Archibald Stuart And The Lee Land

Archibald Stuart And The Lee Brothers

 

            J. E. B. Stuart's Father Archibald  

  Robert E. Lee circa the time he wrote Archibald

On November 24, 1836, Archibald Stuart received a letter from Robert E. Lee, an officer in the United States Army with a deed that Lee’s brother Charles Carter Lee wished passed on to Stuart, who acted as the Lee’s attorney in Patrick County. This is the first time the names of Stuart and Lee come together that I have found. Archibald Stuart’s son James Ewell Brown Stuart would make a name for himself as R. E. Lee’s cavalry commander during the War Between the States.

The story of the Lee land in Patrick County is an interesting one. After the Revolutionary War, Buffalo Mountain was a part of a 16,000-acre tract of land known as Lee’s Order. This tract was a grant made to General Henry Lee (1756-1818) by the United States for his service in the Revolutionary War. Henry Lee attended Princeton with the future president, James Madison, and served as a cavalry commander under George Washington during the American Revolution. Known for his swift movements and lightning attacks, he earned the moniker of “Light Horse Harry.” After the war, Lee served as Governor of Virginia, but land speculation led to a term in debtors’ prison and a wretched end for the man who said Washington was “First in War, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

Robert Edward Lee (1809-1870), known to history as the “Gray Fox,” commanded the Army of Northern Virginia during the War Between the States, but his brothers are lesser known. Sydney Smith Lee (1802-1869) married the granddaughter of “Founding Father” George Mason, the “Father of the Bill of Rights.” He was the father of “Jeb” Stuart’s subordinate Fitzhugh Lee. Sydney Lee served in the navies of the United States and the Confederate States of America. Beginning in 1820 with a midshipman’s commission in the United States Navy, he rose in rank serving as Commandant of the Naval Academy, commanding the Philadelphia Naval Yard, and accompanying Mathew Perry on his expedition to Japan. He commanded the Norfolk Navy Yard and the Confederate Naval Academy at Drewry’s Bluff during the war. Considered very handsome, his brothers nicknamed him “Rose.” After the war, he farmed in Stafford County, Virginia, before dying suddenly in July 1869.

Fitzhugh Lee, Son of Sydney Lee served under J. E. B. Stuart during the Civil War

Robert E. Lee's brother Sydney Smith Lee, father of Fitzhugh Lee.

Charles Carter Lee was born in 1798, received a degree from Harvard in 1819. He lived a disjointed life as a New York City lawyer, land speculator, and plantation owner in Mississippi until his marriage at age 49 to Lucy Penn Taylor. He lived on his wife’s inheritance, Windsor Forest, in Powhatan County, Virginia, prospering as a husband, father, farmer, and writer, especially of poetry. 

Of the three Lee brothers, only Carter lived on the land in Floyd County. Papers supplied from the courthouse indicate that Carter tried to establish a gristmill on the property and that he was involved in legal dealings with Archibald Stuart. Tradition states he lived on the Buffalo Mountain property at one time in a home called Spring Camp and that he had a law office. Carter was the last of Henry and Ann Lee’s children to die. 

Charles Carter Lee, older brother of R. E. Lee.

After the death of their mother, Ann Hill Carter Lee, in 1829, the three Lee brothers inherited the property. There were unpaid taxes and bills against the property, but the brothers kept the land. In 1846, the brothers sold 16,300 acres in the three counties to Nathaniel Burwell of Roanoke County (Patrick County Deed Book #12 page 425) for $5,000. Surveyed initially as over 20,000 acres, the Patrick portion was 6,268 near Hog Mountain crossing branches of the south fork of Rock Castle Creek, the Conner Spur Road, and a fork of the Dan River. The Floyd portion was 7,143, and Carroll was 5,797 acres.

Anne Carter Lee, mother of the Lee brothers.

Robert E. Lee may have summed up the ownership of the land in southwest Virginia and the plight of the three brothers after the war when he said, “It’s a hard case that out of so much land, none should be good for anything.” Lee went on to command the Army of Northern Virginia, where his cavalry was commanded from June 1862 until May 12, 1864, by Archibald Stuart's son, James Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart.

 

Robert Edward Lee and his cavalry commander during the War Between The States, J. E. B. Stuart, who was born at the Laurel Hill Farm, Ararat, Patrick County, Virginia.

Archibald Stuart Part One

J. E. B. Stuart's Father: Archibald Stuart (1795-1855) Part One

“His memory is cherished with an affection rarely equalled in the history of any public man."

-- H. B. McClellan

In the summer of 1855, he was fifty-nine years old. He looked back on a long life of public service as a soldier, attorney, delegate to two constitutional conventions, representative of Patrick County in both houses of the Virginia Legislature, and one term in the United States House of Representatives. He fathered eleven children with Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart. He was the fifth richest man in Patrick County five years earlier, but most of it came from his wife’s inheritance because, like many people, Archibald Stuart had his shortcomings. He drank, gambled, loving the party, and the company of women. Archibald Stuart was alone and dying at Laurel Hill. He wrote his granddaughter, Mary Belle Peirce, that her grandmother, Elizabeth, was away from Laurel Hill caring for their daughter, Victoria. Alone at his home with his thoughts and his own mortality Archibald Stuart asked his granddaughter to please write to him. 

