_Travels in Virginia in
Revolutionary Times_
COPYRIGHTED BY
J. P. BELL COMPANY, INC.
LYNCHBURG, VA.
1922
Travels _in_ Virginia
_in_ Revolutionary
Times
EDITED BY
A. J. MORRISON
ADVERTISEMENT
This is a book of Travels in Virginia during a period that may be
called revolutionary, from the year 1769 to the year 1802, when the
United States lay still to the east of France and Spain, and the
limit of Virginia to the west was the river Ohio: it was a proud
commonwealth, and with reason, territorially, in the character of
its ruling people, and in that inexplicable inheritance which has
made Virginia significant. It is interesting to observe, among these
travellers, how carefully the best informed of them estimate the
strength of Virginia, whether justly or not regarded at home and here
and there abroad as the most influential of the new states. Those were
extraordinary years in the making of America, the fund of the capital
of the country, as it were, accumulating to the point of application
in surprising ways. It is well to look back, through foreign eyes, and
see a little of what the situation was at that time in the State of the
first dynasty.
Of these travellers, one was in the country before the war and his
memoranda introduce the Revolution--very peaceful, then disturbances,
and then musquetry, the author shooting for King George; another
came with the good King’s troops and saw Virginia on parole; one was
a chaplain in the army of the allies, one a general officer of that
army, and there was a surgeon to the enemies from Hesse, whose book is
excellent in a series of remarkable books. The others came after the
war, men of science, youngsters seeing the world, a missionary, a sad
emigrant from France, and a sailor who had quitted the sea and embarked
in the novelist’s business. A notable group of observers, and if, even
where they are most explicit, we could see but a small part of what
they intend us to see, what a picture. From year’s end to year’s end,
decade to decade, the century is out, and everything is different; and
to come at the truth of the matter as it was before we should have to
retrace every step of the way, and that is impossible. As a makeshift
we read novels and documented histories.
The method in the chapters following has been to let the traveller
tell his own story, interrupting him where he seems least interesting,
adding very little, making him responsible for his version of the
facts. It is not so much the itemized account that is wanted as the
proceeds of the whole, the general balance as one impression. As many
travellers, so many roads and they may follow but one. The young man
will be apt to lose his temper and record disagreeable things. The
great man, treated with consideration, will, if his digestion is good,
be careful to be polite. The season will be a factor, for earth roads
are not the same winter and summer. However, we should not be greatly
deceived by the verdicts of eleven intelligent men who traverse the
greater part of a given region during a space of thirty years.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. Narrative of John F. D. Smyth: 1769-1775 9
II. Anburey, and the Convention Army in Virginia: 1779 23
III. The Abbé Robin, One of the Chaplains to the French Army
in America: 1781 31
IV. The Marquis of Chastellux, Major-General in the French
Army and Member of the French Academy: 1782 39
V. Dr. Schoepf, Surgeon to the Hessian Troops
(Ansbach-Bayreuth Division): 1783 49
VI. Count Castiglioni, Chevalier of the Order of St.
Stephen, P. M.: 1786 61
VII. Missionary Journeys of Dr. Coke: 1785-1791 71
VIII. A Summer at Bath--Captain Bayard: 1791 81
IX. What Isaac Weld Saw: 1796 91
X. The Duke of La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt: 1796 111
XI. John Davis of Salisbury: 1801-1802 123
List of Travels 137
_I._
_NARRATIVE OF JOHN F. D. SMYTH._
_1769-1775._
_Captain Smyth--The Capes and Jamestown--Williamsburg
and the Races--Richmond--Music of the
Bullfrog--Blandford--Petersburg--Swede’s Bridge--Hicks’s Bridge--Mr.
Willis--James River Lowgrounds--Summer Routine of the Planter.
North Carolina--The Lower Sawra Towns--Journey to Kentucky--Indian
Braves--Fort on Smith’s River--The Wart Mountain: Amazing
Perspective--Judge Henderson’s Settlement._
John Ferdinand Dalziel Smyth, it appears, changed his name in 1793
to Stuart. Smyth’s last published work was a poem in folio called
“Destiny and Fortitude: An Heroic Poem on the Misfortunes of the House
of Stuart.” His father, Wentworth Smyth, was killed in the Highlands
of Scotland after being concerned in the attempt to bring in the
Stuarts in 1745. J. F. D. Smyth studied medicine at the University of
Edinburgh. He came to America possibly about 1769, and settled at first
near Williamsburg as a physician. He was active in the Revolution, and
for a time drew a pension of £300 a year for his losses sustained in
America. He was killed accidentally in London in 1814. In this case
there is nothing in a name, because in tracing Smyth from the title
page of his best known work, his “Tour in the United States,” nothing
can be discovered about him. It is only by chance that in looking up
Smyth the eye falls upon Stuart. Although he was in most of the English
colonies, and saw the greater part of the Spanish possessions in
Louisiana and Florida, Captain Smyth preferred the Potomac region, and
lived there, both peacefully and adventurously, until finally disturbed
by the war. He was not a Tory, because he was not strictly an American.
