Blog - 8th Virginia Regiment

Published on: July 7, 2019

What Were They Thinking?

Frontier Other Revolutionary War

The burial of Gen. Edward Braddock, by Howard Pyle. (Boston Public Library)

In 1775, the North American colonies had no professional armies and few leaders with significant military training. What possessed them, then, to believe they could take on the mighty British Empire? Politics and principles aside, two experiences led the Americans to believe they could stand up to the British: the 1745 Siege of Louisbourg and the 1755 Battle of Monongahela. The first dispelled any notion that they were powerless against professional forces. The second dispelled the notion of British invincibility.

In the 1740s, the maritime French colony of Île-Royale and its fortress at Louisbourg guarded the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. Today, the two main islands of Île-Royale are known as Prince Edward Island (Canada’s smallest province) and Cape Breton Island (part of Nova Scotia). The French and the Wabanaki Indians were a constant threat to New England.

Multiple conflicts occurred in the pre-Revolutionary northeast, including such little-remembered wars such as King William's War, Queen Anne’s War, and Father Rale’s War. Louisbourg was (and is) positioned on the east coast of Cape Breton and directly east of the modern state of Maine, which was then part of Massachusetts. Louisbourg itself was a threat to New England: it was a center for privateering and well positioned to interfere with New England’s economically crucial fishing industry.

At the start of King George’s War (known in Europe as the War of Austrian Succession) in 1744, a Franco-Indian force raided and destroyed the British fishing village at Canso, in nearby Nova Scotia. In 1745, Massachusetts Governor William Shirley organized a response. Militia from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire set off on an expedition supported with funds and supplies from Rhode Island, New York, and Pennsylvania. While there were no professional soldiers involved, the force did have support from the British Navy.

The Fortress of Louisbourg was thought to be impenetrable from the sea. A land approach, however, provided hilly terrain that allowed for the erection of siege batteries. After a siege of several weeks and a number of raids and skirmishes, the fortress surrendered on June 27, 1745. While the French forces had suffered from poor morale and other issues, the stark fact remained that American militia had taken on and defeated a professional army sheltered in a major fortification. This was well enough remembered that in 1774, the First Continental Congress noted in its Address to the People of Great Britain that it was "chiefly by" the "vigorous efforts" of the people of Massachusetts that "Nova-Scotia was subdued in 1710, and Louisbourg in 1745."

A decade later, early in the French and Indian War, General Edward Braddock suffered his better-remembered defeat near the banks of the Monongahela. The lesson the American learned from this event was that British redcoats were not invincible. In a report to his mother, Washington wrote, “The Virginia troops showed a good deal of bravery, and were near all killed; for I believe out of three companies that were there, there are scarce 30 men left alive. … In short, the dastardly behavior of those they call regulars exposed all others that were inclined to do their duty to almost certain death; and, at last, in despite of all the efforts of the officers to the contrary, they broke and ran as sheep pursued by dogs; and it was impossible to rally them.”

New England militia land on Cape Breton Island, initiating the Siege of the Fortress of Louisbourg in 1745.

While the British army was humiliated, Washington’s own reputation for heroism was bolstered, in part because of his own reports. “I luckily escaped without a wound,” he wrote, “though I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me.”

Louisbourg (1745), Monongahela (1755), and the outbreak of the Revolution itself in 1775 are milestones in the colonists’ increasing confidence in their own military capabilities. Though Louisbourg was remote from Virginia, it was not remote from those who began the war in Massachusetts. Braddocks’ defeat was very much front-of-mind to all Virginians at the start of the war. This must have been especially true for men like the 8th Virginia's Maj. Peter Helphenstine and Capt. Thomas Berry of Winchester (Washington's headquarters during the French and Indian War) and Captains John Stephenson and William Croghan who filled their companies with men from the settlements near the site of the general’s failure.

Twenty years after Monongahela, Massachusets’ 1775-1776 experiences at Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, Ticonderoga, and the Siege of Boston reinforced New England’s view that militia could take on professional troops. Victories won by militia and green provincial troops at Great Bridge and Sullivans Island indicated the same to Virginia and the south.

Sea View of the Siege of Louisbourg by Peter Monamy.

This elevated view of their militias’ capabilities must be viewed as an important factor in the colonists’ decision to take up arms against the Crown. It is even more important in view of the prevalent Anglo-American dislike of standing or “regular” armies. Oliver Cromwell had used his “New Model” army to rule by martial law. King James II had attempted to use a standing, professional army to restore the monarchy’s supremacy over parliament. For this is he was deposed and replaced by William and Mary, who accepted a Declaration of Rights (enacted as a “Bill of Rights” in 1689) that specifically forbade standing armies on British soil in peace time.

Map of the Siege of Louisbourg. (Wikimedia Commons)

When Britain decided to leave a standing army in America after the French and Indian War, the colonists reacted in a way that should have been predictable. Peace-time standing armies had been illegal in Britain for nearly a century, universally seen as a threat to the “rights of Englishmen.” And yet there they were, posted in the colonies and quartered in private homes. Colonial charters had guaranteed the rights of Englishmen to the colonists. This was a clear violation. Virginia’s 1606 charter read, for example:

"Also we do ... DECLARE ... that all and every the Persons being our Subjects, which shall dwell and inhabit within every or any of the said several Colonies and Plantations, and every of their children, which shall happen to be born within any of the Limits and Precincts of the said several Colonies and Plantations, shall HAVE and enjoy all Liberties, Franchises, and Immunities, within any of our other Dominions, to all Intents and Purposes, as if they had been abiding and born, within this our Realm of England, or any other of our said Dominions."

Among the 27 indictments against the King in the Declaration of Independence was the charge that “He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.” When the war began, it was a war between American militia and British regulars. While some might have seen this as an uneven fight, many more saw it as proof of the justice and moral superiority of the American cause.

The British Army was the most powerful in the world, and there may have been a time when the colonists would not have dared to fight them. In 1775, after the Siege of Louisville, after Braddocks defeat, and with God and Justice on their side, the Americans believed they could win. And they did win, but not until the Continentals themselves were professionalized. Still, consistent with principle, the Continental Army was disbanded at the end of the war.

Braddocks Defeat depicted by Howard Pyle. (Boston Public Library)

Read more: "A Campaign of Amateurs: The Siege of Louisbourg, 1745" by Raymond F. Baker.

The Amazing History of the Log Cabin

The Downingtown Log House, in Downingtown, Pa. sits near its original location along the Great Wagon Road.

The Great Philadelphia Wagon Road should be as famous as the Oregon Trail. For a century, it was the primary immigration artery to the American interior, and shaped the culture that still defines the “frontier.” Adapting to American ways, most immigrants’ first home was a log house. Much like toy Lincoln Logs, these structures were relatively quick to build, durable, and even transportable. An amazing number of very old log structures remain, but many are unrecognized.

Philadelphia and the nearby towns of Lewes and New Castle, Delaware were collectively the “Ellis Island” of the 18th century. Shiploads of German and Scotch-Irish immigrants docked at these towns. Under the care of Lutheran, Reformed, and Presbyterian churches the immigrants headed west toward the Pennsylvania frontier, passing through Downingtown, Lancaster and York on the road that is now (in most places) U.S. Route 30. It was typically in Lancaster, along the Conestoga Creek, that they were outfitted for the long trip. Lancaster’s German craftsmen provided “Conestoga” wagons and “Pennsylvania” rifles along with other supplies. (Wagon drivers frequently smoked cigars, hence the slang "stogie" from "Conestoga.")

The remains of "Fort Gaddis" in Fayette County, Pa. have been left to deteriorate. It was built about 1770 by Thomas Gaddis, the uncle of two 8th Virginia soldiers who lived nearby. William and Henry Gaddis served in Capt. Croghan's company. William died in service in 1777. The house was called a "fort" because Thomas was a militia leader and the house served as a rallying point. A liberty pole was erected here during the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion in defiance of federal power. A family property dispute has prevented the building's conservation. Despite its appearance, it is not too late to save it. (Wikimedia Commons)

After Carlisle, the road turned south into the Cumberland Valley, through Western Maryland and into Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. From there it continued south all the way through Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina before terminating at Augusta, Georgia.

Other important thoroughfares connected with it along the way. The Great Wagon Road connected at Carlisle with the Forbes Road, a French and Indian War military road that led to Pittsburgh. Above Winchester, the Wagon Road intersected with Braddock’s Road, another vestige of the French and Indian War that connected Alexandria, Virginia with Pittsburgh. Near where Virginia met North Carolina (later Tennessee), the Wilderness Road turned west through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky (originally party of Virginia).

Preserved Finnish-style old-world log houses at the Skansen open-air museum in Stockholm, Sweden. Scandinavian log houses are often built on stilts to protect the logs from moisture. In America, they are usually build on stone foundations instead. (author)

The settlers brought more than Conestoga wagons and Pennsylvania rifles with them. Perhaps the most enduring symbol of frontier life is the log cabin. This architectural marvel was first brought to America by the settlers of New Sweden—the short-lived colony of the Swedish Empire that preceded William Penn’s colony along the lower Delaware River. Many of the colonists were Finns (Finland was part of Sweden for centuries) who had grown up in log houses in the forests of Scandinavia. They were more comfortable in the forest than other early New World colonists and were among the first to venture inland. The log house is their contribution to American culture.

The original part of this house, built by Swedes about 1640 in what is now Drexel Hill, is the oldest house in Pennsylvania. There is an older one in New Jersey that was also part of the New Sweden colony.

