America's Forgotten Founding Father by Rosanne Welch

Author:Rosanne Welch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mentoris Project

11

FEET ON THE GROUND TO STAND THEIR GROUND

After the vote, the Virginia Convention placed Patrick Henry at the head of the militia, tasked with gathering enough men and arms to defend the colony. Men proved plentiful, but a more serious concern arose when the militias went in search of firearms to buy and found the English had cut off the supply of both firearms and ammunition, a trick they had played on the Native Americans in the many skirmishes between the two over the last century. The Patriots were forced to stock up with old shotguns and learn the art of mixing the gunpowder and manufacturing the musket balls that fit each man’s individual rifle.

Filippo, responding to one of his many letters from another colony, was infuriated to find that the colonists were contemplating a war with only one gunpowder mill, the Frankford Mill in Pennsylvania.

“It cannot be expected to keep up with the demand, much less be kept in the supplies needed to make gunpowder,” he said to Bellini one day at dinner.

“My specialty is languages, not chemistry,” the teacher said, so Filippo described the ingredients of gunpowder—sulfur, charcoal, and nitre, also known as saltpeter—and the process of procuring all these ingredients. He proudly explained how a trade in native sulfur was already in place with Sicily, so only the amounts had to be increased, and charcoal and saltpeter could be obtained locally. Since natural saltpeter was a leachate of manure, the contents of barnyards, outhouses, and bat-cave deposits were considered the property of the government. To maximize production, women were called into service to supervise the production of homemade saltpeter. The process involved soaking soil in urine from both animals and humans, allowing it to dry, then boiling it to produce saltpeter—a job the women disliked immensely. Filippo and Bellini could not bring themselves to describe the process to their wives, leaving that up to Martha Jefferson, who had learned the process in a letter from Abigail Adams.

Meanwhile, their neighborhood had another issue to manage. On March 27, 1775, Jefferson’s further involvement with the militia came into question as the Virginia Convention elected him to represent them at the Second Continental Congress. He and Filippo debated his joining that body as they rode across Colle one morning checking the grape harvest.

“Everything we have done to this point, from our essays to the colonial convention, could be credited to our being good subjects to a bad king,” Filippo offered. “But with the assembly calling the convention treasonous, and with you joining under your real name…”

“Yes, I’ve been thinking along those lines as well,” Jefferson concluded. “My family and my lands are at risk.”

“As is your life.”

“If that’s the case, then there’s no reason to worry about militia skirmishes, now is there? I could be just as wounded sitting in this congress. Spies will be everywhere, eager to inform the Regulars.”

“But you’re going to go anyway, aren’t you?”

“Franklin will be there. Again.” Jefferson replied. “And Adams. John—not Thomas, of course. And Samuel.

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