In 1778, his correspondence proves, he was a captain in the Queen’s
Rifles. Two years before he had been ingeniously farming some six
hundred acres of good land on the Maryland side of the Potomac. Captain
John Ferdinand Dalziel Smyth, explorer, planter, fighter and author,
was (from his own account) not unlike the more famous Smith, who, if he
had chosen, could have spelled the name with a y as well.
John F. D. Smyth came in sight of land on the 4th day of August (he
neglects to give the year), “in the forenoon, in a fine day, with a
clear, serene sky. We soon sailed within the capes of Virginia, Cape
Henry and Cape Charles, which last is an island named Smith’s. We past
Lynhaven Bay on our left, and the opening of the Chesapeak on the
right, and in the evening anchored in Hampton Road, which appears to
be very safe. The night being calm, we were assaulted by great numbers
of musketoes, a very noxious fly.” After a day the ship proceeded to
Jamestown, “passing a great number of most charming situations on
each side of this beautiful river.” Jamestown still sent a member
to the House of Burgesses, but there was only one voter, who was the
proprietor of the borough and also the Burgess, Champion Travers, Esq.
Making an excursion with a companion to Williamsburg, with which town
Captain Smyth was well pleased, they “dined very agreeably at the
Raleigh Tavern, where we had exceeding good Maderia.” What with pocket
boroughs and good Maderia, the traveler must have felt as if he had
scarcely left home.
The author describes Williamsburg, that capital city, but being fond
of sports, he gives most space to the races: “Very capital horses are
started here, such as would make no despicable figure at Newmarket; nor
is their speed, bottom or blood inferior to their appearance. Their
stock is from old Cade, old Crab, old Partner, Regulus, Babraham,
Bosphorus, Devonshire Childers, the Cullen Arabian, the Cumberland
Arabian, &c., in England; and a horse from Arabia named the Bellsize,
which was imported into America and is now in existence.” The
quarter-racing of Southern Virginia and North Carolina struck Smyth as
being a strange institution. Many early travelers devote a page or two
to the quarter-race, a match between two horses to run one-quarter of
a mile straight out. Smyth observes: “They have a breed in Virginia
that performs it with astonishing velocity, beating every other for
that distance with great ease; but they have no bottom. However, I am
confident that there is not a horse in England, nor perhaps the whole
world, that can excel them in rapid speed; and these likewise make
excellent saddle horses for the road. The Virginians, of all ranks and
denominations, are excessively fond of horses, and especially those of
the race breed. Nobody walks on foot the smallest distance, except when
hunting; indeed, a man will frequently go five miles to catch a horse,
to ride only one mile afterwards.”
Returning from Williamsburg to Jamestown, Smyth joined the ship again,
which, on the 9th of August, got “under weigh” for City Point. They
passed many delightful situations and charming seats, the names of
which are still well known either actually or historically. At City
Point the genial author hired a boat and four negroes for a dollar
and a half per day to continue up the river to Richmond. “I slept on
board the boat, and on the 11th, in the forenoon, landed at the town
of Shokoes, at the falls of James River. There are three towns at this
place. Richmond, the largest, is below the falls, and is separated only
by a creek, named Shokoes, from the town of Shokoes. On the south side
of the river stands the town of Chesterfield, best known by the name of
Rocky Ridge.” In those days the river was the road to town. Tobacco was
boated down to Westham, seven miles above the falls, and thence brought
by land carriage to Shokoes, or Richmond. Smyth speaks of a man who,
bringing a double load down to Westham, unconsciously kept on, passed
all the falls, and arrived not quite sobered at Shokoes. “This is one
of the most extraordinary accidents that has occurred, or perhaps was
ever heard of.”
The great rivers of America, the great forests, the fierce electrical
storms, the strange methods of agriculture, the lightning bugs, the
mosquitoes and the bullfrogs astonished the European. Of the bullfrog,
Smyth remarks: “Their note is harsh, sonorous and abrupt, frequently
appearing to pronounce articulate sounds, in striking resemblance to
the following words: Hogshead tobacco, knee deep, ancle deep, deeper
and deeper, Piankitank, and many others, but all equally grating and
dissonant. They surprise a man exceedingly, as he will hear their
hoarse, loud bellowing clamor just by him, and sometimes all around
him, yet he cannot discover from whence it proceeds. They are of the
size of a man’s foot.” Bullfrogs by day and the falls by night: “When a
person arrives at Richmond his ears are continually assailed with the
prodigious noise and roaring of the falls, which almost stuns him and
prevents him from sleeping for several nights.”
Richmond was close to nature in those days. Captain Smyth used to
take walks among the rocks and solitary romantic situations around
the falls. His custom was to carry a book in his pocket, and read
in the shade until he “insensibly dropt asleep. This was my daily
recreation, which I never neglected. But I was once extremely surprised
at beholding, as soon as I opened my eyes, a prodigious large snake,
within a few feet of me, basking himself in the sun. He was jet black,
with a copper-coloured belly, very fine, sparkling eyes, and at least
seven feet long.”
