Governor Jefferson begins work on Notes on the State of Virginia while the British invade

Jefferson embarked on his response to the queries of M. François Barbé-Marbois, the secretary to the French legation in Philadelphia, in November of 1780, while a fleet of British warships lay at anchor at Hampton Roads, with 5000 Redcoats under General Alexander Leslie ready to strike and the state almost entirely without defenses. Virginia, with its strategic position, rich fields, and hundreds of thousands of potentially rebellious slaves, was a ripe target for invasion. With thousands of miles of coastline and a network of rivers penetrating deep into the country, Virginia’s only hope of safety, Jefferson knew, was a strong naval defense.  This, however, had proved “unsuccessful beyond all my fears.”


Unaccountably, however, Leslie did nothing--besides laying waste to Hampton--for several weeks, at which point  Leslie was forced to abandon its attack in order to reinforce beleaguered British forces in South Carolina. Jefferson breathed a sigh of relief and disbanded Virginia’s 4000-man militia four days later, ordering 400 Virginia troops to the scene of the action in South Carolina.

On December 9, however, General Washington warned Jefferson that “another embarkation is taking place…destined southward.” The state was still entirely unprepared—bare both of defensive works and of manpower. Baron von Steuben, the short-tempered Prussian drill master whom Washington had put in charge of Virginia’s protection, reported that the militiamen under his command were “utterly naked” and “in the most wretched situation that can be conceived.”  He considered it an act of “inhumanity” to allow them to enlist and “die by inches.” Steuben counseled a draft—a suggestion Jefferson feared would only lead to mutinies and desertions.

On December 20, the day that Jefferson wrote to Marbois acknowledging the receipt of his Queries, General Benedict Arnold’s invasion force set sail for Virginia.  When a messenger delivered the news to Jefferson at 8:00 a.m. on the 31st that a fleet of 27 sail had been sighted off Hampton Roads, the Governor resolved to do nothing until he received more clarification about the nature of the ships: perhaps they were the French fleet he had been awaiting, or maybe they were no more than a foraging party. It would not do to cry wolf and risk inflaming the populace with an unnecessary militia call. Jefferson awaited “further discoveries.”  The following day he acknowledged to the Speaker of the House that such a large number of ships gave “suspicions that it may be hostile,” especially since he had heard from Washington several days before that an invasion might be imminent; thus he “thought it my duty to communicate it to the General assembly” so that it might offer “some advice to the Executive on this subject.”  Feckless and inattentive, this was the wrong body to turn to.  It would be two days before Jefferson would summon the Privy Council and call out the militia—and even then he requested only a partial deployment.  By that time it was too late.