Escape from Monticello: the damage done

Fawn Brodie (An Intimate History, p. 146) has succinctly described Jefferson’s retreat from Monticello and its effect on his future career:

His behavior was cool, and could certainly be described as brave, but the flight over Carter’s Mountain was eventually turned by Jefferson’s enemies into a legend of military ineptness and cowardice. The fact that everyone in the Virginia civil government was fleeing—“Governor, council, everybody scampering,” in the words of Betsey Ambler—did not serve to spare Jefferson abuse in his presidential years.  And the charge of cowardice, like an evil shadow, would follow him throughout his life. 

It is impossible to overstate the damage that this period, with its many trials, failures, tragedies, and humiliations, inflicted on Jefferson's psyche.  The Virginia assembly’s final report in December exonerating him, and their resolution of thanks, did not remove the sting. "It is unfortunate for our peace that unmerited abuse wounds,” he wrote later, “while unmerited praise has not the power to heal."  

Ex-Governor Jefferson under fire

For several days after regrouping in Staunton after Tarleton's attack on Charlottesville, the Virginia Assembly continued fruitlessly to issue resolutions to the governor, not realizing that he had relinquished the seat on June 1. On June 12, after electing his successor, the House also voted to conduct “an inquiry into the conduct of the Executive for the past twelve months” to account for the “numberless miscarriages and losses” Virginia had suffered during his administration. This was a particularly insensitive phrase to one whose wife had experienced miscarriages and who had recently lost their third child.

On June 19, Jefferson's friend Archibald Cary, the Speaker of the Senate, caught him up on events in the Virginia legislature. "You must have heard that Nelson is your successor," he reported. Moreover, the House had voted to give "Ample Powers to the Executive"--in other words, to empower a dictator--and the Senate was likely to concur. At last, Cary came to the real point:

So Much for Assembly but I must give you one more peice of News respecting your Self.,,,George Nicholas made a Motion in the Delegates House for an Inquire into your Conduct, a Catalogue of omissions, and other Misconduct. I have not Seen the Particulars. Your Friends Confident an Inquire would do you Honor Seconded the Motion. I presume you will be Serv’d with the order....I had heard something of this Kind was to be brought on the Carpit, and If I know you, it will Give you no pain.

Cary clearly did not know Jefferson. He was stricken by the news, utterly and permanently mortified.  For the rest of his life, he would recall the Assembly's action--which he attributed to the machinations of Patrick Henry--with bitterness and shame.

6/12/ 1781: Richard H. Lee urges Congress to send General Washington to VA "with Dictatorial power"

Richard Henry Lee to the Virginia Delegates in Congress, Chantilly:  

“Dear Gentlemen

 "I am not informed who of our Delegates remain at Congress and therefore this letter is addressed to you whom I have good reason to suppose are yet there. The unhappy crisis of our countrys fate demands the closest attention of all her sons, and calls for the united wisdom and strongest exertions of all others who may be affected by our ruin. I suppose you have been informed of the junction of the enemies forces on James river and of many of their subsequent movements—that they have quickly mounted a very formidable Cavalry by seising on all the fine horses in that part of our country where they most abound to the number of 5 or 600. Being thus provided, and greatly superior in numbers and quality of troops to the Marquis, they moved as if intending to cross the Country to Fredericksburg. Our army keeping at a prudent distance advanced upon their left or western flank. The Marquis proceeding forward in daily expectation of being joined by Gen. Waynes long, very long delayed force, approached Rappahanock above Falmouth, when the enemy halted their main body in the forks of Pomunkey, and detatched 500 Cavalry with an Infantryman behind each to Charlottesville where our unformed Assembly was collecting by adjournment from Richmond. The two houses were not compleated, and Mr. Jefferson had resigned his office and retired, as some of our dispersed Delegates report, when the enemy entered Charlottesville this day sennight and dispersed the whole taking Mr. Digges the Lieutenant Governor prisoner and some Delegates, Mr. Lyons the Judge and many others…[90] You will then judge of the situation of thiscountry, without either executive or Legislative authority, every thing in the greatest possible confusion, the enemy far superior in force to that with the Marquis, and practicing every thing that force and fraud can contrive. I do give it to you gentlemen as my serious opinion, uninfluenced by vain apprehension, that if immediate and powerful interposition does not take place, commensurate to the certain danger, that all the country below the Mountains will be in the power of the enemy in a few months. It is true that we have in Virginia a number of Men much greater than the enemies force, but it is also true that their dispersed, unarmed, and unadvised condition; without government and without system of any kind, renders them an easy prey to the combined force and concerted system of our enemies….In the popularity, the judgement, and the experience of Gen. Washington we can alone find the remedy. Let Congress send him immediately to Virginia, and as the head of the Fœderal Union let them possess the General with Dictatorial power until the general Assembly can be convened…. Both antient and modern times furnish precedents to justify this procedure, but if they did not, the present necessity not only justifies but absolutely demands the measure.” PTJ 7:91-92

The manuscript of Notes in person

I had the extraordinary privilege this morning of working with the original manuscript of Notes on the State of Virginia, in the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society. The Jefferson scholar Douglas Wilson examined the watermarks of the base pages of the manuscript, and listed the eight different marks he found. My purpose was to inspect the paper on which Jefferson's inserts--his "Post-It Notes," so to speak--were written, for the same purpose. (More later on why this is significant.)

It quickly became evident why Wilson had not analyzed the watermarks of the inserts: they almost never appear on the small slips of paper Jefferson employed for them.