Surprisingly, a large number of 17th- and 18th-century log houses remain standing along the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road corridor and the various connecting western immigration routes. Many are hidden under ancient clapboard or modern vinyl or aluminum siding. Others have been magnificently restored. Restorations often involve removing the siding, even though historic owners usually preferred siding to protect the structure and improve its appearance by making it look less rustic.

The document embedded below is an effort to start compiling a list of these important but often ignored historic structures. Please contribute to it by emailing gabeneville@8thVirginia.com.

Read more: "A Frontier Cabin Restored" (8/15/17)

Published on: April 29, 2019

Off to War

Charleston & Sunbury Generals Organization

All ten companies of the 8th Virginia hadn’t even arrived yet when Maj. Gen. Charles Lee took the regiment south to face the enemy. Suffolk, Virginia was the designated place of rendezvous. The ten companies came from all but one of the counties along Virginia’s 350-mile frontier, stretching from the Cumberland Gap to Pittsburgh. They traveled to the rendezvous on foot, stopping in Williamsburg to collect company officers’ commissions. Col. Peter Muhlenberg and the early-arrived companies were posted at Kemp’s Landing, near Norfolk.

British Gen. Henry Clinton was sailing south with a significant force to meet with Gen. Charles Cornwallis, who was sailing from Britain with a fleet of warships and still more men. North Carolina was their target and a Tory uprising was their goal. On May 11, Lee impatiently wrote to the post commander at Kemp’s landing, inquiring, “[H]ave you order’d Muhlenberg’s Regiment to march to Halifax? I hope to God you have, for no time is to be lost, as we have certain news of the Enemy’s arrival in the River Cape Fear.”

Maj. Gen. Charles Lee was a veteran (former) British officer and junior only to George Washington in the Continental army. He was a strange and notably ugly man. He lost both his career and his mind before dying of natural causes in 1782.

This was evidently true despite the absence of two complete companies. Lee may have extrapolated to account for the absent companies. Alternately, at least one of the present companies (Captain Jonathan Clark’s) appears to have enlisted numbers beyond its quota. When Muhlenberg set off on May 13, Capt. James Knox’s southwest (Fincastle County) company had not yet arrived. It was close, though—probably at Williamsburg. Or perhaps it had just arrived and needed to rest. Lee wrote, “Capt[ai]n Knox will follow the Regiment, so the Colonel must not wait for him.” Capt. William Croghan’s Pittsburgh (West August District) company, however, was even farther behind. Lee took the regiment anyway. There was no time to spare. Consequently, it would be an entire year until Croghan’s men joined the regiment.

Lee wrote to John Hancock, “As the Enemy’s advanced Guard…is actually arrived—I must, I cannot avoid detaching the strongest Battalion we have to [North Carolina’s] assistance; but I own, I tremble at the same time, at the thoughts of stripping this Province of any part of its inadequate force.” Battalions and regiments were essentially synonymous at this time. Lee was, in fact, calling the 8th Virginia the “strongest” of the province’s nine regiments. He would later confirm this assessment when he wrote to Muhlenberg, “You were ordered not because I was better acquainted with your Regiment than the rest--but because you were the most compleat, the best arm’d, and in all respects the best furnish’d for service.” To Congress he reported, “Muhlenberg’ s regiment wanted only forty at most. It was the strength and good condition of the regiment that induced me to order it out of its own Province in preference to any other.”

Cape Fear, North Carolina, was the expected point of invasion, but the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge had quelled Loyalist support in the area.

The other nine companies marched for Cape Fear via Halifax, North Carolina, joined by a North Carolina Regiment that had come north to Virginia’s aid. Unlike every other Virginia regiment, the 8th Virginia men all carried rifles. No muskets also meant no bayonets, which were—at the end of the day—often the real implements of war. Lee compensated for this by issuing pikes (he called them “spears”) to some of the men. “I have formed two companies of grenadiers to each regiment; and with spears of thirteen feet long, their rifles (for they are all riflemen) slung over their shoulders, their appearance is formidable, and the men are conciliated to the weapon.”

Meanwhile, the British commanders were learning that the Patriot victory at Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge had quelled their hoped-for Tory uprising. They opted, therefore, for an alternate target. Just as the 8th Virginia arrived at Cape Fear, the enemy was sailing off for Charleston, South Carolina. Muhlenberg’s men continued the chase, now at a forced-march pace. A very difficult and deadly summer lay ahead of them.

Frontier Churches Paved the Way

The soldiers of the 8th Virginia were, typically, Presbyterian or Lutheran--that is to say Irish or German. There were others, including Anglicans, German Reformed, Baptists, and a Jew. There were probably no Catholics, though they would serve under one (the Marquis de Lafayette) and by "Irish" we have to say "Scotch-Irish," "Irish Protestant," or "Ulster Irish" to distinguish these men from later Irish Catholic immigrants. At the time, though, they were usually just called "Irish," despite the Scotch heritage many of them had.

When these soldiers or their parents first settled in the parts of today's Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania that then made up the Virginia frontier, their respective churches helped them in their travels and new settlements. The "Great Philadelphia Wagon Road" was the "Oregon Trail" of the colonial era--immigrants arrived in boats at Philadelphia or the nearby Delaware ports of New Castle or Lewes and then, often with church support, headed west along a road that stretched through Lancaster and York into Pennsylvania's Cumberland Valley. That valley continues south to become the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. The Wagon Road followed it and continued on, eventually all the way to Georgia. After the French and Indian War, the Forbes Road could be followed from the Cumberland Valley as far as Pittsburgh, though that wasn't strictly legal. In the 1770s, other settlers took another branch through the Cumberland Gap in southwest Virginia to Kentucky. (The Cumberland Valley and the Cumberland Gap are far from each other, but both are named for Prince William, the Duke of Cumberland--the youngest son of George II and the victor of the Battle of Culloden in 1746.)

The Derry Church in what is now Hershey, Pennsylvania supported Scotch-Irish Presbyterian settlers as they headed west and seeded new churches for them as new communities formed. These new churches were often just log houses, but a number of them survive. It was precisely the same pattern of activity in the Lutheran Church that brought Peter Muhlenberg down the Wagon Road to Woodstock, Virginia in 1772. When he arrived, the Woodstock church was a simple log chapel in the middle of the central intersection. In 1774, land was given to build a new log church at the Southeast corner of the intersection--a project that was overseen by the young rector. It was from that new church that he gave his famous recruiting sermon in 1776.

The central role of religion in history is sometimes overlooked or disregarded, especially by elite historians who look too cynically at it. Religious leaders, like Muhlenberg, were not just pastors but also pioneers, political leaders, and soldiers as well. That might seem strange to some people today, but it wasn't strange at all in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Early log churches from other places in Virginia and Pennsylvania give an idea of what Peter Muhlenberg's churches may have looked like.

Published on: January 26, 2019

Shame in Smoke Hole Canyon

Artifacts & Memorials Veterans

I’ve written twice before about Private William Eagle, who enlisted into the 8th Virginia late in 1777 and joined at Valley Forge just before the two-year enlistments of the original men expired. He was evidently just 16 years old. He was the son of very early settlers of Pendleton County, West Virginia’s remote Smoke Hole Canyon and returned there after the war.

He was buried in the beautiful canyon facing a remarkably vertical rock formation that now carries his name: Eagle Rock. Over the years Smoke Hole Canyon became a pocket of Unionism in a region of otherwise intensely pro-Confederate sentiment, a haven for moonshiners, and eventually part of the Monongahela National Forest. His grave, perhaps not permanently marked, was lost for many years until discovered by Forest Service surveyors about 1930 when a new stone was set in the ground.

Photos of the spot on the internet show a pretty and bucolic setting. The stone sits under a sycamore tree and appears well-attended with a crisp and clean American flag. Returning recently from a family vacation, however, I stopped by the site and discovered that it looks nothing like those images. In mid-January the stone was half-buried in frozen debris at the end of a virtual river of ice descending from the ridge of North Fork Mountain. The base of the sycamore’s trunk is rotting. It looks as though an impromptu hiking trail has become a path for water runoff. On a 20-degree day following two days of rain, Private Eagle’s grave was covered by forest debris that had washed down the mountain. Attempts to clear it were fruitless. It was frozen solid.

Perhaps this is a purely seasonal phenomenon, but a Revolutionary War veteran’s grave deserves better care. It appears to me that thoughtless hikers are the culprits. Someone—the Forest Service, Pendleton County, neighbors, a Boy Scout looking for an Eagle Scout project, the DAR or the SAR—should find a way to protect the grave from what seems like inevitable serious damage.

Frozen runoff covers William Eagle's grave.

The words "8 VA. REGT." are just visible on the grave stone.

The view of Eagle Rock from the gravesite. The dates on the historic marker are wrong.

A river of ice follows what may be a hiking trail from the top of the mountain.

Ice, debris, and torn and dirty flags surround the grave.

An undated photograph of the grave in better condition.

Published on: January 5, 2019

The "Darke Side" of Washington

Brandywine & Germantown Charleston & Sunbury Disease Frontier Generals Veterans

A portrait of William Darke striking a warlike pose in front of the scene of his most heroic hour at the Battle of Wabash, painted by Frederick Kemmelmeyer. (Museum of Southern Decorative Arts)

When George Washington arrived in Williamsburg in September, 1781 an old associate from Berkeley County approached him, causing a stir. Without being summoned, Lieutenant Colonel William Darke broke protocol by walking right up to the commander-in-chief to initiate a conversation. “I have never been able to account for such a motion,” wrote a junior officer who witnessed it. “I suppose it was the Colonel’s usual fire and rashness…. It was in my opinion an extraordinary and, I think unnecessary temerity.”[1]

Darke lived near Duffields, which is now in Jefferson County. Initiating a conversation with the commander in chief was inappropriate then and would still be today. Darke, however, was no respecter of persons. Moreover, he and the general had known each other for twenty years and would remain connected for twenty more. In his own mind, he did not need anyone’s permission to talk to George Washington.

