RC (Vi); addressed; endorsed in part: “recd June 81.” Tr (NHi). Enclosure (Vi); in an unidentified hand, endorsed by Claiborne.

On this date Claiborne wrote Steuben enclosing “No. 5” which, he said, “contains a memorandum which I shall lay before the Governor and request him for the aid of Government, as it would be Chimerical in me to attempt to execute it without. I have made every tryal in my power to procure horses and everything else by Certificates and employing Gentlemen of interest and influence, but they assure me that there is such a General dissatisfaction and Suspicion among the people that they are determined not to suffer themselves to be deceived any longer, by being connected with contracts on public account. I can assure you, Sir, that faith in general among the people towards the Public is totally lost and that nothing is to be had unless necessity obliges them to it, without the cash or some personal private obligation is rendered to them” (Claiborne to Steuben, 18 May 1781, NHi). Steuben’s pressure on the Virginia government to provide arms and supplies for the recruits being assembled was increased rather than diminished with the news that Cornwallis had turned back northward and was about to effect a junction with the British forces in Virginia. For he had just received Greene’s letter of 1 May 1781 ordering him southward: “… it is my wish that you should march with all the Virginia drafts that are fit to take the field as soon as you can. … Our situation requires immediate support. I beg you to get the best state of the stores you can and bring with you, and write to the board of war our deplorable condition respecting arms. Unless a new supply can be had, or larger Armories established for their repairs, we cannot keep the field. I beg you to take every possible measure to improve both. Bring forward all the Cavalry with you, that is fit for duty, ours being much broke down and the Enemy having two to our one. … I find myself so beset with difficulties that I need the Council and assistance of an officer educated in the Prussian school, and persuade myself that I shall have in you both the friend and the General I want” (Greene to Steuben, 1 May 1781, NHi). But the officer of the Prussian school was having his own difficulties in Virginia. In order to facilitate the equipment of the recruits preparatory to their march to join Greene, Steuben moved his headquarters to Charlottesville (Claiborne, circular to deputy quartermasters, 10 May 1781, NHi; it may have been at this time that TJ made the following note in DLC: TJ Papers, 7: 1195: “6. chairs, 2. dining tables lent to Q.M. (Southall) for Baron Steuben”; this memorandum is on the verso of the end of an otherwise missing letter from James Madison which, in addition to the signature and complimentary close, contains only these words: “than by employing them there”). Steuben had also, with Lafayette’s approval, fixed the general rendezvous at Albemarle Barracks. “Against this,” he reported to Greene, “the wise men of this state have cried out loudly. … We have as yet only 440 Recruits assembled, unarmed, unequipped, and without cloaths. … In fact if with our greatest efforts we get a Thousand men from Virginia, it will be the utmost. Notwithstanding this, my care to keep together and Equip the few we have got, has not failed to draw on me the censure of many of the great men here, who pretend that these Recruits ought to be sent immediately into the Field and relieve so many of the Militia. Other wise ones ridicule the distance from the Enemy to which I have sent them. … I must give you this notice, my dear General, that from the many Difficulties which daily occur and of which I have only mentioned part, my presence in this state has become useless. I shall with pleasure fly to put myself under your orders and I beseech you … to call me as soon as possible, for be assured I am heartily disgusted at the Conduct and proceedings in this Quarter” (Steuben to Greene, 14 May 1781, NHi). On this same day Greene was writing to Steuben expressing the belief that Cornwallis would turn southward again, in which case Steuben was ordered to bring the Virginia recruits to join Greene (Greene to Steuben, 14 May 1781, NHi). But by the present date Steuben had received Greene’s letter of 1 May and his spirits rose at once in anticipation of leaving Virginia: “Immediately on receipt of your Letter,” he wrote Greene, “I repeated my former orders for them [the officers under Col. Gaskins, who was in charge of the new recruits] to lose not a moment in Disciplining the men and Equipping them with every necessary for the March. I at the same time dispatched Expresses to all the Rendezvous to forward on immediately all the Recruits they had. Tomorrow I shall set out myself in order to expedite matters. … I have consulted with the Marquis and it is agreed that I shall march the moment I can equip the recruits we have and this I am in hopes will be in about 8 or 10 days” (Steuben to Greene, 18 Apr. 1781, NHi). There is no evidence that Steuben wrote directly to TJ at this time, but he did press Claiborne to write the present and following letters and he also wrote Davies: “I have received letters from Genl. Greene beging in the most earnest manner that the recruits may be armed immediately. To a person of Colonel Davis’ enlarged ideas, the good of the country is the good of this state. I therefore request in the most pressing terms that you will collect all and every persons that can be of any service in repairing the arms” (Steuben to Davies, 17 May 1781, NHi); but see TJ to Davies, 25 May 1781.