August 28th Smyth set out for the South. Crossing the James in a
ferry-boat early in the morning, he rode through the towns of Rocky
Ridge and Warwick (about five miles beyond), stopped at Osborne’s,
eight miles from Warwick, and reached Blandford in the afternoon,
having crossed the Appomattox by a lofty wooden bridge at the
town of Pocahontas, one of the three towns at the falls of the
Appomattox--Petersburg, Blandford, Pocahontas. “In Blandford, the
charming, pretty town of Blandford, in a beautiful plain on the river
brink, on a very pleasant and delightful spot, I found an excellent
ordinary at Boyd’s.”
Smyth purchased two horses at Petersburg. For the best he gave £15
and the worst cost him £25. On the 4th of September he left Blandford
and rode fifteen miles to Hatton’s Ordinary, and thence to the
Nottoway River, at Swede’s Bridge. “I arrived at Stewart’s Ordinary to
breakfast, which was toasted Indian hoecake and very excellent cyder.
Being always particularly careful of my horses, and they having fared
very indifferently the night before, I ordered the hostler to give
them plenty of meat.” The hostler understanding meat to mean meat,
put bacon before these Petersburg horses. A crowd assembled, and this
new balanced ration became a great joke. The horses having been fed
corn, which, after all, is a form of bacon, the party proceeded to
Three Creeks, crossed them on three wooden bridges, and then crossed
the Meherrin at Hicks’s Bridge, “remarkably lofty and built of timber,
as all in the southern part of America appear to be.” Near Hicks’s
Bridge[A] (and ford) lived Mr. Willis, breeder of the original stock
of triumphant quarter racers. “We took some refreshment at Edwards’s
Ordinary, an exceedingly good building, with excellent accommodations,
lately erected at this place. At the distance of ten miles we entered
the province of North Carolina.”
Smyth mentions that the James River lowgrounds produced twenty-five,
thirty, and sometimes thirty-five bushels of wheat from one of seed;
the high land from eight to fifteen for one. “Much about the same
quantity of Indian corn is produced from an acre, according to the
quality and excellence of the soil, though it does not require more
than a peck of seed to plant it. The produce of an acre in the culture
of tobacco, in the best land, is about 1,660 pounds weight; on the
worst about 500 pounds weight. An acre always contains nearly 1,250
hills of Indian corn, with two, three, and sometimes in strong land,
four stalks in each hill, or about 5,000 plants of tobacco.”
In the summer-time, says Captain Smyth, the average planter “rises
in the morning about 6 o’clock [the very rich men, he says, rose at
9]; he then drinks a julep, made of rum, water and sugar, but very
strong; then he walks, or more generally rides, round his plantation,
views all his stock and all his crop, breakfasts about 10 o’clock on
cold turkey, cold meat, fried hominy, toast and cyder, ham, bread and
butter, tea, coffee or chocolate, which last, however, is seldom tasted
but by the women; the rest of the day he spends in much the same manner
before described [i. e., in trying to keep cool]; he eats no supper;
they never even think of it. The women very seldom drink tea in the
afternoon, the men never.”
Captain Smyth, as already described (following his tour as he gives
it), landed at Norfolk, saw Williamsburg, Richmond and Petersburg, and
from Petersburg set out for Halifax, in North Carolina. From Halifax
he took the Hillsborough Road and thence passed to Camden, in South
Carolina, coming back to Hillsborough as a base from whence to proceed
to Kentucky, better known at that time as Henderson’s Settlement.
Smyth saw Judge Henderson[B] in North Carolina, and had much talk with
him, thought him an extraordinary man, and became curious to see the
wonderful country beyond the Holston and the Big Sandy, the proprietary
regions of Western Virginia. “From the conversation I had with this
very extraordinary person, Mr. Henderson, I entertained a strong
inclination to pay a visit to his domain; which must certainly afford
a large field for speculation and enterprise, being situated in the
very heart of the continent of America, and in a great degree precluded
from the general intercourse of the rest of mankind, being likewise
several hundred miles from any other settlement.” This was before the
establishment of the county of Kentucky in 1776. After that year the
number of emigrants from the coast country was so large it is almost
a matter of surprise that anybody was left in Virginia east of the
mountains.
Smyth made a rather difficult journey from Hillsborough to the North
Carolina line. That was the back road in those times, which the
Southern Railway has done so much to develop in recent years. In 1772
the road was scarcely a blazed path through the woods. Near the North
Carolina line Captain Smyth stayed for about ten days at the upper
and the lower Sawra Towns, old Indian settlements south of Dan River.
“The whole settlement of the Lower Sawra Towns, being a vast body of
excellent and most valuable land containing 33,000 acres, of which
more than 9,000 are exceedingly rich low grounds, is the property of
Mr. Farley, of the island of Antigua, in the West Indies. About the
year 1761 the whole of this extensive tract of land was sold to Mr.
Maxwell, who concluded the purchase without seeing it. In the spring
of the ensuing year he went out to view his new estate. It happened
just at that time that a prodigious flood in the Dan had overspread the
whole of the lowgrounds on the river, of which near 10,000 acres were
covered by the inundation. This extraordinary circumstance and very
awful appearance astonished and intimidated Mr. Maxwell, who on his
return to Westover, expressing dissatisfaction with his purchase, the
£500 was returned to him. That same year Mr. Farley, of Antigua, being
on a visit in Virginia, immediately offered £1,000 for the purchase,
without ever having seen it also; which offer was as readily accepted.