Darke and Washington had much in common. They both grew up in Virginia on the south bank of the Potomac River in Lord Fairfax’s vast proprietary lands. They were both physically large men and belonged to the same generation, born just four years apart. They were both veterans of the French and Indian War and they both committed themselves to the War for Independence in 1775.[2]

Gabriel Neville, "William Darke and George Washington in Politics, Business and War." The Magazine of the Jefferson County Historical Society, 84 (2018): 23-38.

There was much that separated them as well, including seventy-five miles of river between their homes. Wealth, education, social standing, and military rank all put the colonel below the future president. Their personalities were almost opposite—Darke had that “fire and rashness” while Washington was famously patient and reserved. Washington was refined, while Darke was described as having “unpolished manners.” Nevertheless, war, business, and politics bound them together off and on throughout their adult lives.[3]

The French and Indian War

They first encountered each other during the French and Indian War. Washington established his military reputation in Major General Edward Braddock’s disastrous expedition to Fort Duquesne in 1755. Darke’s earliest biographer dedicated nearly a fifth of his 1835 essay to describing the expedition and its outcome, asserting that in “the nineteenth year of his age” Darke “united himself to the army under the ill-fated Braddock.” The biographer, who is identified only as “a Citizen of Frederick County, Maryland” may have known Darke. A Charlestown Free Press account cited in (and published sometime before) an 1858 Harpers New Monthly Magazine article asserted that Darke “was one of the Rangers of 1755 (then nineteen years old), serving under Washington, in Braddock’s ill-managed march toward Fort Duquesne.” The idea that Darke was with Washington under Braddock has been doubted by some, including Shepherdstown historian Danske Dandridge. She, in 1910, acknowledged the tradition but made a point of saying she had “seen no proof.” Supporting the tradition, however, is Darke’s own statement in a 1791 letter to President Washington that he had “bean in the Service of my Country in allmost all the wars Since the year 1755 in one Capassoty or other.”[4]

After Braddocks’ defeat, the western frontier exploded in violence and Washington “retreated” to Winchester where he established Fort Loudoun as a base of operations. We have firmer documentation of Darke’s rank as a corporal in Captain Robert Rutherford’s Rangers in 1758 and 1759, still during the French and Indian War. Governor Robert Dinwiddie authorized Washington to form this unit to patrol the woods with the goal of encouraging settlers to remain on their homesteads. Rutherford thought highly of Darke, who was his neighbor. Three decades later, he wrote to President Washington recommending him for a high-level command.[5]

How much Corporal Darke and Colonel Washington actually interacted with each other during this period of service is hard to say.It is safe to say that Darke was more aware of Washington than vice versa. Washington was in active command at Fort Loudoun until he left at the end of June, 1758 to join the successful Forbes Expedition against Fort Duquesne. His orders to Captain Rutherford as he left were to appoint his 20 “worst” rangers at the fort, while the rest were “to be employ'd in the Ranging Service as they now are, or otherwise, as shall be judg'd most conducive to the safety of the People.”[6]

Darke was a corporal in Capt. Robert Rutherford's ranger company in the French and Indian War. (Colonial Dames)

Darke’s French and Indian War service evidently concluded in 1759; Washington’s ended the year before. They had both gained valuable military experience. Still in their twenties, they now focused on their domestic lives. Washington married Martha, the widow of Daniel Parke Custis, in January of 1759 and spent the next fifteen years at Mount Vernon. Darke also married a widow, Sarah Deleyea, whose husband had been scalped and killed by Indians while sleeping under an elm tree. Darke and Washington both raised the sons of other men. Unlike the Washingtons, however, the Darkes also had four children of their own. Nothing else is known of Darke’s life in the 1760s other than an unsupported 1888 assertion that he “was engaged in defending the Virginia frontier against the incursions of the savages.”[7]

The Revolution

The Upper Potomac region responded enthusiastically to the call for troops in 1775. Among the first units to be authorized by Congress was Hugh Stephenson’s company of riflemen from Berkeley County, which competed with Daniel Morgan’s Frederick County company in a race to Boston. Two more companies were raised across the river in Frederick County, Maryland. At the same time Virginia organized two regiments of provincial regulars, some independent companies for the defense of the frontier, and a network of minute battalions. When six more regiments were authorized by the Commonwealth in December, Darke was ready to go with a company of men. It became the first newly-created company of the 8th Virginia Regiment of provincial regulars and he was commissioned to be its captain.[8]

Gen. Peter Muhlenberg, who began the war as colonel of the 8th Virginia Regiment.

The 8th Virginia was commanded by Colonel Peter Muhlenberg, the “fighting parson” who was at the time of his appointment the rector of Beckford Parish, the Anglican Church name for Dunmore County (now Shenandoah County). The regiment was conceived as a “German” one and was mostly recruited west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. This region was ethnically, culturally, and religiously distinct from tidewater and piedmont Virginia. The regiment’s original field officers were German but the company officers and enlisted ranks included other ethnicities, notably many Scotch-Irish. The recruitment zone was huge, including all but one of the counties stretching from the Cumberland Gap to Pittsburgh (which was claimed by Virginia). In time, the regiment was transferred into Continental service.

The regiment’s rendezvous point was Suffolk, a choke point in Virginia’s terrain between Williamsburg and Tory-dominated Norfolk. In the spring of 1776, they kept watch over Tories and stopped slaves from joining Governor Dunmore’s army of Loyalists. After the arrival of Major General Charles Lee, commander of the Southern Department, they marched south to protect Charleston, South Carolina. Darke’s men were present for (but probably not directly engaged in) the Battle of Sullivan’s Island on June 28. Other 8th Virginia men helped fend off an enemy landing on the north end of the island but they were not involved in the famous defense of Fort Moultrie at the island’s southern end.

After they fended off the British a greater danger appeared: malaria. Most of Muhlenberg’s men had no resistance to it. As he headed farther south to attack Florida, Lee left a large group of sick men behind in Charleston. The advance never made it past Sunbury, Georgia. According to an 1802 account, “The troops that went to Georgia, suffered exceedingly by sickness; at Sunberry, 14 or 15 were buried every day, till they were sent to the sea Islands, where they recruited a little.” Darke lost nearly half his company to the disease.[9]

Among the first to get sick was 8th Virginia major Peter Helphinstine, who returned home to Winchester and died. On the day the army marched south from Charleston, Lee appointed Captain Richard Campbell to replace Helphinstine. In doing so, he passed over Darke, who was the senior eligible captain. No reason is given in the record, but the best explanation is that Darke was sick, left behind, and perhaps not expected to recover. Congress confirmed Campbell’s new rank.[10]

The promotion became a source of controversy when the regiment returned to Virginia and Campbell began to oversee recruitment for the 1777 campaign. Unable to address the matter himself, Muhlenberg appealed to Washington for help. An aide de camp responded to him, writing, “Congress having confirmed Majr Campbell in his Office, leaves his Excellency no power to remove him, but for the Commission of some Offence.”[11]

Controversies related to rank and promotion were common in the Continental Army. Muhlenberg himself was made a brigadier general at this time, which caused problems of its own. Darke’s case was handled delicately. On May 13, Congress gave Washington the authority to look into Darke’s case and resolve it. Explicitly authorized to make the decision, Washington promoted Darke to major. For purposes of seniority, the promotion was made retroactive to January 4, but its effective date was delayed until the end of September. This was evidently Washington’s way of looking out for a trusted soldier and compensating Darke for an injustice. Major Campbell kept his rank but was transferred to another regiment.[12]

While the controversy was sorted out, Darke was put on detached duty, sometimes performing jobs that might have been assigned to a major. In June, Washington put Darke in command of 150 Virginia riflemen alongside General Anthony Wayne and Colonel Daniel Morgan. They harassed the enemy as Howe withdrew from New Jersey and they were centrally engaged in the Battle of Short Hills.[13]

When Howe’s army sailed away, Washington sent Morgan’s Rifles, an elite unit, north to join the forces under Major General Horatio Gates opposing British General John Burgoyne. Howe, however, was headed in the opposite direction. When that was discovered, Washington rushed his army south and on August 28 ordered his brigades to each supply 117 of their most capable men to form a new light infantry force under the command of New Jersey’s General William Maxwell. Specifically, each brigade was to provide“one Field Officer, two Captains, six Subalterns, eight Serjeants and 100 Rank & File.” William Darke was chosen for this service by General Charles Scott, his brigade commander, possibly at Washington’s direction. Maxwell’s Light Infantry was the sole Continental unit at the Battle of Cooch’s Bridge and played an important role on both sides of the river at Brandywine a week later.[14]

Maxwell’s Light Infantry was disbanded late in September. After months of controversy and delay, Darke at last became the major of the 8th Virginia. He was entitled to it by seniority and had earned it through capable service, but he acquired it only through patience—which does not seem to have been his strong suit. Yet, after all it had taken to get the promotion, he served in the role for less than a week. At the Battle of Germantown Major Darke boldly led a forward detachment of men into the thick morning fog and did not return.[15]

Darke spent the next three years in captivity. He was initially kept on a prison ship and was then moved to Long Island, New York in the company of other American officers. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel while a prisoner but would later have to defend the promotion’s validity since he had been unable to perform his duties.[16]

Gov. Thomas Jefferson's letter to General Washington coordinating the prisoner exchange that freed Darke after three years in British captivity. (Library of Congress)

In May of 1780, Darke and other captive officers wrote to Governor Thomas Jefferson asking for financial support. The only thing of real value Virginia could offer them was tobacco, which the prisoners could barter with or sell. Jefferson wrote to Washington, who was encamped near New York, advising him that the Virginia legislature had authorized a shipment of tobacco for the prisoners and asked him to see if the British would allow it. If not, the tobacco was to be sold for hard money, which would then be sent to the men. Washington advised that the latter course would have to be followed. [17]

The general and the governor were both interested in getting Darke and his comrades home, perhaps on parole (honor bound not to fight) or properly exchanged (free to take up arms again). Jefferson had the necessary leverage. In February, 1779 Virginia state troops had captured Henry Hamilton, the lieutenant governor of Quebec and the Crown’s superintendent of Indian affairs. Based at Fort Detroit, Hamilton had been in command of British military efforts in the northwest and was hated by Virginia frontiersmen. On October 25, 1780 Jefferson played this valuable card. Hamilton and a few other British prisoners were traded for several American officers on Long Island. At last, Darke was free. Washington wrote to Congress that a total of fifteen American officers were on their way home. “The Military Chest being totally exhausted,” he wrote, “they will with difficulty be enabled to get as far as Philada. I must solicit you to procure them a supply there, sufficient to carry them home. Their long and patient sufferings entitle them to attention and to every assistance in getting themselves and Baggage forward.”[18]

Darke lived near Daniel Morgan and was similar to him in many ways. They served together in the Revolution and in putting down the Whiskey Rebellion.

