an internal evidence of fidelity which must carry conviction to every one who sees them. We have nothing in our neighborhood which could compensate the trouble of a visit to it, unless perhaps our University,

the subject of deliberation. Very soon a plan of action was submitted to the general, radically repugnant to those which had risen

which I believe you have not seen, and I can assure you is worth seeing. Should you think So, I would ask as much of your time at Monticello, as would enable you to examine these papers at your ease. Many others, too, are interspersed among them, which have relation to your object, many letters from General Gates, Greene, Stevens, and others engaged in the Southern war; and in the North also. All should be laid open to you without reserve-for there is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world. During the invasion of Arnold, Phillips, and Cornwallis, until my time of office expired, I made it a point, once a week, by letters to the President of Congress and to General Washington, to give them an exact narrative of the transactions of the week. These letters should still be in the Office of State, in Washington, and in the presses of Mount Vernon. Or, if the former were destroyed by the conflagrations of the British, the latter are surely safe, and may be appealed to in corroboration of what I have now written.

"There is another transaction very erroneously stated in the same work, which, although not concerning myself, is within my own knowledge, and I think it a duty to communicate it to you. I am sorry that, not being in possession of a copy of the Memoirs, I am not able to quote the passage, and still less the facts themselves, verbatim, from the text; but of the substance recollected, I am certain. It is said there, that about the time of Tarleton's expedition up the North branch of James River to Charlottesville and Monticello, Simcoe was detached up the Southern branch, and penetrated as far as New London, in Bedford, where he destroyed a depot of arins, &c., &c., I was with my family at the time at a possession I have within three miles of New London, and I can assure you of my knowledge, that he did not advance to within fifty miles of New London. Having reached the lower end of Buckingham, as I have understood, he heard of a depot of arms and a party of new recruits under Baron Steuben, somewhere in Prince Edward. He left the Buckingham road, immediately at or near Francisco's, pushed directly south at this new object, was disappointed and returned to and down James River to head-quarters. I had then returned to Monticello myself, and from thence saw the smoke of his conflagration, of houses and property on that river, as they successively arose in the horizon at a distance of twenty-five or thirty miles. I must repeat that his excursion from Francisco's is not within my own knowledge, but as I have heard it from the inhabitants on the Buckingham road, which for many years I travelled six or eight times a year. The particulars of that therefore may need inquiry and correction.

"These are all the recollections within the scope of your request, which I can state with precision and certainty, and of these you are free to make what use you think proper in the new edition of your father's work; and with them I pray you to accept assurances of my great esteem and respect.

"H. LEE, Esq.”

"TH. JEFFERSON. "MONTICELLO, May 30, 1826. "DEAR SIR, Your favor of the 25th came to hand yesterday, and I shall be happy to receive you at the time you mention, or at any other if any other shall be more convenient to you.

"Not being now possessed of a copy of General Lee's Memoirs, as I before observed to you, I may have mis-remembered the passage respecting Simcoe's expedition, and very willingly stand corrected. The only facts relative to it, which I can state from personal knowledge are, that being at Monticello on the 9th, 10th, and 11th of June, '81, on one of those days (I cannot now ascertain which) I distinctly saw the smokes of houses successively arising in the horizon

into notice, and which, combating both in principle, reduced the discussion to a single point: "Shall the army wait upon the enemy, or shall it instantly advance upon Camden." *

a little beyond James River, and which 1 learned from indubitable testimony were kindled by his corps; and that being within three or four miles of New London, from that time to the 25th of July, he did not, within that space of time, reach New London; but all this may be better explained viva voce; and in the mean time I repeat assurances of my great esteem and respect. "TH. JEFFERSON.

"H. LEE, Esq."

In further justification of Mr. Jefferson, it may be proper to add, that although a motion to impeach him was made in the Assembly, by Mr. George Nicholas, and a day appointed for commencing the trial-on which day Mr. Jefferson attended, prepared to meet the prosecution-the mover abandoned the impeachment and both houses unanimously adopted the following resolution :-"Resolved, That the sincere thanks of the General Assembly be given to our former governor, Thomas Jefferson, Esq., for his impartial, upright, and attentive administration whilst in office. The assembly wish, in the strongest manner, to declare the high opinion which they entertain of Mr. Jefferson's ability, rectitude, and integrity, as chief magistrate of this Commonwealth; and mean, by thus publicly avowing their opinion, to obviate and to remove all unmerited censure."

It is obvious that, if Mr. Jefferson had been in fault, the General Assembly would have been equally to blame, for the unprepared and defenceless state in which Arnold found the seat of government of Virginia; and that ihe exhausted state of the Commonwealth, both as to men and money, the disinclination of the people to any thing like the maintenance of a standing force, with the uncertainty of Arnold's destination, and the fortuitous rapidity of his progress, were sufficient causes for his success and our disasters. In so far as the observations in the text are applicable to these causes, they are perfectly just.-ED.

*The natural inference from the language of this passage is, that Lee himself suggested the plan of operations which is here about to be detailed; and as it eventuated so happily for the fame of General Greene and the independence of America, it appears proper to furnish the reader with a summary of such facts as substantiate the intrinsic probability of the intimation. First among these is the positive affirmation of competent and unimpeachable witnesses. The honorable Peter Johnston of Virginia, who was a lieutenant in Lee's Legion, and Doctor Matthew Irvine of Charleston, who was his cavalry surgeon, and the confidential friend of himself and of General Greene; both testifying to the same point, and the latter declaring that he was himself the organ confided in by Lee for communicating this counsel to Greene. (See the letters of these gentlemen, in the Campaign of 1781, p. 399, and seq.) Next in order are the expressions of Greene himself in his letter written (p. 297) three days after his defeat at Camden, and under the mortifying reflections it produced. "I have run every hazard to promote your plan of operations." Showing clearly, that Greene well knew it belonged to Lee. Indeed it is impossible to believe that at this moment of depression and anxiety he would be so weak and ungenerous as to impute to the counsels of a friend and fellow-soldier, the origin of a disastrous measure, which he was conscious had proceeded from the uninfluenced conceptions in his own mind. The evidence of these circumstances appears to be conclusive, that the suggestion was made by Lee; and the only doubt which can remain is, whether Greene might not have conceived the plan simultaneously with Lee, or independently of him. At best, this is merely possible, and I know not, that history has any thing to do with possibilities. That Lee conceived it, is an historical fact, as well attested as that he conceived the eloquent