Popular mobilization and political culture in revolutionary Virginia: The failure of the Minutemen and the revolution from below

Journal of American History

Volumn 85, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 946-981

  McDonnell, Michael A ^a  

^a SWANSEA UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 33749866752     PISSN: 00218723     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2567217     Document Type: Article

References (312)

1. George Gilmer, "Address of George Gilmer to the Inhabitants of Albemarle," [fall 1775], in "Papers, Military and Political, 1775-1778, of George Gilmer, M.D., of 'Pen Park,' Albemarle County, Virginia," ed. R. A. Brock, Virginia Historical Society, Collections, new series, 6 (1887), 122, 125.
2. Gilmer was active in politics and served as a stand-in for Thomas Jefferson in the Virginia conventions of 1774-1775 while the latter served in the Continental Congress. We can safely date the address cited here as later than September 11, probably a few weeks later. On Gilmer's life, see Robert L. Scribner, ed., Revolutionary Virginia: The Road to Independence, vol. III: The Breaking Storm and the Third Convention (Charlottesville, 1977), 50.
3. George Mason to George Washington, Oct. 14, 1775, in The Papers of George Mason, 1725-1792, ed. Robert A. Rutland (3 vols., Chapel Hill, 1970), I, 255-56.
4. See Robert A. Gross, The Minutemen and Their World (New York, 1976), 59.
5. Nov. 19-20, 1775, entries in Philip Vickers Fithian: Journal, 1775-1776. ... , ed. Robert Greenhalgh Albion and Leonidas Dodson (Princeton, 1934), 133-34;
6. W. W. Abbot et al., eds., The Papers of George Washington: Revolutionary War Series (7 vols., Charlottesville, 1985- ), I, 24;
7. George Gilmer to Thomas Jefferson, [July 26 or 27, 1775], in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd et al. (27 vols., Princeton, 1950-), I, 238;
8. Fielding Lewis to George Washington, Nov. 14, 1775, in Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 53 (Jan. 1929), 93;
9. June 6, 1775, entry in Philip Vickers Fithian: Journal, 1775-1776, ed. Albion and Dodson, 24.
10. For the continental experience, see Charles Royster, A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character, 1775-1783 (New York, 1979), 25.
11. The prevailing opinion in the historiography is that the minuteman establishment was a success and that it was replaced because of the need for more regular troops. See John Selby, The Revolution in Virginia, 1775-1783 (Williamsburg, 1988), 77-78, 129;
12. and E. M. Sanchez-Saavedra, "'All Fine Fellows and Well-Armed': The Culpeper Minute Battalion, 1775-1776," Virginia Cavalcade, 24 (no. 1, 1974), 4-12.
13. In defining groups in eastern Virginia, I have followed John Selby, who concluded that the "typical white Virginia male was a small farmer.... [who] had access to no more than a couple of hundred acres, at most a slave or two, and some cattle." Just under 50% of white males were small landowners, 10-20% tenants (concentrated in the Northern Neck), and 20-30% agricultural laborers or indentured servants. "Small farmers," or the "middling sort," were those in the first two groups; "poor whites," or the "lower sort," refers to the third group. The final 10% of white males were the gentry, who owned half the land in Virginia and almost half the personal property and occupied most important posts of leadership and authority at provincial and local levels. See Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 24.
14. On the predominantly nonliterate world of Virginia, see Rhys Isaac, "Dramatizing the Ideology of Revolution: Popular Mobilization in Virginia, 1774 to 1776," William and Mary Quarterly, 33 (July 1976), esp. 357-64.
15. Emory G. Evans, "Trouble in the Backcountry: Disaffection in Southwest Virginia during the American Revolution," in An Uncivil War: The Southern Backcountry during the American Revolution, ed. Ronald Hoffman, Thad Tate, and Peter J. Albert (Charlottesville, 1985), 180.
16. My methodology has been influenced by Rhys Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790 (Chapel Hill, 1982), esp. 323-59;
17. Isaac, "Dramatizing the Ideology of Revolution," 357-64;
18. and works of the new military historians, beginning with John Shy, A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence (Ann Arbor, 1990).
19. More recent works drawn on here include Royster, Revolutionary People at War;
20. Fred Anderson, A People's Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years' War (Chapel Hill, 1984);
21. Steven Rosswurm, Arms, Country, and Class: The Philadelphia Militia and the "Lower Sort" during the American Revolution (New Brunswick, 1987);
22. and James Titus, The Old Dominion at War: Society, Politics, and Warfare in Late Colonial Virginia (Columbia, S.C., 1991).
23. On this school, see E. Wayne Carp, "Early American Military History: A Review of Recent Work," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 94 (July 1986), 259-84;
24. and Don Higginbotham, "The Early American Way of War: Reconnaissance and Appraisal," William and Mary Quarterly, 44 (April 1987), 230-73.
25. On a popular political culture that was an alternative to the gentry's, see Albert H. Tillson Jr., Gentry and Common Folk: Political Culture on a Virginia Frontier, 1740-1789 (Lexington, Ky., 1991);
26. and Albert H. Tillson Jr., "The Militia and Popular Political Culture in the Upper Valley of Virginia, 1740-1775," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 94 (July 1986), 285-306. Tillson's work also points to the need to recognize subtler distinctions and gradations of disaffection than the traditional Tory-Patriot dichotomy.
27. Herbert Sloan and Peter Onuf, "Politics, Culture, and the Revolution in Virginia: A Review of Recent Work," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 91 (July 1983), 267.