Darke returned home just as the British were making their first forays into Virginia. The war had shifted to the south and the British saw an invasion of Virginia as necessary to keep the Old Dominion from sending supplies into the Carolinas. An initial invasion under British General Alexander Leslie was recalled after the patriot victory at King’s Mountain on October 7. Then, on December 30, just a few weeks after Darke arrived at his home in Berkeley County, the traitor Benedict Arnold (now a British general) arrived with 1800 troops on thirty ships with orders to control the mouth of the Chesapeake and to make forays up the James River toward Richmond. Arnold sacked Richmond, the new state capitol, in January. An army of mostly inexperienced Virginia militia was defeated near Petersburg in April.[19]

Things escalated significantly in May when Lord Charles Cornwallis invaded Virginia and occupied Richmond with a large army. The Virginia legislature fled to Charlottesville, but was pursued by Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarlton’s dragoons. The alarmed legislature appealed to the recently-promoted General Daniel Morgan for help. The hero of the Battle of Cowpens (January 17, 1781) had returned home to Winchester suffering from sciatica and other ailments. Governor Jefferson wrote to him on June 2, urging him to raise an army in the Shenandoah Valley and come to the commonwealth’s rescue. Morgan agreed, but found men reticent to leave home as the harvest season approached. This led him to “call on the best aid I could possibly get” in convening a group of “Gentlemen who I esteem of most influence.” This group met on June 15 to plan and prepare. Among them were General Gates, Lieutenant Colonel Darke, and a handful of other prominent military men from Frederick and Berkeley counties. [20]

They set about recruiting men to defend the Commonwealth, urging the legislature to “provide some decisive measure for procuring the number necessary.” Properly equipping the recruits also proved challenging. At last, Morgan and Darke arrived with reinforcements on July 7, the day after the Battle of Green Spring. Morgan’s health, however, soon forced him to return home again. For the time being, the Americans remained in camp near Williamsburg while Cornwallis established a base at Yorktown. Meanwhile, the French persuaded Washington that there was an opportunity in Virginia, and they proceeded south with the main army from New York.[21]

Washington arrived in Williamsburg on September 14. The troops formed up so he could review them. Many or most of these soldiers had never seen the great general before. The following day the officers lined up to greet Washington at a reception. It may have been at this event that Darke inappropriately “made the first motion” to the commander-in-chief. It was George Bedinger, one of Darke’s captains, who wrote, “I have never been able to account for such a motion. I suppose it was the Colonel’s usual fire and rashness, and, that Washington perhaps had a desire to know what the enemy would do on such an occasion. It was in my opinion an extraordinary and, I think unnecessary temerity.” Darke may simply have been eager to express his gratitude for his freedom.[22]

“A few days after the review,” remembered one of Darke’s soldiers, “we started for Little York and there joined the main American Army under the command of Ge[nera]l Washington. After we joined the army, we went to entrenching. …The British kept up a Cannonading on us, and while we were entrenching every now and then a man was killed. One man was killed a rod or two from me.” Once again in a malarial region, many of Darke’s men predictably contracted the disease and were sent home. Captain Bedinger was hauled home in a wagon. Darke, however, was present for the history-making surrender of the British on October 19.[23]

"The Surrender of Cornwallis," by John Trumbull. Though still a Continental officer, Darke commanded militia at the Yorktown siege and was there to witness the victory. (U.S. Capitol)

Business and Politics

After the war, Colonel Darke focused on his home and his family. He and his wife raised their own four children, an older son from Sarah’s first marriage, and a local orphan. In addition to whatever farming he engaged in, Darke made forays into both business and politics. He was now a man of stature in his community.[24]

He became deeply involved in America’s first interstate public works project, working closely with (and for) Washington. As the Kentucky country filled up with settlers, it became apparent that there were economic, political, and strategic imperatives for connecting the Ohio watershed with the east. For Kentuckians, it was significantly easier to transport goods down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to Spanish New Orleans than it was to transport them upstream and overland to ports on the Atlantic coast. To counteract this, there was intense interest in creating a junction between the Ohio and Potomac Rivers via the Monongahela and Youghiogheny rivers. Success would keep Kentucky tied to the United States and keep the value of its produce headed east.[25]

A 1785 letter from Darke to his neighbor Gen. Horatio Gates about a horse and a planned trip to Richmond. (NYPL)

In 1785, the Potomac Company was formed, with George Washington as president and William Darke as the company’s key upriver agent at Shepherdstown. An essential first step in the plan was making the upper Potomac navigable, which meant clearing it of rocks and debris and digging canals around its waterfalls. The location of Darke’s home near the mouth of the Shenandoah put him in a position to personally profit from the project. Washington and Darke worked together, meeting at least three times between 1786 and 1790 to plan and coordinate.[26]

In 1789, the river was sufficiently clear for Darke to make news in Richmond’s Virginia Gazette and Weekly Advertiser.

We cannot but congratulate our readers on the fair prospect of Patowmack, becoming soon the common channel of conveyance for the produce of the fertile country through which it runs. The water carriage is already so far established, that five wagons are kept constantly plying between waters’s branch, the common landing, of George-Town. Colonel Darlk’s boat last week, brought down a load of 262 barrels of flour from Shepherds-Town, in Virginia, and passed Shanandoah and Seneca Falls, with safety and ease.[27]

Ultimately, the project was unsuccessful. Dry weather left the river impassible while too much rain flooded the bypass “canals.” The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal was later built to replace it (on the other side of the river). Even that canal never connected the Potomac and Ohio rivers.[28]

Washington’s other great project during this period was the drafting and ratification of the United States Constitution. The proposal was controversial in Virginia, with leading figures like Patrick Henry and George Mason opposed to it. A convention was called to ratify (or reject) the document and Darke was elected to be one of two delegates from Berkeley County. His partner was retired Major General Adam Stephen, who had ordered Darke into the fog at Germantown. Both of them supported the Constitution, prevailing in an 89 to 79 vote.[29]

Washington was elected President in 1789. At his inauguration in New York City, he wore a sword that had been given to him by Darke and is believed to have been the President’s favorite. It was not a gentleman’s ornamental sword, but rather a type of smallsword known as a spadroon--double-bladed and designed to be lethal in battle. A tradition that the sword was used “to kill Indians” has been discounted as romantic but is in fact entirely plausible.[30]

President Washington wore this sword at his first inauguration. It is believed to have been a gift from William Darke. (Courtesy of Washington's Headquarters Museum, Morristown National Historical Park)

After taking office, President Washington signed legislation authorizing the location of a new capital city on the Potomac River “at some place between the mouths of the Eastern-Branch and Conogocheague.” In other words: somewhere between Georgetown (then in Maryland) and Williamsport (still in Maryland), an 85-mile stretch of river. In October of 1790, Washington visited Shepherdstown and met with Darke and other locals to discuss the possibility of locating the capital at Sharpsburg—just across the river. He also visited Hagerstown and Williamsport, but ultimately selected the Georgetown location.[31]

War with the Indians

In 1791, Darke was elected to the Virginia General Assembly. His time in that office was short, however, because Washington had other plans for him. Rapid settlement of Kentucky had enraged Indians in Ohio who used Kentucky as their hunting grounds. By one account, as many as 1,500 settlers were killed over a period of just a few years. A campaign against the Indians in 1790, led by Brigadier General Josiah Harmar, had been a failure. An earlier campaign under Colonel William Crawford had resulted only in the colonel’s capture, brutal torture, and execution. Shortly after Darke’s election, he received a letter from President Washington asking him to lead a regiment of “levies” in a major new campaign. Levies were federal soldiers on short-term (six month) enlistments. Washington asked Darke to “appoint from among the Gentlemen that are known to you, and who you would recommend as proper characters, and think likely to recruit their men, three persons as Captains, three as Lieutenants, and three as Ensigns in the Battalion of levies to be raised in the State of Virginia, for the service of the United States.”[32]

Gen. Arthur St. Clair by C. W. Peale. (Wikimedia Commons)