In the year 1769 Mr. Farley’s son, James Farley, came into Virginia,
and ventured out that distance in the back country to view the estate.
After some difficulty in removing accidental settlers, he divided the
tract into numerous plantations and farms which he rented out, keeping
in his own hands a most valuable, excellent tract, the choice of the
whole. In short, the value of this estate has augmented so exceedingly
that in the year 1772 Mr. Farley refused £28,000 for the purchase of
it.”
This transaction is interesting enough, as showing what the apparent
opportunities were for land speculation in the later colonial period,
and yet how impossible it was for any exclusive business of that sort
to succeed on a large scale. General Washington owned more than 500,000
acres of land to the west, the proceeds of which to his estate were not
very considerable. Robert Morris, the shrewd financier, went bankrupt
in attempting to develop the western country as a field for the
operator in real estate. There was a continent of land to be exploited,
and it was very difficult to corner even a small part of the market.
The land could not be handled as capital until a sufficient number of
settlers had come in, each contributing his accumulations to enhance
the value of the common stock. It was from the necessity of the case a
common stock at the first, and the pioneers were not long in finding
that out.
In his journey to Kentucky, Captain Smyth happened upon some of these
pioneers. His observations confirm the belief that the hero is a hero,
but also a very fallible person. “On the 15th day of May I took my
leave of Mr. Bailey and his family (at the Lower Sawra Towns), every
one of whom seemed to be really more concerned for my safety than I
could possibly have conceived, being all in tears and appearing almost
certain that I should be destroyed by the savages; having used their
most earnest persuasions and utmost endeavors to change my resolution
of proceeding on this journey. The kind-hearted and truly amiable Miss
Betsy Bailey insisted on piloting me over the Dan herself, rather than
any of her brothers, although the ford at this place was exceedingly
rapid, rocky and dangerous. In a very few hours, by pursuing the wrong
path, I found myself in the woods without any track whatever to direct
my course, that in which I had been having terminated, being only made
by the hogs, which run wild almost all over America, and especially in
the Western frontiers. It is impossible for me to ascertain how far I
had traveled in this most disagreeable of all imaginable situations,
when all on a sudden, on the side of a gentle ascent, I perceived a
number of men sitting on the ground, and such they were as I had never
seen before, painted black and red and all armed with firelocks and
tomahawks.”
These were Indians, and they were very hospitable to Smyth. He gave
them the stone buckle and gold lace from the crown of his hat. “They
seemed much pleased with the present and made signs for me to sit
down and eat with them. This I readily complied with, and partook
of a repast which consisted of venison, kernels of hickory nuts and
wallnuts, all mixed together with wild honey, and every one eat with
his hands. Having a keen appetite I eat very heartily, which seemed to
afford a particular satisfaction to my hospitable savage friends, for
such indeed they were to me.” Smyth spent the night with these warriors
(they were really on the war path), and the next morning one of them
put him into the way to Beaver Creek, upon Smith’s River, in what was
then Pittsylvania County.
Along Leatherwood Creek, Captain Smyth, the bold tourist, saw several
fine plantations deserted of the owners. The cattle and horses were
wandering about and presented a very mournful, melancholy appearance.
Reports of the movements of the Indians had driven the inhabitants
to the fort on Smith’s River. About eight miles beyond Leatherwood
Creek (Patrick Henry lived on that stream for a year or two after the
Revolution) a man appeared on horseback, whose horse was covered with
foam and sweat. He was astonished beyond measure when Smyth told him he
had come from the Sawra Towns and had eaten and slept with a party of
Indians. “In riding about two or three miles further I at length came
to the fort itself, which contained all the inhabitants of the country
around. I was exceedingly happy at the thought of being once more among
inhabitants, but this imaginary felicity was of very short duration,
for when I went to the gate of the fort expecting to go in, I was
positively refused admittance. They within insisted that I was an enemy
or a Frenchman because I had been in company with the Indians and had
escaped unmolested, and also as my accent was different from theirs.
This I found they were informed of by the man I met on horseback, and
who turned back full speed as soon as I acquainted him of my having
been with the Indians. I continued to entreat for admittance until
they threatened to fire upon me if I did not retire, which made me
withdraw from the gate to consider what steps I must pursue, for I
never found myself in so singular and unpleasant a predicament in my
life. I wandered round and round this fortress until night began to
advance, and then ventured to approach the gate once more. They again
threatening to shoot me, I assured them that I would as soon be killed
by them as by the Indians, and solemnly swore I would set fire to the
stockades. Upon this I was desired to wait a few minutes, until they
consulted together; at the conclusion of which they agreed to admit
me. The wicker gate was then opened and I crept in.” The conditions
inside, of necessity, were not very agreeable.
How exactly truthful Captain Smyth is it is not possible to say. By
his account after a few days at the fort he procured a guide and set
out for the mountains, regardless of the Indians. He had heard of the
Wart Mountain[C] and climbed that eminence for the view which, as he
describes it, was an amazing prospect. Doubtless with a map before him
he was able to include in his description more than the eye fell upon.