28. For the interpretation that created the image of a unified Virginia, see Charles Sydnor, Gentlemen Freeholders: Political Practices in Washington's Virginia (Chapel Hill, 1952);
29. numerous works by Jack P. Greene, but especially Jack P. Greene, "Society, Ideology, and Politics: An Analysis of the Political Culture of Mid-Eighteenth-Century Virginia," in Society, Freedom, and Conscience: The Coming of the Revolution in Virginia, Massachusetts, and New York, ed. Richard M. Jellison (New York, 1976), 14-76;
30. Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (New York, 1976), book 4;
31. Allan Kulikoff, Tobacco and Slaves: The Development of Southern Cultures in the Chesapeake, 1680-1800 (Chapel Hill, 1986);
32. T. H. Breen, Tobacco Culture: The Mentality of the Great Tidewater Planters on the Eve of Revolution (New Brunswick, 1985);
33. and Isaac, Transformation of Virginia.
34. Sloan and Onuf, "Politics, Culture, and the Revolution in Virginia," 260-74;
35. Marc Egnal, "The Origins of the Revolution in Virginia: A Reinterpretation," William and Mary Quarterly, 37 (July 1980), 401-28;
36. Marc Egnal and Joseph A. Ernst, "An Economic Interpretation of the American Revolution," William and Mary Quarterly, ibid., 29 (Jan. 1972), 3-32;
37. Breen, Tobacco Culture, 160-203;
38. Isaac, Transformation of Virginia, part II;
39. Rhys Isaac, "Preachers and Patriots: Popular Culture and the Revolution in Virginia," in The American Revolution: Explorations in the History of American Radicalism, ed. Alfred F. Young (De Kalb, 1976), 125-56.
40. Isaac, "Dramatizing the Ideology of Revolution," 367.
41. Though Isaac pictures prewar Virginia society as confrontational, he maintains that dissenters and Patriots came together during the conflict with Britain. See Isaac, "Preachers and Patriots."
42. Even such a neo-Progressive as Edward Countryman concludes that whites in the Old Dominion entered the Revolution "as something close to a united people." See Edward Countryman, The American Revolution (London, 1985), 120.
43. Cf. Selby, Revolution in Virginia, xi.
44. See also Emory G. Evans, "Executive Leadership in Virginia, 1776-1781: Henry, Jefferson, and Nelson," in Sovereign States in an Age of Uncertainty, ed. Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert (Charlottesville, 1981), 185-225.
45. On this "revised consensus," see Sloan and Onuf, "Politics, Culture, and the Revolution in Virginia," 260-67.
46. More local studies have uncovered wartime disaffection, though usually on the margins of Virginia. See Adele Hast, Loyalism in Revolutionary Virginia: The Norfolk Area and the Eastern Shore (Ann Arbor, 1982);
47. Tillson, Gentry and Common Folk;
48. and Evans, "Trouble in the Backcountry."
49. Two other notable challenges to the picture of a united Virginia are Dale Benson, "Wealth and Power in Virginia, 1774-1776: A Study of the Organization of Revolt" (Ph.D. diss., University of Maine, 1970);
50. and John D. McBride, "The Virginia War Effort, 1775-1783: Manpower Policies and Practices" (Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1977).
51. And see Michael A. McDonnell, "The Politics of Mobilization in Revolutionary Virginia: Military Culture and Political and Social Relations, 1774-1783" (D. Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 1995).
52. For an early recognition that Virginia was plagued with internal problems during the war, see Hamilton J. Eckenrode, The Revolution in Virginia (1917; Hamden, Conn., 1964), esp. 232-60.
53. Gordon S. Wood, "Rhetoric and Reality in the American Revolution," William and Mary Quarterly, 23 (Jan. 1966), 28.
54. The most original of the new Virginia studies describes dramatic challenges to the gentry from other groups. See Woody Holton, Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia (Williamsburg, Institute of Early American History and Culture, forthcoming).
55. See also Titus, Old Dominion at War;
56. Isaac, Transformation of Virginia, part II;
57. Isaac, "Preachers and Patriots";
58. Rhys Isaac, "Evangelical Revolt: The Nature of the Baptists' Challenge to the Traditional Order in Virginia, 1765 to 1775," William and Mary Quarterly, 31 (July 1974), 345-68;
59. and Richard R. Beeman and Rhys Isaac, "Cultural Conflict and Social Change in the Revolutionary South: Lunenburg County, Virginia," Journal of Southern History, 46 (Nov. 1980), 525-50.
60. On the rise of the merchant class, see Jacob Price, France and the Chesapeake: A History of the French Tobacco Monopoly, 1674-1791, and of Its Relationship to the British and American Tobacco Trades (2 vols., Ann Arbor, 1973);
61. Jacob Price, "The Rise of Glasgow in the Chesapeake Tobacco Trade, 1707-1775," William and Mary Quarterly, 11 (April 1954), 179-99;
62. Bruce Ragsdale, A Planter's Republic: The Search for Economic Independence in Revolutionary Virginia (Madison, 1996);
63. and Benson, "Wealth and Power in Virginia."
64. On the rise of wheat growing, see Breen, Tobacco Culture, 180-82 and notes.
65. However strong or weak deferential behavior was in prerevolutionary Virginia, many members of the gentry sought to reassert it as an ideal during the Revolution. On the weakness of deference in Virginia and elsewhere, see Jack P. Greene, Imperatives, Behaviors, and Identities: Essays in Early American Cultural History (Charlottesville, 1992), 181-207.
66. Carl Lotus Becker, The History of Political Parties in the Province of New York, 1760-1776 (Madison, 1909).
67. The literature substantiating and adding nuance to Becker's dual-revolution thesis is large, but good starting points are Young, ed., American Revolution;
68. Alfred F. Young, ed., Beyond the American Revolution (De Kalb, 1990);
69. and the seminal work, Gary Nash, The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1979).