The army that ventured into the Ohio wilderness was composed of two regiments of full-time, professional troops (though one was new), two regiments of levies, a company of dragoons, and militiamen from Pennsylvania and Kentucky. Darke commanded the 1st U.S. Levy Regiment, which included three battalions of Maryland, Virginia, and “overmountain” men from the frontier. Darke reported to Major General Richard Butler, who had command of all the levies. The entire force was commanded by Major General Arthur St. Clair, a Pennsylvanian who was also governor of the Northwest Territory. George Bedinger served again under Darke, this time as the regiment’s major. Darke’s son, Joseph, was a company captain in the Virginia battalion.[33]

The advance looked much like General Braddock’s march of 1755, and concluded much the same way. They cut a road through the wilderness as they went, needing it to run a supply train. Insufficient supplies, poor morale, expiring enlistments, bad weather and bickering officers all contributed to a horrific defeat on November 4. Surrounded, General St. Clair’s army—camp followers included—was sniped at and then butchered to pieces by the Indians as men fled in panic back down the road. Their flight was made possible by a desperate charge through the Indian lines led by Colonel Darke. General Butler and Darke’s son were both among the hundreds of dead who made up the largest loss for any U.S. Army in any war before the Battle of Shiloh in 1862.[34]

Though painfully wounded in the leg, Darke was the only senior officer to survive the massacre with both his life and his reputation intact. This was in part because of his conduct and in part because he sent his own report on the battle to the President in a letter he made sure was public. This enabled him to influence public perception of the disaster before any investigations or recriminations began. In his letter to Washington Darke was critical of General St. Clair but placed the greatest blame on Major John Hamtramck of the 1st U.S. Regiment, whom he openly accused of cowardice. Two months later, on his way home, he sent a blistering criticism of St. Clair to a member of Congress who leaked the letter to the press.[35]

The site of Fort Jefferson in Darke County, Ohio.

Darke wasn’t just playing the blame game. He was angry and he was grieving. His son, Joseph, died “after twenty-seven days of unparalleled suffering.” Another of Darke’s three sons, John, died shortly after the colonel returned home from the battle. John’s death was probably a coincidence, but at least one historian seems to have interpreted it as another battle casualty. Darke’s old French & Indian War commander, Robert Rutherford, reported the second death to President Washington in March. “I Indeed sympathize Very tenderly with him on the death of his sons,” he wrote, “as that of his youngest was followed by the death of his eldest son, a few days after his return home and who left a small family.”[36]

St. Clair’s terrible defeat was the subject of the first Congressional oversight investigation. Darke left home for Philadelphia in mid-March and testified against St. Clair. The general was exonerated, but his reputation never fully recovered. Darke also visited the president during this trip and had a private conversation with him about the next campaign. Washington asked Darke for his views on who should command. Darke recommended Daniel Morgan, Charles Scott, and Henry Lee—all Virginians. Darke did not realize, and Washington did not say, that for political reasons the commander could not be a Virginian. Lee, known as “Light Horse Harry” from his service in the Revolution, was well regarded but had only been a lieutenant colonel in the Revolution. Washington said he was concerned that officers, including Darke, who had outranked Lee would refuse to serve under him. Washington pressed Darke on the question. Darke does not seem to have given a clear answer, which apparently confirmed the president’s view. Washington, however, told Darke that he had a high opinion of Lee, and Darke left with the impression that Lee was going to get the job.[37]

Darke then spoke separately with Secretary of War Henry Knox, who was less guarded and told Darke that Lee would not get the job. Darke thought he knew otherwise and that Knox was wrong. Darke later admitted to Lee that he didn’t give a clear answer to Washington about the rank issue. “I did not answer though I Confess I think I Should,” he wrote in a letter. He blamed it on “being so distressed in mind for Reasons that I need not Mention to you,” but said he “Intended to do it before I left town.” Instead, on his way home from Philadelphia, Darke wrote to the President, saying, “I wanted much to have seen you before I left the City but judging you were much ingaged in business of grate importance, did not wish to intrude. I wanted to know who would Command the army the insuing Campaign and I am informed Genl St. Clear has resigned…. Should you think me worthy of an appointment in the army I should want to know who I was to be Commanded by.”[38]

Washington chose General Anthony Wayne, of Pennsylvania. Wayne was a controversial choice, especially in Virginia, and Darke was surprised. He said so to Lee, telling him that Washington had expressed a high opinion of him. He also noted that Knox had indicated Lee would not get the job. Lee took that to mean that Knox had undercut him, and complained to the President in a letter that Knox had “exerted himself to encrease certain difficultys which obstructed the execution of” Washington’s wishes.[39]

Read together, the letters can be interpreted to indicate compounding misunderstandings and perhaps an overreaction on Lee’s part. Nevertheless, Washington was clearly annoyed with Darke. He told Lee that it was all nonsense and “declared” that “the conduct of Colo. D___ is uncandid, and that his letter is equivocal.” Wayne went on to achieve a major victory against the Indians at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. Darke was not asked to serve.[40]

The Whiskey Rebellion

He did, however, get a chance to serve under Henry Lee. While Wayne’s campaign was the largest military enterprise of 1794, it was not the only one. Darke and Washington were both more directly involved in another: the Whiskey Rebellion. A new federal excise tax on distilled spirits was seen as unfair by western farmers, who found whiskey far easier to transport and sell to eastern markets than raw grain or flour. When the Whiskey Rebellion grew out of control, Washington ordered a military operation to suppress it.

Since the entire American Army was in Ohio, Washington had to create a new one. The Militia Acts of 1792, passed in response to St. Clair’s defeat, allowed this to happen. These federal statutes created uniform standards for state militia and empowered the President to federalize the militia to respond to invasions or insurrections. The militia of Virginia’s counties were organized into brigades of two to six counties each. The brigades were organized into four divisions. The Virginia assembly made Darke a brigadier general and made Daniel Morgan a Major General, the former commanding a brigade and the latter a division. When Washington decided to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion at Pittsburgh, the militia under Dark and Morgan were activated.[41]

The entire Virginia force was under the command of the man Darke had recommended to Washington. Henry Lee was now the Governor of Virginia and decided to personally lead the Commonwealth’s forces. Lee estimated in a letter that the Pittsburgh tax protestors had about 16,000 men in arms, but predicted, “The division of sentiment among them will greatly diminish this force, and 8 or 9,000 will probably be the ultimate point they can reach. They abound in rifles, and are good woodsmen. Every consideration manifest the propriety of hurrying the march of the troops….”[42]

Morgan ordered his men to rendezvous at Winchester on September 15. Darke and his men arrived on time, but “having neither arms, ammunition, or any kind of military stores” General Morgan thought it best to furlough them for a week. Finally, on October 6, another officer reported, “The State Arsenal has furnished us with 3,000 stand” of arms. “This supply enabled us to forward 2,000 men completely equipped on Saturday last. They marched under the command of General Dark. General Morgan follows to-day.”[43]

President Washington personally led the advance of other troops from Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Darke and the southern troops rendezvoused with Washington at Cumberland, Maryland, and were reviewed there by the president. Washington then returned to Philadelphia, but left a letter commending the soldiers for their “patriotic zeal for the Constitution and Laws” of the nation. “No citizen of the United States can ever be engaged in a service more important to their country,” he wrote. “It is nothing less than to consolidate and preserve the blessings of that Revolution, which at much expense of Blood and Treasure constituted us a free and independent nation. It is to give to the world an illustrious example of the utmost consequence of the cause of mankind.”[44]

Washington was very concerned about maintaining the moral high ground, seeking only to quell the uprising and enforce the tax law. He warned about acts of extrajudicial “justice” against the whiskey rebels. Daniel Morgan personally intervened to prevent such acts. Moreover, William Findley recalled that Morgan’s left wing (Darke’s men included) behaved better than the right wing of Pennsylvania and New Jersey troops. Findley wrote:

In one or two instances, where there was danger of some foolish men who mixed with that wing being skewered, general Morgan, by pretending to reserve them for ignominious punishment, saved them, till they could be safely dismissed, or kept his men from killing them by threatening to kill them himself.[45]

No accounts of General Darke’s conduct during the operation have been found, but the record shows that the men under Morgan restrained themselves. Findley noted that, “There was not so much of the inflammatory spirit observable in the left wing of the army as in the other, nor was there any persons killed by them, by accident or otherwise.”[46]

Before the army left, a separate corps was formed to encamp near Pittsburgh and “cause the laws to be duly executed.” It was a combination of men from the expedition force and of locals, some of whom “were said to have been the most troublesome of the insurgents.” It is not known if Darke was part of this force, which remained behind for another three months.[47]

Nor is it known whether Darke and Washington spoke to each other at Cumberland when the President reviewed the troops there. Some contact seems almost certain given their relationship and Darke’s new rank as a general. Either way, it was probably the last time they encountered each other. The Indian war in the Northwest Territory was over and Washington was half way through his second and final term as President. Five years after the rebellion was put down the Father of the Country was dead. Two years after that, in 1801, Darke was dead as well. His last public office was an appointment to the court (government) of the newly-formed Jefferson County. The court met for the first time just two weeks before Darke died.[48]

Conclusion

On January 19, 1800, Henry Holcombe—a Revolutionary War officer turned Baptist preacher—delivered a prominent sermon on the life of Washington. He observed that Washington’s greatness was rooted in his freedom from pride and his trust in God. He said Washington’s “boldness and magnanimity, could be equaled by nothing but his modesty and humility.” Moreover, “he displayed an equanimity through the most trying extremes of fortune, which does the highest honor to the human character. He was the same whether struggling to keep the fragments of a naked army together in the dismal depths of winter, against a greatly superior foe, or presiding under the laurel wreath over four millions of free men!”[49]

General Darke had his own virtues. He was brave, determined, and loyal. He was, however, sometimes also guilty of these virtues’ darker cousins: he could be reckless, stubborn, and prejudiced. Washington, though not perfect, was the better man. Still, Darke achieved more than most men of his time. He served his country in four conflicts over four decades and he helped ratify the Constitution. He oversaw a significant part of the nation’s first major interstate infrastructure project and he raised six children, including a stepson and an orphan. It is true that he started out with a few advantages: some inherited land, basic literacy, and perhaps some connections. Those gifts had little to do with his most important achievements or his perseverance through great adversity.

