Benjamin Harrison to Virginia Delegates, 1 August 1782
Benjamin Harrison to Virginia Delegates
FC (Virginia State Library). In the hand of William Tatham, assistant clerk of the Virginia Council of State, and directed to “Virginia Delegates in Congress.”
Virga. In Council August 1st., 1782
Gentlemen
It gives me great pleasure to find that the States of Holland have at last de[c]lared in favor of the Independence of America I have no doubt but great good will result from it both to them & us.1 Your Secretary at War (Gen. Lincoln) has I think insulted the Sovereignty of the State exceedingly by giving orders (without even writing to me on the Subject) to Lavelette the French Officers commanding here, to destroy all the forts and fortifications at York Town.2 The forts and platforms to the Water were all built by the State, & are necessary for the defence of that river3 and its Trade, and it certainly was incumbent on the General4 to have left it at our option either to destroy them or not. Lavelette has been so obliging as to say I may preserve them if I please, & I have given Orders to Colo. Dabney5 to take possession of them, the Works thrown up by the Enemy or the French may be destroy’d if the Gen. pleases, but he certainly ought even in that case to have consulted the Executive whether they would be useful to the State or not. I shall take no further Notice of this than to beg the favor of you when you see the Gen. next to give him my Opinion of his Conduct. Gen. Washington was so complaisant as to leave the whole to me6 but the destruction would have been over before his Letter (which came by post) got to hand if Lavelette had obey’d his Orders strictly. The Assembly came to no determination on the subject you requested to be instructed in tho’ they had your Letter and one from me pressing the necessity for its being taken up.7 I am &c.
B. H.
1. See , IV, 403, n. 3; 431, n. 6.
2. Ibid., IV, 83, n. 3; 397, n. 7; 406, n. 1; 414; 446. In connection with the withdrawal of the French army from Virginia, beginning on 1 July 1782, Lieutenant General Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau, ordered Brigadier General Charles François Chandéon (1731–post-1792), Chevalier de La Valette, to remain at Yorktown with a small garrison to guard the fortifications and military stores there until relieved (, III, 284; , XXVI, 183 n.). This contingent, together with the French artillery and stores, left by ship for Baltimore about 15 August (, III, 298). For Benjamin Harrison’s letters to La Valette concerning the defense works, see ibid., III, 282, 289. The governor had been misinformed about General Benjamin Lincoln’s “orders” to La Valette. See Virginia Delegates to Harrison, 13 August 1782, and n. 2.
3. York River.
4. Benjamin Lincoln.
5. Harrison had directed Colonel Charles Dabney and his “Legion” to garrison Yorktown as soon as the French should leave. See , IV, 406, n. 1.
6. Shortly before the present letter was written, Harrison had received Washington’s dispatch of 22 July suggesting that the works at York, Gloucester, and West Point be leveled, so “that the Enemy may have no object to attempt in that Quarter more than in any other part,” but leaving the matter at the option of the state government. Washington also expressed the opinion that the removal of the French matériel from Yorktown would obviate the need for Virginia militia to garrison the town. On 1 August the Virginia Council of State asked the commissioner of war “to Countermand those Militia who have not already marched to York” (, XXIV, 436; , III, 131).
7. On 14 May 1782 the Virginia delegates wrote to Harrison asking that the General Assembly provide them with “full and precise instructions” on the subject of Virginia’s claim to the lands north and west of the Ohio River. Eight days earlier Harrison had requested the speaker of the House to have the General Assembly reach “a speedy and decisive determination” about this subject (, IV, 235–37; 239, n. 13; , III, 213).