“Language fails in attempting to describe this most astonishing and
almost unbounded perspective. On the east you could perceive the deep
and broken chasms, where the rivers Dan, Mayo, Smith’s, Bannister’s
and Stanton direct their courses; some raging in vast torrents and
some gliding in silent, gentle meanders. On the north you see the
Black Water, a branch of the Stanton; and the break in the mountains
where the Fluvannah, a vast branch of the James, passes through. On
the northwest you will observe with great astonishment and pleasure
the tremendous and abrupt break in the Alegany Mountains, through
which the mighty waters of the New River and the Great Kanhawah pass.
On the west you can very plainly discover the three forks or branches
of the Holston, where they break through the Great Alegany Mountains,
and still beyond them you may observe Clinch’s River or Pelisippi. On
the south you can see the Dan, the Catawba, the Yadkin and the Haw,
breaking through the mighty mountains that appear in confused heaps and
piled on each other in every direction.” It is safe to say that Smyth
did not see all this. But the description is interesting. Many voyagers
to the West must have beheld scenes comparable, with thoughts more or
less defined that here was a land for the possessing and a new world
indeed.
From the Wart Mountain Captain Smyth continued, by way of New River,
the branches of the Holston (Stahlnaker’s Settlement on the middle
fork), Clinch River and the Warrior’s branch to the Kentucky River. “In
five more easy days’ journeys, the particulars of which are not worth
relating, we at length arrived at the famed settlement near the mouth
of the Kentucky on the 8th day of June, after having traveled at least
490 miles, from the fort on Smith’s River, in nineteen days. I was soon
directed to the house of Mr. Henderson, where I found a most hospitable
and kind reception.”
From that outpost of Virginia Captain Smyth passed down the Ohio to the
territories of Spain, along the Gulf coast by water to East Florida,
and so to Charleston.[D]
_II._
_THOMAS ANBUREY, AND THE CONVENTION ARMY IN VIRGINIA._
_1779._
_Lieutenant Anburey--Progress of the Convention Army--Winter
Roads--Charlottesville--Colonel Harvey--The Piedmont
Plantation--Roundabout Directions--The Quarter-Race--Richmond--Forest
Fire--Barrack Cats._
General Burgoyne, of amiable qualities but of no great skill as a
commander, having had the misfortune to lose his army at Saratoga, in
the month of October, 1777, a convention was agreed upon, stipulating
the treatment to be accorded the defeated troops. Thereafter, until
exchanged, these Saratoga troops were known among themselves as the
Convention Army. The art of saving one’s face is one of the most
intricate yet in existence. Young Thomas Anburey, who was perhaps a
lieutenant in the Twenty-ninth Regiment of Foot under General Burgoyne,
surrendered with his brother officers, and with them was sent first
to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and later to Virginia. Anburey, a very
cheerful young person, kept a sort of journal of his military and other
travels in America, and worked up his notes into the form of letters
to a friend. His observations are not profound, but are marked by
good sense and ingenuousness, and make much better reading than more
pretentious narratives.[E]
After being quartered for more than a year in Massachusetts, Anburey
and his friends were sent South, in order to shift the incidence
of taxation in the matter of subsistence for so many able-bodied
men, numbers of whom (the Hessians, for instance) no doubt had in
America their first opportunity of getting at least one square meal
a day. “Especially the Germans,” says Anburey, “who seeing in what a
comfortable manner their countrymen live, left us in great numbers,
as we marched through New York, the Jerseys and Pennsylvania; among
the number of deserters is my servant, who, as we left Lancaster, ran
from me with my horse, portmanteau, and everything he could take with
him.” It was at best a strange spectacle, this of an army of desirable
citizens marching captive through an abounding wilderness, and merely
on parole.
From Lancaster the Convention Army moved to Frederick Town, in
Maryland, where they spent Christmas Day, 1778. The commissary of
provisions at Frederick, Mr. McMurdo, was very polite to the officers
quartered at his house. Anburey says: “His attention was such that
although for this day (which is as much a day of festival as in
England), he had been engaged for some time past among his friends and
relations, he would stay at home and entertain us with an excellent
Christmas dinner, not even forgetting plum pudding. I now experienced
what had been often told me, that the further I went to the southward
I should find the inhabitants possess more liberality and hospitality.”
Anburey’s impressions of the North, of course, were formed rather
precipitately at Saratoga.
Charlottesville, almost a frontier town then, was the destination of
the Convention Army. “After we left Frederick Town we crossed the
Potowmack River with imminent danger, as the current was very rapid,
large floats of ice swimming down it; though the river was only half a
mile wide, the scow that I crossed over in had several narrow escapes.
At one time it was quite fastened in the ice, but by great exertions of
the men in breaking it, we made good our landing on the opposite shore,
near a mile lower than the ferry.” And the river crossed, hardships
only increased on the Virginia side. The roads were bad from a late
fall of snow not sufficiently encrusted to bear a man’s weight. The
troops were continually sinking in mud up to their knees and cutting
their shins and ankles; and after a march of sixteen or eighteen miles
over such badly metalled roads, the men often had to sleep in the woods
and the officers in any cabin available.