Darke's original grave stone, like many of its age, is in pieces. A modern marker has been set nearby.

[1]Danske Dandridge, Historic Shepherdstown (Charlottesville: The Michie Company, 1910), 261.

[2]Peter Force, ed., American Archives, (Washington: M. St. Clair Clark and Peter Force, 1837), 4th Ser., Vol. VI, p. 1556.

[3]“From John Hurt,” January 1, 1792, The Papers of George Washington, W.W. Abbott, et al., eds. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987-),Presidential Series, 9:358-366.

[4]“Biographical Sketch of Gen. William Darke of Virginia by a Citizen of Frederick County, Maryland” in The Military and Naval Magazine of the United States, 6 (1835): 1-9; Dandridge, Historic Shepherdstown, 256; William Darke to George Washington, July 25, 1791, Jefferson County Museum manuscript collection, Charles Town, West Virginia; “Memoirs of Generals Lee, Gates, Stephen, and Darke,” HarpersNew Monthly Magazine,17 (1858): 509-510.

[5]David Preston, Braddock’s Defeat (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 180-182, 338-340; René Chartrand, Monongahela 1754-1755: Washington’s Defeat, Braddock’s Disaster (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2004), 56-57; Samuel Kercheval, A History of the Valley of Virginia (Winchester: Samuel H. Davis, 1833, repr. Heritage Books, 2001), 67; Robert Rutherford affidavit, Berkeley County Land Bounty Certificate, 1780, cited in William Armstrong Crozier, Virginia County Records(Baltimore: Southern Book Company, 1904; reprinted as Virginia Colonial Militia: 1651-1776, Genealogical Publishing, 2000), 2:44; “From Robert Rutherford,” March 13 1792,” Papers of Washington, Presidential Series, 10:97-100.

[6] “To Robert Rutherford,” June 24, 1758, Papers of Washington, Colonial Series, 5:239.

[7]Kercheval, History of the Valley of Virginia, 86-87;Virgil A. Lewis, “General William Darke, A Distinguished West Virginia Pioneer,” reprinted in F. Vernon Aler, Aler’s History of Martinsburg and Berkeley County, West Virginia (Hagerstown, Md.: Mail Publishing, 1888), 193-199.

[8]Robert K. Wright, Jr., The Continental Army (Washington: Center for Military History, 1986), 24-25; William Walter Hening, The Statutes At Large, Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia from the First Session of the Legislature in 1619 (Richmond: J. and G. Cochran, 1821) 9:16-25, 78, 80; Force, American Archives, Ser. 4, 6:1556; Guide to Military Organizations, 43. On June 8, the Virginia Convention heard a claim for expenses incurred by Darke and by Isaac Beall “for the expenses incurred in supporting their two Companies of Riflemen from the time of their being imbodied till the passing of the Ordinance directing the same to be raised.” Darke’s company was junior in seniority by John Stephenson’s company, which was transferred from independent service into the regiment.

[9]Jonathan Clark, Diary,June 24, 1776, Filson Historical Society manuscript collection, Louisville, Ky.; Charles Lee to John Armstrong, July 14, 1776, in The Lee Papers,Henry Edward Bunbury, ed., 4 vols. (New York: New York Historical Society, 1871-1875), 2:139-140; William Moultrie, Memoirs of the American Revolution, So Far as it Related to the States of North and South Carolina, and Georgia, 2 vols.(New York: David Longworth, 1802), 1:186; George M. Bedinger, The George Bedinger Papers: Volume 1A of the Draper Manuscript Collection, transc. Craig L. Heath (Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 2002), 68; John Robert McNeill, Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 203,229. Lee had other regiments under his command, so the deaths of 14 or 15 men a day does not reflect mortality rates in the 8thVirginia alone.

[10]Peter Muhlenberg to James Wood, September 29, 1801 and Peter Muhlenberg affidavit, December 10, 1802, both in Peter Helphinston file, Revolutionary Bounty Warrants, Library of Virginia; Journals of the Continental Congress, 7:52. Captain John Stephenson was senior to Darke, but his company’s term ended in the fall of 1776 and he left the regiment.

[11]George Johnston to Peter Muhlenberg, March 9, 1777, Papers of Washington,Revolutionary War Series, 8:429.

[12]“To Brigadier General William Woodford,” March 3, 1777, Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 8:507-508; JCC,7:351-352; John Fitzgerald to Richard Campbell, August 4, 1777, George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, Series 3b, Varick Transcripts, Letterbook 4:13; “To John Hancock,”May 16, 1777, Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 9:438-439; Washington, General Orders, September 29, 1777, Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 11:343; Compiled Services Records of American Soldiers Who Served in the Continental Army During the Revolutionary War, 1042:116, 118-119, 134, 146.

[13]“Narrative of Sergeant William Grant,” in John Romeyn Brodhead, ed., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York Procured in Holland, England, and France, (Albany: Weed, Parsons and Co., 1857), 8: 728-734; Clark, Diary,June 22-24; “To Major General Israel Putnam,”August 16, 1777, Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 10:642; McGuire, Philadelphia Campaign, 1:45-52.

[14]“General Orders,” August 28, 1777, Papers of Washington,Revolutionary War Series, 11:81-82; “Narrative of William Grant,” 733. Grant describes how, in a skirmish, Darke “divided his men into 6 parties of 25 each.”

[15]“From Major General Adam Stephen,” October 9, 1777, Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 11:468–470.

[16]Elizabeth Paschal O’Connor (Mrs. T.P. O’Connor), My Beloved South(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1913), 100-101; CSR, 1042:120, 121, 129, 133.

[17]“Memorial of the Officers of the Virginia Line in Captivity,” May 24, 1780, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951), 3: 388-391; “To Benjamin Harrison,” June 22?, 1780, Papers of Jefferson, 3:458; “To George Washington,” July 4, 1780, Papers of Jefferson,3:481; “To Governor Thomas Jefferson,” August 29, 1780, John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1937), 19:468.

[18]“To George Washington,” October 25, 1780, Papers of Jefferson, 4:68; “To the Board of War,” November 4, 1780, Writings of Washington, 20:291-292.

[19]Michael Cecere, The Invasion of Virginia 1781 (Yardley, Pa: Westholme, 2017), 8-10, 13-14, 22-23.

[20]“To Daniel Morgan,” June 2, 1781, Papers of Jefferson, 6:70-71; William P. Palmer, ed., Calendar of Virginia State Papers (Richmond: Sherwin McRae, 1881), 2:162-163.

[21]Don Higginbotham, Daniel Morgan: Revolutionary Rifleman (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961), 161-166, citing Morgan to Nelson, June 26, 1781, Charles Roberts Autograph Collection, Haverford College Library.

[22]Ebenezer Denny, Military Journal of Major Ebenezer Denny (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1859), 38-39; James Carter pension, 1833, C. Leon Harris, transc., revwarapps.com (viewed 12/17/17); Dandridge, Historic Shepherdstown,261.

[23]James Carter pension, 1833; Dandridge,Historic Shepherdstown, 260-261

[24]Oliver Evans, The Young Mill-Wright and Miller’s Guide (Philadelphia: Oliver Evans, 1795), 500-507.

[25]Sarah Peter, Private Memoir of Thomas Worthington, Esq. of Adena, Ross County, Ohio (Cincinatti: Robert Clarke & Co., 1882), 4, 9-10; Douglas R. Littlefield, “The Potomac Company: A Misadventure in Financing an Early American Internal Improvement Project,” The Business History Review, 58 (1984): 562-585. An Ohio-Potomac junction would certainly have required an overland portage as well, but the sources consulted don’t mention one.

[26]Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig, eds, The Diaries of George Washington (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia: 1979), 5:6,151-152; “From Henry Bedinger and William Good,” Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, 7:1.

[27]Virginia Gazette and Weekly Advertiser, May 14, 1789.

[28]Littlefield, “The Potomac Company,” 576, 583-584.

[29]Hugh Blair Grigsby, The History of the Virginia Federal Convention of 1788 (Richmond: Virginia Historical Society, 1891), 2:363-366; Earl G. Swem and John W. Williams, A Register of the General Assembly of Virginia, 1776-1918 and of the Constitutional Conventions (Richmond: Davis Bottom, 1918), 34, 36, 243, 366.

[30]Erik Goldstein, Stuart C. Mowbray, and Brian Hendelson, The Swords of George Washington (Woonsocket, RI: Mowbray Publishing, 2016), 63-68; Merrill Lindsay, “A Review of All the Known Surviving Swords of Gen. George Washington: How Many Swords Did George Washington Wear at His Inauguration?” American Society of Arms Collectors Bulletin, 32 (Fall, 1975), 37-49.

[31]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Residence_Act_of_1790.jpg; Kenneth R. Bowling, The Creation of Washington D.C: The Idea and Location of the American Capital (Fairfax, VA: George Mason University Press, 1991), 123-125, 210-211.

[32]Earl G. Swem and John W. Williams, A Register of the General Assembly of Virginia, 1776-1918 and of the Constitutional Conventions (Richmond: Davis Bottom, 1918), 34, 36, 243, 366; “To William Darke,” April 4, 1791, The Papers of George Washington,Presidential Series, 8:55-57. Darke’s appointment was made after two higher-profile officers declined the job.