70. Good state studies in the neo-Progressive tradition include Edward Countryman, A People in Revolution: The American Revolution and Political Society in New York, 1760-1790 (Baltimore, 1981);
71. Richard Alan Ryerson, The Revolution Is Now Begun: The Radical Committees of Philadelphia, 1765-1776 (Philadelphia, 1978);
72. Rosswurm, Arms, Country, and Class;
73. Ronald Huffman, A Spirit of Dissension: Economics, Politics, and the Revolution in Maryland (Baltimore, 1973);
74. Marjoleine Kars, "'Breaking Loose Together': Religion and Rebellion in the North Carolina Piedmont, 1730-1790" (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1994);
75. and Rachel N. Klein, Unification of a Slave State: The Rise of a Planter Class in the South Carolina Backcountry, 1760-1808 (Chapel Hill, 1990).
76. On the radicalism and lasting influence of the Philadelphia militia, see especially Rosswurm, Arms, Country, and Class .
77. See also Gregory T. Knouff, "'An Arduous Service': The Pennsylvania Backcountry Soldiers' Revolution," Pennsylvania History, 61 (Jan. 1994), 45-74.
78. On the question of the extent of popular backing for the gentry in summer 1774, see McDonnell, "Politics of Mobilization in Revolutionary Virginia," chap. 1. Virginia Gazette (Rind), March 8, 1770,
79. quoted in Breen, Tobacco Culture, 195;
80. May 31, 1774, entry in Journal and Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian, 1773-1774: A Plantation Tutor of the Old Dominion, ed. Hunter Dickinson Farish (1943; Williamsburg, 1957), Ill.
81. On the problems of raising men in the French and Indian War, see Titus, Old Dominion at War.
82. Titus, Old Dominion at War, 144;
83. George Mason, "Fairfax County Militia Association," [Sept. 21, 1774], in Papers of George Mason, ed. Rutland, I, 210;
84. George Mason, "Remarks on Annual Elections for the Fairfax Independent Company," [April 17-26, 1775], Papers of George Mason, ibid., 229.
85. For the estimates of those eligible for military service in Dunmore and Albemarle counties, see the manuscript list published as "The Number of Men of Military Age in Virginia in 1776," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 18 (Jan. 1910), 34-35.
86. "Declaration of Subscribers to the First Independent Company of Dunmore County," [after Jan. 1775?], Dunmore County Committee of Safety Papers (Virginia Historical Society, Richmond);
87. Mason, "Fairfax County Militia Association," 211;
88. Mason to [Mr. Brent?], Oct. 2, 1778, in Papers of George Mason, ed. Rutland, I, 434.
89. See also "Report of the Committee to inquire into the causes of the late disturbances....," June 1, 1775,
90. "The Proceedings of the House of Burgesses of Virginia," in Records of the States of the United States, ed. William S. Jenkins (Washington, 1949) (microfilm: Virginia, 1b, reel 3, 1773-1781).
91. would like to thank Woody Holton for this reference. A quantitative analysis of a volunteer company from Albemarle corroborates Mason's observation. George Gilmer listed 23 men under his copy of the company's "Terms of Inlisting," April 18, 1775. See Autograph Diary and Revolutionary Memoranda of Dr. George Gilmer (Virginia Historical Society). (The printed edition of these papers lists 24 additional men, but taken from rolls drawn up later. See Brock, ed., "Papers, Military and Political, ... of George Gilmer," 69-140.)
92. Of the original 23 men, 15 were found on the 1782 Albemarle County personal property tax lists, and 15 on the 1782 land tax lists (4 appeared on only one list). Between them, they owned 232 slaves (an average of 15 each), 403 cattle (27 each), and 114 horses (8 each). They owned a total of 14,594 acres of land (an average of 973 each). Albemarle County Personal Property Tax Records, 1782 (Virginia State Library, Richmond); Albemarle County Land Tax Records, 1782, ibid. In 1787 the average Piedmont farmer might own just over 300 acres, and among the 70% who owned slaves, the average holding was 7.6 each. See Jackson Turner Main, "The Distribution of Property in Post-Revolutionary Virginia," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 41 (Sept. 1954), 241-58.
93. William C. White, "The Independent Companies of Virginia, 1774-1775," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 86 (April 1978), 151;
94. McDonnell, "Politics of Mobilization in Revolutionary Virginia," 35-36.
95. According to White's list, most counties in which companies formed were in the lower Piedmont, along either side of the fall line. No companies appear to have been formed in southwestern Virginia, outside of Amherst County, and only a few in the Tidewater. On the volunteer movement before April 1775, see Feb. 25, 1775, entry in The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell, 1774-1777 (London, 1925), 57;
96. Charles Lee to Robert Morris, Jan. 27, 1775, in The Lee Papers (4 vols.), New York Historical Society, Collections (1871-1874), I, 168;
97. Lord Dunmore to Dartmouth, Dec. 24, 1774, in The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick (39 vols., Washington, 1931-1944), III, 248n;
98. and James Madison to William Bradford, Nov. 26, 1774, in The Papers of James Madison, ed. William T. Hutchinson and William M. E. Rachal (Chicago, 1962-), I, 129.
99. White, "Independent Companies of Virginia," 152;
100. "Terms of Inlisting," [April 1775], in "Papers, Military and Political,. . . of George Gilmer," ed. Brock, 82;
101. Mason, "Remarks on Annual Elections for the Fairfax Independent Company," 229;
102. George Mason, "Fairfax County Militia Plan 'For Embodying the People,'" [Feb. 6, 1775], in Papers of George Mason, ed. Rutland, I, 215-16;
103. Mason, "Fairfax County Militia Association," 210-11;
104. "Declaration of Subscribers to the First Independent Company of Dunmore County";
105. "The First Independent Company of Dunmore," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 44 (April 1936), 102-4 (emphasis added).
