The Invasion of Virginia 1781 by Cecere Michael;

Author:Cecere, Michael; [Cecere, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Westholme Publishing

ARNOLD AND HIS MEN were right to be anxious, for the force that the Americans and French were sending to reinforce the Virginia militia (and ultimately to attack Portsmouth) was substantial. It included a powerful French fleet, to wrestle control of Hampton Roads from the British, and 1,200 of General Washington’s best troops—light infantry from New England and New York—under the young French volunteer, the Marquis de Lafayette. The marquis had come to America in 1777 as a volunteer, enamored by America’s cause, and, despite his youth, quickly won the confidence of Washington.

By 1781, General Lafayette commanded the American light infantry corps, and in February Washington ordered Lafayette and his corps southward to Virginia. They reached Annapolis, Maryland, on March 10, and halted, waiting for word that it was safe to proceed to Virginia by ship. The presence of British warships in the Chesapeake presented too great a danger to Lafayette’s troops to sail down the bay in transports. Lafayette knew that a large French fleet was due to arrive in Virginia from Rhode Island to subdue Arnold’s small naval force and clear the way for Lafayette’s troops to proceed. While his troops waited in Annapolis for confirmation of the French navy’s arrival, Lafayette sailed to Yorktown on a small, swift ship on March 14, and after a stop in Williamsburg crossed the James River and arrived at General Muhlenberg’s camp at Sleepy Hole, on the Nansemond River, on March 19.

Lafayette was disappointed to learn that the French navy had yet to arrive and that the Virginian troops outside of Portsmouth were desperately short of ammunition. He reported that “no men had a Sufficiency [of ammunition] and Many Had None at All.”79 Unwilling to move all of Muhlenberg’s poorly supplied force closer to Portsmouth, Lafayette settled for accompanying a detachment of riflemen and militia forward to reconnoiter Arnold’s works.

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