[33]John Winkler, Wabash 1791(Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2011),21, 29.

[34]Wilson, “St. Clair’s Defeat,” 379; Winkler, Wabash,59-73; “Shiloh,” American Battlefield Protection Program, https://www.nps.gov/abpp/battles/tn003.htm(accessed 7/27/18).

[35]Dandridge, Historic Shepherdstown,261; “From William Darke,”November9-10,1791,” Papers of Washington, Presidential Series, 9:158-168; Arthur St. Clair, Narrative of the Manner in Which the Campaign Against the Indians in the Year One Thousand Seven Hundren and Ninety-One, Was Conducted, Under the Command of Major General Arthur St. Clair (Philadelphia: Jane Aitken, 1812), 29; “Extract of a letter from Colonel ____, Commanding Officer of a Frontier County, to a Member of Congress—dated Lexington, January, 1792,” Dunlap’s American Daily Advertiser,February 10, 1792, cited in Papers of Washington, 10:156-157.

[36]“Biographical Sketch,” Military and Naval Magazine,8; Wiley Sword, President Washington’s Indian War: The Struggle for the Old Northwest, 1790-1795 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press), 193; “From Robert Rutherford,” Papers of Washington, Presidential Series, 10:97-100. John Darke is not included on Ebenezer Denny’s list of officers wounded and killed in the battle. (Denny, Military Journal, 172-173.) Darke’s third son, Samuel, died four years later.

[37]“From Robert Rutherford,” March 13, 1792, Papers of Washington, Presidential Series, 10:97; “To Henry Lee,” June 30, 1792, Papers of Washington, Presidential Series, 10:506-509.

[38]“From William Darke,” circa April 25, 1792, Papers of Washington, Presidential Series, 10:314-315; “From Henry Lee,” June 15, 1792, Papers of Washington, Presidential Series, 10:455-457.

[39]“To Henry Lee,” June 30, 1792, Papers of Washington, Presidential Series, 10:506-509.

[40]“To Henry Lee,” June 30, 1792, Papers of Washington, Presidential Series, 10:506-509.

[41] A Collection of All Such Acts of the Virginia General Assembly of Public and Permanent Nature as are Now in Force(Richmond: Samuel Pleasants, Jr. and Henry Pace, 1803), 282, 310; Brent Tarter,"William Darke (1736–1801)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2015 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Darke_William, accessed January 14, 2017); Don Higginbotham, Daniel Morgan: Revolutionary Rifleman (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961), 184, citing “Morgan’s militia commission” in the Myers Collection, New York Public Library. The General Assembly transferred the power to appoint future militia generals to the governor on December 10, 1793.

[42]“Henry Lee, Governor to General Wood, Lieutentant-Governor,” September 19, 1794, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, 7: 318. Henry Lee was the father of Robert E. Lee, who was born in 1807.

[43]Daniel Morgan to the Governor, September 16, 1794, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, 7: 315-316, 341-342.

[44]George Washington to Henry Lee, October 20, 1794, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, 7:356.

[45]William Findley, History of the Insurrection in the Four Western Counties of Pennsylvania in the Year MDCCXCIV (Philadelphia: Samuel Harrison Smith: 1796), 148. See also Hugh H. Brackenridge, Incidents of the Insurrection in the Western Parts of Pennsylvania, in the Year 1794 (Philadelphia: John McCulloch, 1795), 61.

[46]Findley, History of the Insurrection, 148.

[47]Findley, History of the Insurrection, 321.

[48]Tarter, “William Darke.”

[49]Henry Holcombe, “A Sermon Occasioned by the Death of Lieutenant-General George Washington; first delivered in the Baptist Church, Savannah, Georgia, January 19, 1800, and now published, at the request of the Honorable City Council” (Savannah: Seymour and Woolhopter, 1800), (text posted at www.consource.org/document/a-sermon-occasioned-by-the-death-of-washington-by-henry-holcombe-1800-1-19/).

Read More: Darkesville: A Name Born of Tragedy

David Stephenson Quits

Veterans

On New Year’s Day, 1783, the senior-most major of the Virginia Continental Line wrote to the commander in chief asking for permission to resign his commission. David Stephenson had been in the army for seven years, beginning as a Captain of an Augusta County company in the 8th Virginia Regiment. His service had, in monetary terms, cost him everything.

“When I entered the service my fortune was very small and is now entirely expended,” he wrote. “Extravagance has been no cause of my present situation, nor is it from interested motives I would now wish to retire; but it is as really out of my power to equip myself decently as it is to purchase the Indies.”

Stephenson was, in fact, not far from home. He wrote to Washington from Winchester, Virginia where he may have been guarding prisoners or performing other duties in the Shenandoah Valley’s largest town.

Stephenson had traversed the former colonies from New York to Georgia, survived battles, malaria and capture by the enemy. Penniless, he told Washington that he could not even afford to clothe himself. “Conscious that your Excellency will never wish to continue an officer in Service whose appearance must be so inferior to his rank, I rest satisfied of your approbation to retire.”

The war was essentially over, anyway. Within months, there would be a treaty to formalize it. When Stephenson returned home he was about 38 years old. Before the end of the year he married Mary Davies. They were married for 27 years before he died about 1810. Mary died in 1815. An unproven account that they had one son together is challenged by Mary’s will, in which all of their property was given to nieces and nephews from both sides of the family. She also directed that their slaves were “to be liberated and transported to some free State.”

Published on: September 12, 2018

Darkesville: A Name Born of Tragedy

The large chimney and the hewn logs peeking out from behind the falling clapboard are clues to this house's age. (Author)

In 1791 the Commonwealth of Virginia chartered a new town in Berkeley County and named it after former 8th Virginia Captain William Darke. He deserved it, but the honor was born of deep personal tragedy. The 55 year-old veteran of three wars would absolutely have forgone the distinction if he could have turned back the clock.

Darke fought in the French & Indian War as a young man and may have been at Braddock’s defeat in 1755. He raised one of the first companies for the 8th Virginia in 1776 and was promoted from captain to major in 1777 shortly before his capture at Germantown. That was followed by three years in British captivity. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel while in enemy hands. He was exchanged late in 1780 and returned home just before Lord Cornwallis invaded Virginia. Darke helped General Daniel Morgan recruit a force of 18-month Continentals in the lower Shenandoah Valley and was present for the victory at Yorktown.

A decade later, in 1791, he was appointed by President Washington to lead a regiment of federal troops on short enlistments in an expedition to defeat the Indians in northwest Ohio. The expedition, under the command of General Arthur St. Clair, was a complete disaster. American soldiers ran for their lives as Indians butchered their comrades to pieces in the forest. Hundreds of bodies were left behind, mutilated and frozen. It was the greatest victory for an Indian army ever and a major setback for the Washington Administration.

I was unable to find the state historical marker. (Waymarking)

Those who survived, however, made it out alive because Lt. Colonel Darke led one last desperate charge through the Indian line, opening a hole through which the panicking soldiers could flee. Darke himself was wounded in the leg. His son, Captain Joseph Darke, was shot in the head and would die after a month of “unparalleled suffering.” Colonel Darke returned home just in time to witness the death of another of his three sons. (Darke’s last surviving son died five years later, leaving the hero with no one to carry on his name—something that bothered him greatly.)

Boyd's Tavern has been nicely restored. The north side of the house dates to 1789. (Author)

Many lives were lost at St. Clair’s Defeat. Reputations were ruined as well. Darke, however, survived with his reputation improved. A month after the battle, Virginia created Darkesville to honor him. Two years later, after Virginia reorganized its militia system, Darke was made a general in command of a regional brigade. According to tradition he kept his headquarters in Darkesville, which was 13 miles west of his home south of Shepherdstown. He remained a militia general until his death in 1801.

I recently stopped in Darkesville (now in West Virginia) to look around. For the casual observer, there is little to distinguish the village from more modern development along the road (Route 11). The state historic marker appears to be missing and I wasn’t able to find General Darke’s Headquarters, though I was later able to find its apparent location on a map.

Darkesville grew into a respectable town, but never prospered to the extent that would have required the destruction of old houses to make room for larger and taller ones. In 1980, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on the basis of its “45 historical or architecturally important buildings or sites.” As of that date, there were 25 log houses dating from between 1790 and 1810 and another five stone ones built before 1830. Among them was the house believed to be Darke’s headquarters, though it was moved and altered in the 20th century. Near it is another log building known as “the barracks.” Most of these log houses are covered with siding, as they likely were soon after their construction. Still, the logs are visible on houses that have had their siding removed or where it has deteriorated.

Here at Darkesville, mostly concealed under clapboard or off the main road, is an early American frontier town, complete with log houses and stone fences. It is hiding there barely noticed by the drivers of the cars that whiz by going fifty miles an hour. Many of the houses date to a time when George Washington was in his first term as president and Americans were still fighting with the Shawnee for control of Ohio. Though they have survived for more than two centuries, these structures won’t survive forever. Already, a few appear to have been left to deteriorate. The name of Darkesville was born of tragedy. It would be another tragedy if this unique and special place were to be lost to development or to neglect.

Darke at St. Clair's Defeat, by Frederick Kemmelmeyer, ca. 1800. (MESDA)

Stone masonry probably dating to before 1830. (Author)

Published on: September 2, 2018

George Slaughter: Louisville’s Forgotten Founder

Veterans

George Slaughter oversaw the construction of Fort Nelson at Louisville. (1855 image)

In 1855 an elderly widow named Jane Roberts applied for bounty land for her husband’s service “in the war with the Cherokees & British in the year 1776.” We don’t often think of the Revolution as a two-front war, but it was. Americans fought an Anglo-German army in the east and an Anglo-Indian opponent in the west. Most of the western fighting was against Indians who were fighting as proxies of the Crown. In Virginia’s northwest territory along the Ohio River and beyond, the Shawnee were the most fearsome.