106. Mason, "Remarks on Annual Elections for the Fairfax Independent Company," 229-31.
107. Mason, "Remarks on Annual Elections for the Fairfax Independent Company," Ibid., 231-32.
108. On Dunmore's raid, see Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 1-6.
109. On rumors of Dunmores threats to arm the slaves and the rumors' effect on white Virginians, see Holton, Forced Founders;
110. Peter Wood, "'Liberty Is Sweet': African-American Freedom Struggles in the Years before White Independence," in Beyond the American Revolution, ed. Young, 163-64;
111. Edward Stabler to Israel Pemberton, May 16, 1775, Photostat Collection (Foundation Library, Colonial Williamsburg, Williamsburg, Va.);
112. and Scribner, ed., Revolutionary Virginia, III, 6.
113. June 6, 1775, entry in Philip Vickers Fithian Journal, 1775-1776, ed. Albion and Dodson, 24;
114. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of George Washington, I, 24n;
115. Gilmer to Jefferson, July 26-27, 1775, in Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Boyd, I, 238.
116. White, "Independent Companies of Virginia," 151.
117. On the raising of the independent companies and their number, see McDonnell, "Politics of Mobilization in Revolutionary Virginia," chap. 1.
118. Gilmer, "Address of George Gilmer to the Inhabitants of Albemarle,"122;
119. George Gilmer, "List of Volunteers Present at Muster, June 17, 1775," in "Papers, Political and Military,. .. of George Gilmer," ed. Brock, 85;
120. "Terms of Inlisting," 82;
121. Albemarle County Personal Property Tax Records, 1782;
122. Albemarle County Land Tax Records, 1782.
123. Mason, "Fairfax County Militia Plan 'For Embodying the People,'" 215-16;
124. Isaac, "Dramatizing the Ideology of Revolution," 381.
125. On the popularization of military mobilization as seen through the medium of uniforms and outward assertions of martial ardor, see ibid., 379-80.
126. "Virginia Legislative Papers, 1774-1775," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 13 (July 1905), 49-50;
127. James Parker to Charles Steuart, May 6, 1775, in "Letters from Virginia," Magazine of History, 3 (March 1906), 158-59 ;
128. James Madison to Bradford, May 9, 1775, in Papers of James Madison, ed. Hutchinson and Rachal, I, 144-45;
129. Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 5.
130. The preceding paragraph owes much to Selby, Revolution in Virginia, ibid., 1-6.
131. See also Michael Wallace to Gustavus Wallace, May 14, 1775, Wallace Family Papers (Alderman Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville); and Charles Yates to Samuel Martin, May 11, 1775, Charles Yates Letterbook, Revolution in Virginia, ibid.
132. Scribner, ed., Revolutionary Virginia, III, 177.
133. See also ibid., 71-72n.
134. Proceedings of the Independent Company of Volunteers, [April 29, 1775], Diary and Memoranda of Gilmer;
135. "Report of the Committee to inquire into the causes of the late disturbances."
136. John Coles and David Rodes were wealthy, in 1782 Coles owned 5,000 acres and 64 slaves, Rodes 568 acres and 22 slaves. Albemarle County Personal Property Tax Records, 1782;
137. Albemarle County Land Tax Records, 1782.
138. Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 47-48;
139. Scribner, ed., Revolutionary Virginia, III, 218-19;
140. Gilmer to Jefferson, [July 26-27, 1775], in Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Boyd, I, 237;
141. "Meeting of Officers at Williamsburg," July 18, 1775, in "Papers, Political and Military,... of George Gilmer," ed. Brock, 92-93.
142. Officers of the Volunteer Independent Companies at Williamsburg to the Convention, July 26, 1775, in "Papers, Political and Military,... of George Gilmer," ed. Brock, 98-99;
143. Peyton Randolph to the Officers at Williamsburg, July 28, 1775, Papers, Political and Military,... of George Gilmer," ibid., 107-8. On the companies' actions, see ibid., 90-107; Officers at Williamsburg to the Convention, Aug. 1, 1775, ibid., 109;
144. and Scribner, ed., Revolutionary Virginia, III, 401. For a similar incident, see ibid., 417-18.
145. See Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 4-5, 42-43.
146. June 8, 1775, entry in Philip Vickers Fithian: Journal, 1775-1776, ed. Albion and Dodson, 25, 34;
147. petition of Charles Duncan, [Aug. 9, 1775], in Revolutionary Virginia, III, ed. Scribner, 410, 412;
148. Rosswurm, Arms, Country, and Class, 54.
149. See also Scribner, ed., Revolutionary Virginia, III, 490-91.
150. William Byrd to Ralph Wormeley, Oct. 4, 1775, Wormeley Family Papers (Alderman Library);
151. Byrd to Sir Jeffery Amherst, July 30, 1775, in The Correspondence of the Three William Byrds of Westover, Virginia, 1684-1776, ed. Marion Tinling (2 vols., Charlottesville, 1977), II, 812;
152. Robert Munford to Byrd, April 20, 1775, The Correspondence of the Three William Byrds of Westover, Virginia, 1684-1776, ibid., 806.
153. See Courtlandt Canby, ed., "Robert Munford's The Patriots," William and Mary Quarterly, 6 (July 1949), 437-503.
154. [Thomson Mason], "The British American, VII," Virginia Gazette (Rind), July 14, 1774,
155. in Revolutionary Virginia: The Road to Independence, vol. I: Forming Thunderclouds and the First Convention, 1763-1774, ed. Robert L. Scribner (Charlottesville, 1973), 184.