“But on our arrival at Charlottesville no pen can describe the scene of
misery and confusion that ensued. The officers of the First and Second
Brigade were in the town, and our arrival added to their distress. This
famous place we had heard so much of consisted only of a courthouse,
one tavern, and about a dozen houses, all of which were crowded with
officers. Those of our brigade, therefore, were obliged to ride about
the country and entreat the inhabitants to take us in.” The men fared
very badly. Instead of sleeping on the snow, under the trees, they
went into barracks, hastily covering over a few cabins which had been
begun but were left unroofed, and half-filled with snow. The trouble
was that Colonel Harvey, to whom Congress had assigned the business
of getting quarters ready for the tourists, had in turn placed his
brother in charge. Colonel Harvey’s brother said that the army was not
expected until the spring. There was no whiskey provided, the stock
of provisions was scant, and the quarters were as described of the
fretwork description.
“As to the officers, upon signing a parole they might go to Richmond
and other adjacent towns to procure themselves quarters. Accordingly
a parole was signed, which allowed a circuit of near 100 miles. And
after the officers had drawn lots, as three were to remain in the
barracks with the men, or at Charlottesville, the principal part of
them set off for Richmond, and many of them are at plantations twenty
or thirty miles from the barracks. I was quartered, with four other
officers of our regiment, at Jones’s Plantation, about twenty miles
from the barracks. The face of the country appears an immense forest,
interspersed with various plantations, four or five miles distant from
each other. On these there is a dwelling house in the centre, with
kitchens, smoke-house and outhouses detached, and from the various
buildings each plantation has the appearance of a small village. At
some little distance from the houses are peach and apple orchards, and
scattered over the plantation are the cabins and tobacco houses.” The
worm fence was an object of wonder to every foreigner, and yet in a
country of abundant timber the most natural thing in the world. Anburey
mentions that in the New England settlements (where the holdings
were smaller and fences could be made with more particularity) the
inhabitants had a saying, “He is making Virginia fences,” used of a man
not sober, but able to walk, as it were.
Anburey was twice at Richmond, once in the winter and once in the
summer of 1779. The neighboring gentlemen were very hospitable,
and would not let him leave until he had visited the whole circle.
He speaks especially of Warwick and “Tuckahoe.” The proprietor of
“Tuckahoe” was threatened with the burning of valuable mills because an
English officer had been made welcome. It was an idle threat. On the
way to Richmond, by the road through Goochland Courthouse, Anburey met
that perennial, the celebrated roundabout directions: “If perchance
you meet an inhabitant and enquire your way, his directions are, if
possible, more perplexing than the roads themselves, for he tells you
to keep the right-hand path, then you’ll come to an old field; you
are to cross that, and then you’ll come to the fence of such a one’s
plantation; then keep that fence, and you’ll come to a road that has
three forks; keep the right-hand fork for about half a mile, and then
you’ll come to a creek; after you cross that creek you must turn to the
left, and there you’ll come to a tobacco house; after you have passed
that you’ll come to another road that forks; keep the right-hand fork,
and then you’ll come to Mr. Such-a-One’s ordinary, and he will direct
you.” The fact of such directions as these, and the use made of them,
are to be explained when we remember that the backwoodsman carries a
map in his head, whereas the cockney’s brain is damaged by the use of
maps.
In the woods the Convention officer came upon a track for
quarter-racing. “Near most of the ordinaries there is a piece of ground
cleared in the woods for that purpose, where there are two paths, about
six or eight yards asunder, which the horses run in. I think I can,
without the slightest exaggeration, assert that even the famous Eclipse
could not excel them in speed, for our horses are some time before they
are able to get into full speed; but these are trained to set out in
that manner the moment of starting. It is the most ridiculous amusement
imaginable, for if you happen to be looking another way, the race is
terminated before you can turn your head; notwithstanding which, very
considerable sums are betted at these races. Only in the interior parts
of this province are these races held, for they are much laughed at and
ridiculed by the people in the lower parts, about Richmond and other
great towns. At Williamsburg is a very excellent course for two, three
or four-mile heats.”
On his summer trip to Richmond, Anburey was struck by the numbers of
peach orchards in full fruit--“it is deemed no trespass to stop and
refresh yourself and your horse with them”--and by the sight of a
family leaving a most comfortable house and good plantation to set out
for Kentucky over the mountains. The summer of 1779 apparently was a
good peach season, and a bad season in the item of forest fires. “The
town of Richmond, as well as the plantations around for some miles,
has been in imminent danger; as the woods have been on fire, which for
some time past has raged with great fury, and that element seemed to
threaten universal destruction; but, providentially, before it had done
any material damage there fell a very heavy rain, which, nevertheless,
has not altogether extinguished it [July 14, 1779]. During the summer
months these fires are very frequent, and at Charlottesville I have
seen the mountains on a blaze for three or four miles in length. They
are occasioned by the carelessness of waggoners.”
During the winter of 1779 the Convention Army at Charlottesville
lost heavily by desertion. “I should observe that this desertion is
among the British troops. For what reason it is impossible to say,
the Americans shew more indulgence to the Germans, permitting them
to go round the country to labor, and being for the most part expert
handicraftsmen, they realize a great deal of money exclusive of their
pay.”
