Volume 3, Chapter 68, Support from Virginia
The well-disciplined citizens of Massachusetts held themselves in check and refused to be
provoked into attack, and their angry leader Sam Adams wrote, See what indignities we suffer
rather than precipitate a crisis.
It took no uncommon astuteness to see that the colonies and Great Britain were on collision
and Course.
In late March, before the Virginia Convention, an enlarged House of Burgesses meeting illegally
at Richmond without authorization of the governor, the golden-tongued Patrick Henry made his
most famous speech.
In it he prophetically warned, The war has actually begun.
The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding
arms.
The major issue at the Virginia Convention and the occasion for Henry's speech was his
resolution to strengthen and arm the Virginia militia for the clash that Patrick Henry was
sure was fast approaching. Henry openly welcomed the imminent revolutionary clash. Let it come!
I repeat, sir, let it come! Henry dramatically concluded, His life so dear or peace so sweet
as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know
not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.
Henry's resolution was ably supported by the radical theoretician Richard Henry Lee and
the military-minded George Washington. But the resolution to strengthen the militia met
stiff conservative opposition, led by three delegates to the Continental Congress, Edmund
Pendleton, Benjamin Harrison and Richard Bland. As a result, the Henry Resolution won only
by a slim vote. Indeed, the delegates refused to call up any sizable number of armed men
and to seize the reins of government openly, and they appointed a conservative committee,
Dominated by Pendleton and Harrison to oversee the military preparations.
Nevertheless, the Virginia militia was formed in companies independent of officers appointed
by the governor. Patrick Henry's militia resolution was modeled on preceding county
committee resolutions in Virginia, especially one of Fairfax County, where George Washington
Washington had led the adoption of this proposal in January. Washington's resolves, in turn,
had been strictly patterned upon the Maryland Convention of November, which, in addition
to approving the acts of the Continental Congress, urged the formation of a large-scale militia
in Maryland with officers to be elected and with funds for the citizen-soldiery to be
The Theory of Money
and Signed Loyalty Pledges to Great Britain. Indeed, Governor Josiah Martin urged General Gage to send him weapons and ammunition to arm the North Carolina Tories.
The Tory sentiment in the back country has led historians to believe that the North Carolina regulators, in anger against the seaboard planters,
had suppressed them, and who were now rebels against Britain, had reacted by joining the
Tory cause.
A pretty theory, but at odds with the facts.
The most recent and most careful historian of the regulator movement estimates that of
323 regulators whose later choice is known, 289, joined the revolution while only 34,
slightly over ten percent became Tories.
Armed clashes between the popular and governmental troops began to occur in mid-April in the
South, shortly before news of Lexington and Concord arrived. By mid-April, news had arrived
of Britain's decision to crack down on New England rather than conciliate. Accordingly,
Lord Dunmore, Governor of Virginia, had twenty kegs of powder in the Virginia Provincial
The Williamsburg Mass has threatened to rise up and recapture the powder. Virginia seethed with indignation, and the committees of Gloucester, Henrico, Dumfries, and Albemarle counties called for restoration of the gunpowder.
Lord Dunmore refused to give up the powder, summoned all people loyal to Britain to rally to him, and threatened to free all the slaves of Virginia and burn Williamsburg to the ground.
Six hundred well-armed Virginians met at Fredericksburg on April 29 to press their demands.
The Redoubtable Patrick Henry, however, refused to be cowed, as had even Richard Henry Lee,
and himself led a militia company from Hanover County, which managed to seize at least the
Lord Dunmore declared Patrick Henry an outlaw, which more than ever made him a hero of the
enraged people of Virginia. The night after Dunmore's raid on the powder, South Carolina
rebels, joined in a secret committee of the South Carolina Provincial Congress headed
by William Henry Drayton, staged a raid on the government armory and carried off arms
and Ammunition. By the time of Lexington and Concord, much of the South, and especially
Virginia, was at fever pitch.