156. See also a revealing exchange of letters, first published in May and June 1775, Revolutionary Virginia: The Road to Independence, vol. ibid., III, 117, 180-82, 199-200.
157. For Peyton Randolphs statement, see Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 3.
158. James Madison to Bradford, May 9, 1775, in Papers of James Madison, ed. Hutchinson and Rachal, I, 145.
159. The House of Burgesses, responding to Dunmore's charge that it had given "countenance" to the "violent and disorderly proceedings of the people" when the magazine was rifled, told the governor the burgesses would never have given "countenance to such unjustifiable proceedings as happened that day" and that several gentlemen had tried to restrain the mob. See "Report of the Committee to inquire into the causes of the late disturbances."
160. See, for example, Peter H. Wood, "'The Dream Deferred': Black Freedom Struggles on the Eve of White Independence," in In Resistance: Studies in African, Caribbean, and Afro-American History, ed. Gary Okihiro (Amherst, 1986), 161-87;
161. and Holton, Forced Founders, chap. 5.
162. July 22, 1775, entry in The Diary of Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, 1752-1778, ed. Jack P. Greene (2 vols., Charlottesville, 1965), II, 925-26;
163. Isaac, "Dramatizing the Ideology of Revolution," 383.
164. George Mason to Martin Cockburn, July 24, 1775, in Papers of George Mason, ed. Rutland, I, 241;
165. Louisa County Committee Proceedings, Dec. 4, 1775, in Virginia Gazette (Dixon and Hunter), Dec. 23, 1775;
166. Chesterfield County Committee Memorial, [before July 1775], in Revolutionary Virginia, III, ed. Scribner, 339;
167. Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 47.
168. On the "independence" of the companies and the fears of the gentry, see McDonnell, "Politics of Mobilization in Revolutionary Virginia," chap. 1.
169. A compulsory militia service was resurrected, and a few "regulars" ordered raised. The regulars were to be stationed in Virginia for the time being, but they were too few to provide fully for the colony's defense, and it was expected that they would be called north. Similarly, though measures were taken to revive the militia, it was expected to be called on only in emergencies; otherwise it would be a reserve pool of men for the regular and minute services. Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 51 -52;
170. William Waller Hening, ed., The Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of all the Laws of Virginia, From the First Session of the Legislature, in the Year 1619 (1809-1823; 13 vols., Charlottesville, 1969), IX, 9-48.
171. On the Continental Army and its impact on the Virginia military establishment, see Don Higginbotham, The War of American Independence: Military Attitudes, Policies, and Practice, 1763-1789 (New York, 1971), 81-95.
172. Mason to George Washington, Oct. 14, 1775, in Papers of George Mason, ed. Rutland, I, 255-56;
173. Mason to Cockburn, Aug. 22, 1775, Papers of George Mason, ibid., 251;
174. Gilmer to Charles Carter, July 15, 1775, Diary and Memoranda of Gilmer.
175. On eighteenth-century warfare and expectations of service, see Reginald C. Stuart, War and American Thought: From the Revolution to the Monroe Doctrine (Kent, 1982), xiii-xv;
176. Shy, People Numerous and Armed, 277-80;
177. and Robert Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution (New York, 1982), 297-98.
178. Hening, ed., Statutes, IX, 9-53.
179. Lund Washington to George Washington, Dec. 3, 1775, in Papers of George Washington, ed. Abbot et al., II, 479;
180. Northampton County Committee of Safety to the Continental Congress, Nov. 17, 1775, in "Virginia Legislative Papers," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 14 (Jan. 1907), 253;
181. Robert L. Scribner and Brent Tarter, eds., Revolutionary Virginia: The Road to Independence, vol. IV: The Committee of Safety and the Balance of Forces, 1775 (Charlottesville, 1978), 246;
182. Lewis to George Washington, Nov. 14, 1775, in Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 53 (Jan. 1929), 93;
183. Archibald Cary to Jefferson, Oct. 31, 1775, in Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Boyd, I, 249.
184. See also John Page to the chairman of the Lancaster District Committee, Nov. 4, 1775, Sabine Hall Papers (Alderman Library).
185. When companies were raised, it was often slowly and incompletely. See "Proceedings of the Committees of Safety of Caroline and Southampton Counties, Virginia, 1774-1776," Virginia State Library Bulletin, 17 (Nov. 1929), 148-49, 153-55;
186. "Proceedings of the Committees of Safety of Cumberland and Isle of Wight Counties, Virginia, 1775-1776," in Virginia State Library Board, Fifteenth Annual Report (Richmond, 1919), 21, 24-27, 32, 33, 39.
187. Robert Honyman Diary, Jan. 2, 1776, microfilm f.1 (Alderman Library).
188. See also Robert Honyman Diary, ibid., March 17, 1776, f. 26.
189. His comments are borne out by statistics. Of the 160 companies of minutemen ordered raised by the Third Virginia Convention in July 1775, no more than three-fourths seem to have been raised. One list shows 129 companies on the record books (through requests for provisions, pay, or orders given out to them) between 1775 and the end of 1776, but it is not clear whether those companies were raised at all or raised in full. Culpeper district, for example, touted as having the largest of the minute battalions with 14 companies on the books, was able to muster only about 350 men to march to Williamsburg in fall 1775, half the number that 14 companies should have been able to supply. In the crucial initial period before the end of October, at most 49 companies formed, according to the list, and only another 19 from November to December. The rest formed after the military crisis of fall 1775 and after the Fourth Virginia Convention, when the delegates, responding to popular pressure, abolished battalion duty, stripping the minute service of any real distinction from the militia. Hening, ed., Statutes, IX, 86-88;
190. E. M. Sanchez-Saavedra, A Guide to Virginia Military Organizations in the American Revolution (Richmond, 1978);
191. Sanchez-Saavedra, "'All Fine Fellows and Well-Armed,'" 4-6.
192. Hening, ed., Statutes, IX, 20-21;
193. Gilmer, "Address of George Gilmer to the Inhabitants of Albemarle," 122-23, 125, 127.
194. Richard S. Dunn, "Black Society in the Chesapeake, 1776-1810," in Slavery and Freedom in the Age of the American Revolution, ed. Ira Berlin and Ronald Hoffman (Charlottesville, 1983), 67.
