Cornwallis had more than one string to
his bow. The legislature of Virginia was sitting at
Charlottesville, lying in the interior nearly a hundred miles
northwest from Richmond, and Cornwallis conceived the daring plan
of raiding Charlottesville, capturing the Governor of Virginia,
Thomas Jefferson, and, at one stroke, shattering the civil
administration. Tarleton was the man for such an enterprise of
hard riding and bold fighting and he nearly succeeded. Jefferson
indeed escaped by rapid flight but Tarleton took the town, burned
the public records, and captured ammunition and arms. But he
really effected little. La Fayette was still unconquered. His
army was growing and the British were finding that Virginia, like
New England, was definitely against them.
At New York, meanwhile, Clinton was in a dilemma. He was dismayed
at the news of the march of Cornwallis to Virginia. Cornwallis
had been so long practically independent in the South that he
assumed not only the right to shape his own policy but adopted a
certain tartness in his despatches to Clinton, his superior. When
now, in this tone, he urged Clinton to abandon New York and join
him Clinton's answer on the 26th of June was a definite order to
occupy some port in Virginia easily reached from the sea, to make
it secure, and to send to New York reinforcements.
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