An 8th Virginia soldier like Captain George Slaughter might have seen the Revolution as just one chapter in a six-decade fight with the Indians for control of Kentucky and Ohio. The territories were the scenes of nearly constant bloodshed from the defeat of General Edward Braddock in 1755 to the defeat of Shawnee chief Tecumseh in 1813. After more than two decades of intermittent barbarity, Slaughter and his comrades suffered from no moral anguish when it came to killing Indians.

George was born in Culpeper County, Virginia in 1739. He was the grandson of an illiterate indentured servant but the son of a locally important and successful man. When he was twenty-five years old, George volunteered to help put down a major Indian uprising known as Pontiac’s Rebellion—which was a sort of postlude to the French and Indian War. Colonel Henry Bouquet led nearly 1500 militiamen out of Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh) in 1764 and subdued the Indians in Ohio. Bouquet required the Indians to return 200 white people who had been kidnapped over the years. This liberation combined joy with sorrow: most of the captives had been taken as small children and were fully assimilated into the tribes. George's horse was requisitioned for the use of captives returning to their homes.

Clark witnessed the return of hundreds of kidnapped children at the end of Pontiac's Rebellion.

A decade later, he participated in Dunmore’s War. This was another campaign, led by the royal governor of Virginia, to “pacify” the Indians. After a lengthy and bloody battle at Point Pleasant on the Ohio River, the Virginians were victorious. Slaughter’s unit, however, reportedly arrived too late to participate in the fighting. "They had not the satisfaction of carrying off any of our men's scalps, save one or two of the stragglers," he wrote to his brother. "Many of their dead they scalped, rather than we should have them; but our troops scalped upwards of twenty of their men, that were killed first." His father-in-law was killed in the battle.

After the campaign ended, Slaughter explored Kentucky for a while and planted corn—perhaps to lay claim to some land. A year later, in 1775, he may have helped recruit one of the first companies for the famous Culpeper Minutemen. The minute battalions were replaced in 1776 by additional full-time regular regiments, including the 8th Virginia. Slaughter recruited a company in Culpeper County. He remained with the regiment through Charleston and Brandywine and was then promoted to major of the 12th Virginia just before the Battle of Germantown.

At Valley Forge, in December of 1777, he learned that his family had lost their house in a fire. That, and a smallpox epidemic (against which he, but not his family, had been inoculated), prompted him to request a furlough from General Washington. The furlough was turned down. He resigned his commission on December 23 and headed home to Culpeper. On February 1, he contritely wrote to Washington begging to be reinstated. “If my reenstation can take place with propriety,” he wrote, “it will afford me great satisfaction; if not, I hope I can Acquiesce without murmuring.” The request was denied.

Virginia authorized four battalions of six-month volunteers in June 1778. These were state (not Continental) soldiers intended to reinforce Washington's army. Slaughter was chosen to lead one of the battalions. However, in August Congress advised the Commonwealth that the battalions would not be needed and the half-recruited units were disbanded. It is possible, however, that Slaughter's battalion was ultimately repurposed rather than dissolved.

After George Rogers Clark’s important victories in the west, Maj. John Montgomery returned to Virginia with dispatches. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel and ordered to recruit additional forces to reinforce Clark. On January 1, 1779, Gov. Patrick Henry drafted orders for Clark based on decisions of the state legislature. “They have directed your battalion to be completed, 100 men to be stationed at the falls of the Ohio under Major Slaughter, and one only of the additional battalions to be completed. Major Slaughter’s men are raised, and will march in a few days, this letter being to go by him. The returns which have been made to me do not enable me to say whether men enough are raised to make up the additional battalion, but I suppose there must be nearly enough. This battalion will march as early in the spring as the weather will admit.”

George's Slaughter's signature.

Montgomery was then redirected to help suppress an Indian uprising among the Cherokee in April of 1779, an operation known as Evan Shelby’s Chickamauga Campaign. William Hayden English wrote that Slaughter was along for this campaign, though documents to support this have not been found.

Slaughter’s participation in Shelby’s campaign is circumstantially supported by the fact that he was once again recruiting in Virginia in the fall of 1779. Slaughter recruited 150 men who were sworn into the service in mid-December when they headed west. They made it as far as Redstone Fort in Pennsylvania before getting bogged down by snow. In the spring, they made it to Fort Pitt and boated downstream to the falls of the Ohio River. This site is now Louisville, Kentucky, a city of which Slaughter is considered a founder—he was one of the original trustees.

Slaughter joined Clark on a 1780 campaign against the Shawnee in Ohio known as the Battle of Peckuwe (or “Piqua”). Clark then left for Virginia and left Slaughter in command. Slaughter oversaw the construction of Fort Nelson. It was from there that he reported to Jefferson on the dangerous situation with the Indians. In 1781 he wrote, “The Savages have been very troublesome this Spring; almost every other day we have accounts of some one being either kill’d or Captured; upwards of 40 Men, Women and Children have fallen a prey to them within the County of Jefferson in the course of 2 Months past and we have not had the satisfaction of getting but one of there Scalps.”

In 1923, the Culpeper Exponent reprinted an 1898 story originally from a Charlestown, Indiana newspaper giving a brief biography and identifying the site of Slaughter's unmarked grave. (Thanks to Al McLean)

Safety was not his only problem. He also reported, “We are here without money, Clothing, or any thing else scarsely to subsist on. By the fault of the Commissaries, Hunters or I cannot tell who upwards of One hundred and Thirty Th[ousan]d weight of meat was intirely spoiled and lost.”

Things improved for Slaughter and his neighbors from there. This can be seen in a letter his old 8th Virginia commander Colonel Abraham Bowman (who moved to Kentucky in 1779) sent home on October 10, 1784. Bowman wrote to a brother that "General Clark has laid off a town on the other side of the Ohio, opposite the falls, at the mouth of Silver creek, and is building a saw and grist mill there." This was Clarksville, in Clark County, Indiana. The same year, Slaughter was elected to the Virginia legislature. In 1792 Kentucky became its own state.

Slaughter is buried in this abandoned cemetery in Charlestown, Indiana. His grave is unmarked. Indiana's first governor, Jonathan Jennings, was also originally buried here in an unmarked grave after he died a penniless alcoholic. (Indiana SAR)

Slaughter eventually followed Clark and moved across the river. This was land that had been set aside for Virginia soldiers who had participated in “the reduction of the British in the Illinois.” Slaughter was not one of these soldiers, but he moved across the river anyway to Charleston, then the seat of Clark County. He died there in 1818. No grave marker survives, but (according to a genealogy website) he may be in the Shelby Family Cemetery, better known as the Halcyon Hill Cemetery.

Like many 8th Virginia veterans who were prominent and important in their day, Slaughter has been largely forgotten. It is never too late for Louisville (or Culpeper, or Charleston) to memorialize him.

(Revised and updated, December 22, 2019 and June 15, 2022.)

Winchester's Final Home for the Brave

When the 8th Virginia headed south into the Carolinas in 1776, they were heading into deadly territory. Those who were born and raised in the Shenandoah Valley and the mountains around it had absolutely no resistance to malaria. Large numbers of men, living together outdoors in the summer heat of the swampy coastal south, created the perfect conditions for an epidemic. According to one South Carolina officer, “14 or 15 [soldiers] were buried every day” for awhile that summer.

The 8th Virginia’s third-ranking officer, Major Peter Helphinstine of Wichester, was one who fell dangerously ill. At 52 years old, he was the oldest officer in the regiment. He resigned his commission and headed for home, perhaps in the back of a wagon. He continued to slowly deteriorate and died a couple of years later, leaving a widow who struggled to survive without him.

Helphinstine was buried in the graveyard of Winchester’s Lutheran Church, which is now part of a large and unique cemetery. In Winchester’s early days, the Lutheran, German Reformed, and Presbyterian churches were all on the edge of town. Only the Church of England was allowed to have a building in the center. After the Revolution, new churches were built in town and the graveyards of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches were combined with additional tracts of land to form a large public cemetery. Graves from the old Presbyterian Church (including that of General Daniel Morgan) were later reinterred in the new cemetery. After the Civil War, a large section was added for Confederate dead.

Helphinstine’s grave is close to the one remaining wall of the old Lutheran Church, though his marker is long gone. It may be that his widow could not afford a proper stone for him. Other prominent 8th Virginia veterans are buried in what is now known as Mount Hebron Cemetery. Chaplain Christian Streit, later the long-serving pastor of the Lutheran Church, is buried close to Helphinstine. Surgeon Cornelius Baldwin, originally buried in the Presbyterian graveyard, was relocated to the cemetery in 1912.

Other graves in the cemetery have been ascribed to 8thVirginia veterans, but may be in error or belong to veterans of the 12th Virginia Regiment (which was redesignated the “8th” when regiments were consolidated late in 1778). Winchester was the home of Daniel Morgan and was George Washington’s base of operations for much of the French and Indian War. It is full of history and deserves a visit. If you do visit, a stroll through Mount Hebron is worth thirty minutes of your time.

The remains of the old Lutheran Church.

The grave of 8th Virginia Chaplain Christian Streit.

The old Presbyterian Church, with a statue of Daniel Morgan.

The grave of 8th Virginia regimental surgeon Cornelius Baldwin.

Gabriel Neville

is researching the history of the Revolutionary War's 8th Virginia Regiment. Its ten companies formed near the frontier, from the Cumberland Gap to Pittsburgh.

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