195. For an attempt to make sense of the sketchy data about the number of slaveholding families at the time of the Revolution, see Main, "Distribution of Property in Post-Revolutionary Virginia," 248-49.
196. For the statement about "Corporeal Labours," see James Innes to Jefferson, Feb. 21, 1781, in Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Boyd, IV, 675.
197. For similar complaints that the minute service took men from their farms, see "Virginia Legislative Papers," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 17 (Oct. 1909), 381;
198. and "Virginia Legislative Papers," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, ibid., 18 (Jan. 1910), 26-27.
199. Petition from Chesterfield County, in Proceedings of the Fifth Virginia Convention, May 7, 1776, in Revolutionary Virginia: The Road to Independence, vol. VII: Independence and the Fifth Convention, 1776, ed. Brent Tarter (Charlottesville, 1983), 47;
200. Rockbridge County Petition, [June 14, 1781] (Virginia State Library);
201. Hening, ed., Statutes, IX, 20-21;
202. Accomack County Committee of Safety to the Fourth Virginia Convention, Nov. 30, 1775, in "Virginia Legislative Papers," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 14 (Jan. 1907), 258.
203. On the labor needed for tobacco growing, see Lois Green Carr, Russell R. Menard, and Lorena S. Walsh, Robert Coles' World: Agriculture and Society in Early Maryland (Chapel Hill, 1991), 59.
204. Petition from Chesterfield County, 47;
205. George Gilmer, "Address to the Albemarle County Independent Company," [April 18, 1775], in Revolutionary Virginia, III, ed. Scribner, 50-51.
206. Lund Washington to George Washington, Feb. 29, 1776, in Papers of George Washington, ed. Abbot et al., III, 396.
207. On the northern Virginians' protest, see Woody Holton and Michael McDonnell, "The Loudoun County Uprising and the Revolution in Virginia," typescript, 1997 (in Michael McDonnells possession).
208. William Henry to Theodorick Bland, June 17, 1779, Bland Family Papers (Virginia Historical Society).
209. For a sample of the times when many small farmers turned out to fight, see McDonnell, "Politics of Mobilization in Revolutionary Virginia," chap. 7, esp. 246-49.
210. Hening, ed., Statutes, IX, 28, 31, 89;
211. "Petition of Amelia County Militiamen," [May 23, 1776], in Revolutionary Virginia, VII, ed. Tarter, 236. For evidence of a similar petition from Chesterfield County, see ibid., 87.
212. Proceedings of the Fifth Virginia Convention, June 4, 1776, Revolutionary Virginia, ibid., 349;
213. "Petition of Inhabitants of Lunenburg County," [April 26, 1776], Revolutionary Virginia: The Road to Independence, vol. VI: The Time for Decision, 1776, ed. Robert L. Scribner (Charlottesville, 1981), 474-77.
214. The missing words were supplied by a similarly worded petition from Mecklenburg County, May 13, 1776, Revolutionary Virginia, VII, ed. Tarter, 114-15.
215. On the struggle over exemptions of overseers, see Allan Kulikoff, "The American Revolution, Capitalism, and the Formation of the Yeoman Classes," in Beyond the American Revolution, ed. Young, 80-119.
216. Some planters abused that exemption. Robert Carter asked the colonel of the militia of Westmoreland County to take Robert Mitchell off the list of militiamen required to muster as Carter was designating him as an overseer (although Mitchell had entered Carter's estate as a clerk and steward). Robert Carter to John A. Washington, Nov. 23, 1775, Robert Carter Letterbooks, vol. 3, Robert Carter Papers (Foundation Library, Colonial Williamsburg).
217. Scribner, ed., Revolutionary Virginia, III, 490-92, 497;
218. Benson, "Wealth and Power in Virginia," 246;
219. Honyman Diary, Jan. 2, 1776, f. 2-3;
220. Robert L. Scribner and Brent Tarter, eds., Revolutionary Virginia: The Road to Independence, vol. V: The Clash of Arms and the Fourth Convention, 1775-1776 (Charlottesville, 1979), 157.
221. See also Revolutionary Virginia: The Road to Independence, vol. ibid., IV, 72-73, 142.
222. On the timing of anti-Tory actions, see, for example, a petition from Caroline County, submitted during the militia call-outs to counter the 1781 British invasion, in The Letters and Papers of Edmund Pendleton, 1734-1803, ed. David John Mays (2 vols., Charlottesville, 1967), I, 363-65.
223. Lewis to George Washington, Nov. 14, 1775, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 53 (Jan. 1929), 93;
224. Gilmer, "Address of George Gilmer to the Inhabitants of Albemarle," 122-23;
225. "Virginia Legislative Papers," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 18 (Jan. 1910), 29-31;
226. "Proceedings of a General Court Martial held in Leeds Town," June 18, 1781, Executive Papers (Virginia State Library).
