don, the seat of Benjamin Harrison, Esq., and the second division at City Point. Persuaded that the enemy's present object was the possession of Petersburg, for the purpose of meeting Lord Cornwallis, whose approach to Halifax was known, La Fayette determined to move by forced marches in that direction. The British general advancing with equal rapidity, and being nearer to Petersburg, reached it first. Phillips had flattered himself, that the powerful advantage derived from the celerity and ease with which his army might be conveyed by water, would enable him to strike decisively the American general, whom he hoped to allure low down the neck formed by the James and Chickahominy. While occupied in the incipient step to this end, he received Lord Cornwallis's dispatch, forwarded, as has been before mentioned, when that general commenced his march from Wilmington; and therefore hurried to Petersburg, the designated point of junction. Though young and enterprising, La Fayette was too sagacious to have risked the bold measure of occupying Petersburg, even had he been free to act as his own judgment might direct; but acting as he did in a subordinate character, he never could have been induced to violate orders. Major-General Greene, commanding in the Southern Department, directed the operations in Virginia as well as in Carolina; and apprehending loss from temerity, he enjoined, first on Baron Steuben, and afterward upon his successor, the preservation of the army, by avoiding general action, and confining his operation to the "petit guerre;" convinced that a steady adherence to this system only could save the South. It is not to be presumed, that, with such instructions from his superior, at the head of a force inferior to that under Phillips, with a few lately raised cavalry, the American general would have hazarded placing himself between Cornwallis and the army under Phillips. But in his difficult situation, it was necessary to preserve appearances, to keep the country in good spirits, as well as to render his soldiers strict in attention to duty, never so susceptible of discipline as when impressed with the conviction that battle is at hand. Finding the British general in occupation of Petersburg, La Fayette fell back; and recrossing James River, took a position upon its northern margin, some miles below Richmond. Here he exerted himself to increase the ability of his army, by diminishing his baggage, establishing system and punctuality in its several departments, and introducing throughout rigid discipline. Nor was he unmindful of the peril which awaited the public stores again collected in Richmond; notwithstanding the

severe admonition lately received from Brigadier Arnold. To their removal he applied all the aid in his power, which was effected in due time, though unhappily not to a proper place.*

* Upon this and similar observations in the text, the following correspondence was held with Mr. Jefferson a short time before his death. His eloquent justification appears to be directed against severer strictures than those to be found in the memoirs which apply rather to the inefficiency of the government of Virginia at the time, than to the particular executive magistrate. It is certain that, during the excitement of the revolutionary contest, and subsequent political contentions, injurious accusations were levelled at this illustrious patriot; and it would seem that, not having a copy of this work before him, he wrote under the impression that it repeated them. The fact is otherwise, and the reader will perceive that the tone of the author is moderate, and the character of his observations for the most part general.—ED.

"WASHINGTON, 3d May, 1826. "SIR,-At the request of some military friends, and in compliance with a desire which I have for several years entertained, I am preparing a second edition of my father's Memoirs of the Southern War-with his own MS. corrections, with the advantage of various suggestions from Colonel Howard, and with such additions and explanations, as my own acquaintance with the subject will enable me to furnish.

"In this undertaking I have reached the second volume, and find that the account given of Arnold's invasion is not favorable to your foresight or energy. Between the 1st and 19th pages, the narrative and reflections will be found to which I allude, and I think it my duty as an impartial understrapper in historic labors to notify you of the task I am now engaged in, and to offer either to incorporate such explanations, as you may choose to furnish me with, and as may appear satisfactory to my judgment, in my own notes to the work; or to subjoin your own statements, under your own name, with a proper reference to the text, and every advantage that may secure you fair play.

"Reserving at the same time, if you prefer the latter course, the right of accompanying your statements with such observations as my sense of truth and justice may dictate, if it should dictate any. I make this reservation with a view of holding the independence of my own mind clear and undoubted, as every man who writes of his contemporaries ought to do. In this sentiment I hope you will agree with me, and see that it is compatible with perfect respect for yourself. With the highest esteem, your ob't servant,

"H. LEE." "9th May, 1826.

"SIR,-Since my last letter, it has occurred to me that it should have contained an idea which it did not express. It is this, that under the circumstances in which the governors of States, and the Continental officers were placed, it is reasonable to suppose that, however correct the conduct of the former may have been, the opinions of the latter would be unfavorable to them. Indeed, the more accurate, the more limited by law, and those considerations which have now ripened into State rights-the more tender of individual liberty and private property the governor may have been, the more censorious and dissatisfied would the Continental officer become, whose views were solely and ardently fixed on rescuing the country from subjection to Britain, and who was ready to risk even liberty itself for independence. It is therefore really a proof of your respective merits that my father and General Greene should have supposed you were not quite as military and energetic-not quite as prompt and grasping in preparing and applying the means of the State-' our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor,' to public use and warlike purposes, as you ought to have been; and I have little doubt if Jefferson had been the military chieftain,'

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 then been three hours landed at Westover. 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).

"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 had 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 inilitia 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 admit. 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,