Here's an exception: note the fleur-de-lys (lower left)
from the watermark of J. Honig & Zoonen, a well-known
Dutch manufacturer. Notes mss., p. 19, tab 1. MHS

I was able to extract some valuable information about the paper, but the most powerful revelation about the pages was how small they were, and how small and precise Jefferson's handwriting is on them. Because the MHS scans are of such high resolution, I can hone in on a sentence or a word and fill the screen of my 32-inch monitor--or connect my laptop to my 42" television if I need to zoom in closer to decipher a crossed-out phrase. So I'm used to viewing the mss at a high magnification. In person, however, the script is small, and the interlineations are tiny--much smaller, and just as precise, as the fine print in a credit card contract.

Notes mss., p. 16. MHS

The MHS's scan of Notes is here.

Retreat to Poplar Forest

          Jefferson considered his governorship to have ended on June 1, but when he fled from Monticello the next day, the Assembly, now convened in the western town of Staunton, had not been able to elect a successor. Nor was it able to until June 12, when it followed Jefferson’s recommendation and elected militia commander Thomas Nelson, Jr., investing him with both the military and civil leadership, and thus the authority Jefferson had lacked. Technically, then, Virginia had been without a head for ten days, and because Jefferson declined to join the Assembly when it regrouped in Staunton, many members considered that he had deserted his post at the time of his state’s greatest danger.
          For his part, Jefferson seemed to have vanished. For two weeks after his arrival at Poplar Forest, he drafted not a single letter. Even more extraordinary, he did not enter a single entry in his memorandum book, his daily accounting of expenses that provides the most complete record of his activities and whereabouts. Then, after a notation on June 30 of a payment of £600 to a Dr. Brown for two visits, two more weeks of silence.  Later he explained these days of isolation as recuperation from a fall from his horse, which may well be true; but it is equally certain that he passed through an agony of shame, humiliation, and self-reproach that would haunt him for a lifetime.
        Jefferson did more during these six weeks at Poplar Forest than just nurse his injuries, physical and psychic; it was here that he drafted the main part of his answers to the queries of M. Marbois about Virginia, the supremely-troubled, unmanageable country that he had failed so conspicuously to govern. “The subjects are all treated imperfectly; some scarcely touched on,” he would attest six years later in his introduction to the published version. “To apologize for this by developing the time and place of the circumstances of their composition, would be to open wounds which have already bled enough." In this passage at least, we can trust that Jefferson was being completely candid.
Jefferson buffs imagine him and his family in the charming octagonal country house, a kind of mini-Monticello, which he designed and built at the site. It would be hard to conceive of a more perfect writer’s retreat. But that beautiful Palladian dwelling would not be constructed for another quarter century. The estate in 1781 was bare of buildings besides the slave quarters and one or perhaps two overseers’ cabins. The Jefferson family took up residence in one of these for the better part of two months.
        The replies to Marbois’ Queries provided Jefferson with an opportunity to reimpose order on a world over which he had lost control, and which had cut him to the quick. It evidently had begun to serve this purpose even before he left office. Famous for his imperturbability, Jefferson displayed an uncanny degree of detachment from the several crises surrounding him during his work on the Notes. Scholars have indulgently recounted the evident eagerness and enthusiasm with which Jefferson turned to the task of compiling facts about his home state for the French diplomat. It is disconcerting, however, to realize that these absorbing researches were conducted while that state was under invasion, and its governor under attack for his inattention.

Arnold's invasion of Virginia

During the first week of January, Benedict Arnold's troops headed up the James toward Richmond. On January 5, he ordered his troops to spread out to look like a large invasion force. The inhabitants scattered, and the unopposed redcoats captured the new capital (moved from Williamsburg to be safe from invasion at Jefferson's urging). The next day, General Nelson, commander of the militia, launched a counterattack, but it was thwarted by torrential rains that nearly drowned his troops and rendered his guns and ammunition useless. 

After the British moved on from Richmond, Major Richard Claiborne, the deputy quartermaster general, reported: “There is no commander here, nor will anybody be commanded. This leaves what public stores a few of the virtuous inhabitants have collected, exposed to every passenger, and the property of the individuals to the ravages of the Negroes. Both public and private property have been discovered to a considerably quantity, that was secreted clandestinely in and about town; and I am sorry to say that there is a stigma which rests upon the conduct of some of our own men with respect to the pillaging of public and private goods, that does not upon the British troops.”

Jefferson himself came under withering criticism for his unpreparedness and inattentiveness. It was not until January 19 that he convened the Governor's Council, and four days later that he called for the Assembly to convene. For weeks, he issued orders--more like suggestions--calling for the establishment of a battery at Hood's Point, a vital bottleneck on the James that would impede Arnold's ships if fortified. But nothing happened, and the incredulous British were able to pass through at will. Fortunately, however, they were in no rush to reduce the state, and redeployed to Portsmouth to spend the winter.

While the British fortified  Portsmouth, Jefferson had more time to devote to M. Marbois’ Queries. The Frenchman wrote him on February 5 to thank him for undertaking the project. “Hitherto it has been in my power to collect a few materials only," Jefferson apologized on March 4, explaining with supreme understatement that "my present occupations disable me from completing” it. Soon, however, he would “be in a condition which will leave me quite at leisure to take them up,” i.e., when he relinquished the governorship in June.

The lull in the invasion was only temporary, however.  On April 18, Major General William Phillips sailed past Newport News toward Richmond. Exactly a week later, Cornwallis's army crossed into Virginia from the South, and the two forces converged at Petersburg on May 20. Once again, the Virginia Assembly was routed from the capital, intending to reconvene at Charlottesville; but Col. Banastre Tarleton continued in pursuit, taking seven lingering Assembly members prisoner and laying waste Jefferson’s plantation at Elk Hill before sending an officer to Monticello to attempt to seize the governor himself. Warned in the nick of time, Jefferson rode off from his mountaintop home through the back roads to reunite with his family at his property at Poplar Forest some sixty miles to the southwest. 

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.”