227. Gilmor, "Address of George Gilmer to the Inhabitants of Albemarle," 122, 124;
228. Isaac, Transformation of Virginia, 105;
229. Francis Willis to Robert Carter, July 19, 1775, Carter Family Papers (Virginia Historical Society).
230. Robert L. Scribner, ed., Revolutionary Virginia: The Road to Independence, vol. II: The Breaking Storm and the Third Convention (Charlottesville, 1975), 374-75.
231. On elections of officers in other colonies, see David J. Toscano, "A Shift in Strategy: The Organization of Military Struggle," in Resistance, Politics, and the American Struggle for Independence, 1765-1775, ed. Walter H. Conser Jr. et al. (Boulder, 1986), 426, 430.
232. "Proceedings of the Committees of Safety of Cumberland and Isle of Wight Counties," 15-16;
233. Nov. 19-20, 1775, entries in Philip Vickers Fithian: Journal, 1775-1776, ed. Albion and Dodson, 133-34.
234. Gilmer, "Address of George Gilmer to the Inhabitants of Albemarle," 123-24, 125;
235. Tarter, ed., Revolutionary Virginia, VII, 88;
236. "Proceedings of the Committees of Safety of Cumberland and Isle of Wight Counties," 37;
237. H. R. McIlwaine, ed., Journals of the Council of the State of Virginia, 1776-1788 (4 vols., Richmond, 1931-1967), I, 491.
238. Hening, Statutes, IX, 9-10, 21-23;
239. Leven Powell to Sally Powell, Dec. 5, 1775, photocopy (Virginia Historical Society).
240. would like to thank Woody Holton for this reference. Lund Washington to George Washington, Feb. 29, 1776, in Papers of George Washington, ed. Abbot et al., III, 395-96;
241. Gilmer, "Address of George Gilmer to the Inhabitants of Albemarle," 126;
242. Scribner and Tarter, eds., Revolutionary Virginia, IV, 142.
243. Gilmer, "Address of George Gilmer to the Inhabitants of Albemarle," 122, 126 (emphasis added).
244. Gilmer, "Address of George Gilmer to the Inhabitants of Albemarle," Ibid., 126, 128;
245. George Washington to the president of Congress, Sept. 24, 1776, in Writings of George Washington, ed. Fitzpatrick, VI, 108-9, 110;
246. Charles Lee to Benjamin Rush, Oct. 10, [1775], Lee Papers, I, 212;
247. "The Orderly Book of the Company of Captain George Stubblefield, Fifth Virginia Regiment," Virginia Historical Society, Collections, new series, 6 (1887), 159.
248. Posturing and claims to superiority were given a new lease on life in the military forces, but the middling sort had become sensitized to such behavior. See Greene, Imperatives, Behaviors, and Identities, 200-201.
249. Mason, "Fairfax County Militia Association," 210;
250. Mason, "Remarks on Annual Elections for the Fairfax Independent Company," 229;
251. "Proceedings of the Committees of Safety of Cumberland and Isle of Wight Counties," 16-17;
252. Gilmer, "Address of George Gilmer to the Inhabitants of Albemarle," 122-23, 125, 127.
253. Gilmer, "Address of George Gilmer to the Inhabitants of Albemarle," 126.
254. George Washington to Patrick Henry, April 13, 1777, in Writings of George Washington, ed. Fitzpatrick, VII, 407-9.
255. Tillson, "Militia and Popular Political Culture in the Upper Valley of Virginia," 306.
256. See also Tillson, Gentry and Common Folk, chaps. 3-5. The comment about "fare play" was made in the heat of an incident over the apprehension of a deserter. "Information," Oct. 6, 1777, box 1, 1770s-, Suit Papers, Cumberland County Court Records (Virginia State Library).
257. Lewis to George Washington, Nov. 14, 1775, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 53 (Jan. 1929), 93;
258. Hening, ed., Statutes. IX, 86, 89, 139;
259. Scribner and Tarter, eds., Revolutionary Virginia, V, 190-91.
260. On the struggle over the addition of Virginias new troops to the Continental establishment, the situation in Virginia in fall 1775, and Dunmore's proclamation, see Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 58-79;
261. and John Robert Sellers, "The Virginia Continental Line, 1775-1780" (Ph.D. diss., Tulane University, 1968), 54-63.
262. Titus, OlD Dominion at War, 45;
263. Hening, Statutes, LX, 275-80;
264. Edmund Pendleton to William Woodford, June 28, 1777, in Letters and Papers of Edmund Pendleton, ed. Mays, I, 215;
265. John Chilton to his brother [Charles Chilton?], Aug. 11, 1777, in Keith Family of Woodburn, Fauquier County, Papers (Virginia Historical Society);
266. Honyman Diary, Aug. 29, 1777, ff. 154-56.
267. Studies of recruits from 1776 and later in the war confirm this pattern. See Richard C. Bush, "'Awake, Rouse Your Courage, Americans Brave': Companies Raised in Northumberland County for the Virginia Continental Line, 1776 and 1777," Bulletin of the Northumberland County Historical Society, 29 (1992), 7-10;
268. John Van Atta, "Conscription in Revolutionary Virginia: The Case of Culpeper County, 1780-1781," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 92 (July 1984), 279;
269. and Joseph A. Goldenberg et al., "Revolutionary Ranks: An Analysis of the Chesterfield Supplement," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, ibid., 87 (April 1979), 182-89.
270. Pendleton to James Madison, Sept. 25, 1779, in Letters and Papers of
271. "Representation of the State of the Virginia Line," enclosure in Friedrich, baron von Steuben, to Jefferson, May 28, 1781, in Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Boyd, VI, 31.