The officers made themselves pretty comfortable. They put up a coffee
house, a theatre and a cold bath. Anburey made, or had made, a drawing
entitled “Encampment of the Convention Army at Charlottes Ville,
in Virginia, after they had surrendered to the Americans.” In this
interesting print it is difficult to distinguish the theatre, but the
coffee house is easily found.
September, 1780, when orders came to move to the North again, the
officers were loath to go. They had understood that they were to remain
at Charlottesville until exchanged. Several of them “had laid out great
sums in making themselves comfortable habitations; for the barracks
became a little town, and there being more society, most of the
officers had resorted there. The great objection to residing at them
on our first arrival, was on account of the confined situation, being
not only surrounded, but even in the woods themselves. The proprietor
of the estate will reap great advantages, as the army entirely cleared
a space of six miles in circumference around the barracks. After we
quitted the barracks, the inhabitants were near a week in destroying
the cats that were left behind, which impelled by hunger had gone into
the woods. There was reason to suppose they would become extremely wild
and ferocious and would be a great annoyance to their poultry.”
The Convention Army, crossing the “Pignet Ridge, or more properly,
the Blue Mountains,” at Wood’s Gap, moved to Winchester, and thence,
recrossing the Ridge at Williams’s Gap, proceeded to Frederick Town,
and so to New York to take ship.
_III._
_THE ABBÉ ROBIN, ONE OF THE CHAPLAINS TO THE FRENCH ARMY IN AMERICA._
_1781._
_‘New Travels in America’--From Rhode Island to
Maryland--Annapolis--The French Army in the Chesapeake--M. de La
Fayette--Williamsburg--Tobacco--Yorktown after Siege--Billetting of
the French Troops._
The French Army, after a voyage of eighty-five days, landed at Boston
June 24, 1781. With it came the Abbé Robin, a philosopher who was
more than once in America and has left recorded descriptions of
Louisiana as well as of the Atlantic Coast. The Abbé Robin was a
genial, generalizing observer--his New Travels in America[F] is an
interesting book, particularly in its passages with a bearing upon the
activities and the good behavior of the Allies from France. We learn
therein how the French introduced among us the brass band and set on
foot improvements in the art of the dance: they also brought us to a
knowledge of the ancient diversion faro.
The New Travels of the Abbé Robin, like so many other travellers’ books
of that period, are in the form of letters to a friend. The author
proceeded with the Army from Boston to Providence, through Connecticut
(where he was struck with traces of the “active and inventive genius”
of the inhabitants), to the Camp at Philippsburg, down the Hudson into
the Jerseys, past Philadelphia and Baltimore. He writes:
Annapolis, September 21, 1781.
The army was to prosecute the rest of the march to Virginia by land,
and with that view took the road leading to Alexandria, a flourishing
commercial town upon the Potomack; but upon the news of the arrival
of the _Romulus_ ship of war, with two frigates and a number of
transports, we turned off towards Annapolis, but the horses and
carriages continued their journey by land.
As we advance towards the south we observe a sensible difference in
the manners and customs of the people. This opulence was particularly
observable at Annapolis. That very inconsiderable town, standing at
the mouth of the river Severn, where it falls into the bay, out of
the few buildings it contains, has at least three-fourths such as
may be styled elegant and grand. The state-house is a very beautiful
building, I think the most so of any I have seen in America. The
peristyle is set off with pillars, and the edifice is topped with a
dome.
We are embarking with the greatest expedition; the weather is the
finest you can conceive, and the wind fair: I think the impatience of
the French will soon be at an end.
Williamsburgh, September 30, 1781.
The army has had a very agreeable passage hither, except the
grenadiers, chasseurs, and the first American regiments [these
sailed from the Head of Elk], who were fourteen days on the water.
Judge how inconvenient this must have been to troops crowded into
a narrow space, and without any decks over them; while even the
officers had nothing but biscuit to live upon. The shores of this
Bay, which is formed by the influx of so many great rivers, are far
from being lofty, neither are they much cleared of woods, and it is
but rarely that you discover any habitations; but the few we saw were
very agreeably situated. This country will be, in time, one of the
most beautiful in the world.
When our little fleet had sailed up James River, celebrated for the
excellent tobacco which grows upon its shores, we disembarked at
James-Town, the place where the English first established themselves
in Virginia. The troops have already joined the grenadiers,
chasseurs, and the three thousand men brought hither by Count
de Grasse, consisting of the regiments of Agenois, Gatinois and
Touraine, under the command of Mons. de St. Simon, Maréchal de Camp.
This General had a little before effected a junction with fifteen
hundred or two thousand Americans, commanded by M. le Marquis
de la Fayette, who, as you have heard, could never be reduced,
notwithstanding the forces of Cornwallis were three or four times his
number. I should have mentioned, that M. de la Fayette, in quality of
Major-General of an American army, at the age of twenty-four years,
found himself at this time superior in command to a French general
officer, and continued so until the other detachments of the army
were collected into one body under General Washington.