272. Gilmer, "Address of George Gilmer to the Inhabitants of Albemarle," 115, 121-22.
273. The Third Virginia Convention had provided that "freeholders" who were entitled to vote for burgesses were eligible to elect "annually twenty-one of the most discreet, fit, and able men" to serve as a committee. Hening, ed., Statutes, IX, 53-60;
274. Scribner and Tarter, eds., Revolutionary Virginia, IV, 206.
275. Kulikoff, Tobacco and Slaves, 307-8;
276. Benson, "Wealth and Power in Virginia," 303-9.
277. Jan. 22, 26, 1776, entries in Journal of Nicholas Cresswell, 136;
278. March 12, 28, 1776, entries in Diary of London Carter, ed. Greene, II, 999, 1006.
279. On the impact of Common Sense in Virginia, see Holton and McDonnell, "Loudoun County Uprising."
280. Edmund Randolph, History of Virginia, ed. Arthur H. Shaffer (Charlottesville, 1970), 234;
281. Josiah Parker to Landon Carter, April 14, 1776, Sabine Hall Papers;
282. Robert Brent to R. H. Lee, April 28, 1776, in Lee Family Papers, ed. Paul P. Hoffman (microfilm, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, 1966);
283. Scribner, ed., Revolutionary Virginia, VI, 287-91.
284. On the relatively quiet prerevolutionary elections, see John G. Kolp, "The Dynamics of Electoral Competition in Pre-Revolutionary Virginia," William and Mary Quarterly, 49 (Oct. 1992), 652-74.
285. Landon Carter to George Washington, May 9, 1776, in Papers of George Washington, ed. Abbot et al., IV, 236-37, 240-41;
286. May 1, 1776, entry in Diary of Landon Carter, ed. Greene, II, 1031.
287. For the suggestion that small farmers' demand for independence, combined with the gentry's fear of "disorders"-including those created by the independent companies and by resistance to the minutemen - pushed the gentry into this unforeseen decision, see Holton, Forced Founders, esp. part III.
288. Honyman Diary, April 15, July 4, 1780, ff. 395, 414;
289. George Mason, "Remarks on the Proposed Bill for Regulating the Elections of the Members of the General Assembly," [June 1, 1780], in Papers of George Mason, ed. Rudand, II, 629-31, 631-32n.
290. On legislative turnover in the late war years and mobilization policy, see McDonnell, "Politics of Mobilization in Revolutionary Virginia," chap. 4.
291. Undated bill, Legislative Department, Rough Bills (Virginia State Library). I would like to thank Brent Tarter for this reference. Thomas Madison to William Preston, Nov. 30, 1780, Preston Papers (Virginia Historical Society);
292. Joseph Jones to James Madison, Nov. 10, 18, 24, Dec. 2, 8, 1780, in Papers of James Madison, ed. Hutchinson and Rachal, II, 168, 182-83, 185, 198, 218-19, 232;
293. Hening, ed., Statutes, X, 326-37;
294. Journal of the House of Delegates, Nov. 10, 1780, Jan. 1781 (Virginia State Library).
295. See, for example, Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 318;
296. and Sloan and Onuf, "Politics, Culture, and the Revolution in Virginia," 280.
297. For contemporary comments on the return of elite dominance, see Pendleton to James Madison, April 16, 1781, in Letters and Papers of Edmund Pendleton, ed. Mays, I, 350, 350n2;
298. and St. George Tucker to Bland, May 2, 1782, in The Bland Papers: Being a Selection from the Manuscripts of Colonel Theodorick Bland, Jr., ed. Charles Campbell (2 vols., Petersburg, Va., 1840-1843), II, 79.
299. Sloan and Onuf, "Politics, Culture, and the Revolution in Virginia," 280.
300. Sloan and Onuf, "Politics, Culture, and the Revolution in Virginia," Ibid., 279.
301. See also Norman K. Risjord, Chesapeake Politics, 1781-1800 (New York, 1978);
302. Norman K. Risjord, "How the 'Common Man' Voted in Jefferson's Virginia," in America: The Middle Period; Essays in Honor of Bernard Mayo, ed. John B. Boles (Charlottesville, 1973), 36-64;
303. and Jackson T. Main, "Sections and Politics in Virginia, 1781-1787," William and Mary Quarterly, 12 (Jan. 1955), 96-112.
304. See also Steven James Sarson, "Wealth, Poverty, and Labor in the Tobacco Plantation South: Prince George's County, Maryland, in the Early National Era" (Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1998). Though it arrived too late for full consideration here, Sarson's thorough and thoughtful study promises to challenge historiographical paradigms concerning the yeoman farmer in the early republic and suggests that any gains made by ordinary Virginians during the Revolution may have been temporary or more ideological/cultural than social/economic.
305. See Alfred F. Young, "The Framers of the Constitution and the 'Genius' of the People," Radical History Review (no. 42, 1988), 8-18.
306. Popular upheaval may have had effects on Virginia's national leaders. For speculation on the consequences of anti-Federalist populism for political society in the early republic, see Saul Cornell, "Aristocracy Assailed: The Ideology of Backcountry Anti-Federalism," Journal of American History, 76 (March 1990), 1171-72.
307. See also Ronald P. Formisano, "Teaching Shays/the Regulation: Historiographical Problems as Tools for Learning," Common Sense (no. 106, Winter 1998), 24-35;
308. and Shy, People Numerous and Armed, 213-63. Shy offered suggestive thoughts on the postwar national legacy of the armed conflict, but his call for research on the impact and consequences of the war has still not been answered comprehensively.
309. See Gross, Minutemen and Their World;
310. Rosswurm, Arms, Country, and Class;
311. Knouff, "'Arduous Service'";
312. and Edward C. Papenfuse and Gregory A. Stiverson, "General Smallwood's Recruits: The Peacetime Career of the Revolutionary War Private," William and Mary Quarterly, 30 (Jan. 1973), 117-32.