Williamsburg does not contain above a hundred and fifty houses, and
is the only town we have yet seen in Virginia worth mentioning not
situated on the banks of any river. What makes the situation of
this place valuable, is the neighbourhood of James and York rivers,
between which grows the best tobacco in the whole State, and for
this reason it seems to have been built where it is: I do not think,
nevertheless, that it will ever be a place of any great importance;
the towns of York, James, Norfolk, and Edenton, being more favourably
situated for trade, will undoubtedly eclipse it.
With the most lively satisfaction I contemplated these monuments
of the real glory of men, the college and the library; and while I
contemplated them, they recalled to my mind places and persons most
intimately connected with my heart. The tumult of arms has driven
from hence those who had the care of these philosophical instruments,
for the Muses, you know, take no pleasure but in the abodes of
peace: We could only meet with one solitary professor, of Italian
extraction; and I can not but say, his conversation and abilities
appeared to be such, that after what he had told us in commendation
of his brethren, we could not help regretting their absence.
About Williamsburg and the shores of the bay, the land is covered
with trees yielding rozin; the meadows and marshes subsist great
numbers of excellent horses, which far exceed those of the other
states in point of beauty: vast quantities of hemp are raised here,
as well as flax, Indian corn and cotton: the cotton shrubs produce
annually, and at the first view we took them for beans in blossom.
Silk worms succeed here very well, and it is not improbable but they
may at some future time form one of the most considerable branches
of trade in this State. The commodity most in demand is tobacco;
you well know the character it has, and for common use it may be
considered as the best in the world. What the English imported
yearly from this State, and from Maryland, might have amounted to
about ninety-six thousand hogsheads; but among themselves they did
not consume one sixth part of that quantity, and either disposed of
the rest among us, or exported it to the north [of Europe]; judge
then how valuable this commerce was to that nation. They purchased
it here at the very lowest rate, taking it in exchange for their
broad-clothes, linen and hard wares, and selling again for ready
money what they did not want for their own home consumption, and
thus they increased their capital every year to the amount of eight
or nine millions. No other of their possessions, not even those
in India, ever afforded them so clear a profit. Three hundred and
thirty vessels, and about four thousand sailors were constantly
employed in this trade: of these the city of Glasgow, in Scotland,
owned the greatest part, and by that means supported its flourishing
manufactures, which were perhaps more considerable than those of any
town in England.
Since the war, the tobacco exportation has been only about forty
thousand hogsheads annually; what advantages then would have accrued
to the English, could they have sooner made themselves masters of
Chesapeake-bay. There are now fifty or sixty vessels collected at
York, under the cannon of Cornwallis, sent on purpose to load with
this weed, which three fourths and a half of the human race take such
supreme delight in chewing, snuffing or smoking.
The army is at present before York. We hear the reports of the cannon
very distinctly; and I am now going to join the troops, where I think
I shall shortly have something very interesting to impart to you.
Camp at York, November 6, 1781.
I have been through the unfortunate little town of York since the
siege, and saw many elegant houses shot through and through in a
thousand places, and ready to crumble to pieces; rich household
furniture crushed under their ruins, or broken by the brutal
English soldier; carcases of men and horses half covered with
dirt: books piled in heaps, and scattered among the ruins of the
buildings, served to give me an idea of the tastes and morals of the
inhabitants; these were either treatises of religion or controversial
divinity; the _history_ of the English nation, and their foreign
settlements; collections of charters and acts of parliament;
the works of the celebrated _Alexander Pope_; a translation of
_Montaigne’s Essays_; _Gil Blas de Santillane_, and the excellent
_Essay upon Women_, by _Mr. Thomas_.
The plan of the fortifications for the defence of York and Glocester
has been entirely changed; they are drawing them into a narrower
compass than before, have destroyed the English works, and are busy
at constructing new ones. The travelling artillery is partly at
Williamsburg and partly at York; and the heavy cannon is at West
Point (called _Delaware_ in the maps), a place situated between the
two rivers that form that of York.
On the twenty-fourth [of October] the troops began to go into winter
quarters. The regiments of Bourbonnais and Royal Deux Ponts are at
Williamsburg, where our head Quarters are fixed. The regiments of
Soissonnais, and the grenadier companies, and Chasseurs of Saintonge
are at York. The rest of the regiment of Saintonge is billetted about
in the country betwixt York and Hampton; and this latter place,
situated on James River, is occupied by the Legion of Lauzun.
This great and happy event, in which the French have had so
considerable a share, will soon give a new turn to American affairs.
The Southern States, so long harassed and distrest, will now assume
new spirit and activity. To what a pitch of grandeur will not these
new states shortly arise.
NOTE.--In his second letter the Abbé mentions M. de St. Simon. This
was the philosopher, whose plans for reorganizing society are still
of interest.
_IV._
_THE MARQUIS OF CHASTELLUX, MAJOR-GENERAL IN THE FRENCH ARMY, AND
MEMBER OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY._
_1782._
_M. de Chastellux--Tour to the Natural Bridge--New Kent Court
House--Hanover Court House--Offley--Secretary Nelson--Willis’
Ordinary--Monticello--New London--Cumberland Court
House--Petersburg--Richmond--Formicola’s--Governor Harrison--College
of William and Mary._