George Washington was President of the United States when Archibald Stuart was born December 2, 1795, in Lynchburg, Virginia. As the son of Judge Alexander Stuart, the law came naturally to Archibald and, with that, politics as well. One biographer describes him this way. “His portrait shows a handsome face, high-bred, genial and ruddy with a bright eye and certain weakness about the mouth. He was a notable orator, famous on the hustings, admired in the legislative halls and exceedingly convivial. Old men relate that no gathering of gentlefolk in his section was complete without Arch Stuart, to tell the liveliest tales and trill songs in his golden voice, when the cloth was drawn and the bottle passed.”

After joining the legal bar in Campbell County, serving in an artillery unit during the War of 1812 from March 22 until August 22, 1813, Stuart served in Captain James D. Dunnington’s Artillery. Later, Stuart served as a sergeant from August 12, 1814, until January 26, 1815, in the 53rd Regiment of Virginia Militia, Campbell County’s Captain Adam Clements Troop of Cavalry. For this service, Stuart received eleven dollars a month along with forty cents a day for his horse for a total of $127.52 (1,116.80 in 2005 dollars per www.westegg.com/inflation).

In a Bounty Land Claim in the National Archives dated January 26, 1856, by Patrick County Justice of Peace J. C. Taylor and witnessed by Stuart’s neighbors Lewis and D. Floyd Pedigo, Stuart’s widow Elizabeth received 80 acres near Christiansburg, Kentucky in 1857 for his service in the War of 1812.

The land records show Archibald Stuart living in Campbell County, Virginia, on January 13, 1818. That same year, he returned to the ranks of the 23rd Troop of Cavalry after the resignation of Gabriel Scott.

Described in different sources as a “hell of a fellow,” Archibald Stuart married Elizabeth Letcher Pannill, a strict religious woman with “no special patience for nonsense,” in 1817. Eleven children followed born to the union over the next twenty years. The children were Ann born in 1818, Bethenia in 1819, Mary in 1821, David in 1823, William in 1826, John in 1828, Columbia in 1830, J. E. B. in 1833, an unnamed son who died in 1834, Virginia in 1836, and Victoria in 1838.   

Stuart on May 10, 1818, defended a slave named Henry charged with leaving and setting fire to his master’s home. The following year a daughter, Bethenia, named for her maternal grandmother, was born at Seneca Hill in Campbell County. Archibald Stuart’s father Alexander owned 200 acres of land as early as 1796 on Seneca Creek in Campbell County that increased to 600 acres later. Archibald Stuart represented Campbell County in the Virginia House of Delegates (1819-1820). On December 1, 1828, Archibald Stuart cut his ties to Campbell County and sold his land there to his brother-in-law William L. Pannill. The transaction involved 1,070 acres for $1532.50.

Archibald and Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart and her brother William Letcher Pannill worked out a land swap recorded in December 1828 where the sister received all the land in Patrick County for the land deeded her by her mother Bethenia in Pittsylvania County including 146 acres where the “Chalk Level store is situated.” Archibald and Elizabeth Stuart went to live in Patrick County.

The journey to Patrick County was not as seamless as it appears. There is evidence that Archibald Stuart “lost the family farm” in Campbell County. Many biographers of J. E. B. Stuart make passing mention of the financial problems Archibald Stuart dealt with most of his adult life.

Pere Louis-Hippolyte Gache, a Jesuit priest, and the former Chaplain 10th Louisiana Infantry, detailed to Danville Hospitals, where he met Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart during the Civil War in Danville in 1862, seven years after Archibald’s death. Gache wrote that Stuart lost his home, Seneca Hill, due to “compulsive” gambling. Gache continued that Archibald Stuart threw himself upon the mercy of his father, Judge Alexander Stuart, in Florissant, St. Louis County, Missouri. Elizabeth gave birth to her daughter Mary while in Missouri. After a short sojourn living in Missouri near his father, young Stuart returned to the “Old Dominion.” 

Order Book #3 states that Archibald Stuart was in Patrick County by October 1823 and began to practice law. He paid taxes on three slaves, a horse and a “chariot” valued at $300 that year. The courthouse records show him present for the next thirty-two years. One can imagine Archibald Stuart in his one-person buggy and horse riding to court at Patrick County Court House as he began to make a life for his wife and children. He signed an account of G. Moore, the guardian of John Moore, in May 1825, along with signing as a commissioner on William Moore, deceased, with William Carter as administrator. 

Over the years, the amount of property owned by the Stuarts in Patrick County fluctuated from a high of 2169 acres in 1836 to the 1508.50 acres when sold in 1859. Archibald Stuart owned an additional 600 acres nearer the Blue Ridge Mountains on nearby Lovill’s Creek, but not contiguous to the property inherited through his wife. There were an additional 70 acres on Wolf Creek that remained in the family until 1876 seventeen years after Laurel Hill was sold.

The Stuarts built the house at Laurel Hill in 1831 as the property tax record show that the county appraised $300 more in value for a “new house.” The little known about the house comes from biographies of J. E. B. Stuart with descriptions of the house as being a large comfortable house in a grove of oak trees with a beautiful flower garden and an excellent view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Descriptions of cherry and pear trees near the home exist, and today a Royal Ming tree, not native to the area, still flourishes near the house site. No known photos or drawings of the home exist, which makes rebuilding it impossible. No plans ever existed to rebuild the home from the beginning of the fundraising project at Laurel Hill. It was going to be a park, not a reconstruction.

Next door, the home of Lewis and Sarah Pedigo and their many children brought many oral traditions about Laurel Hill to the present day. Carolyn Susan “Carrie Sue” Culler, whose grandmother knew the Stuart children, tells many interesting, but unverified stories. One of these states that Archibald Stuart taught law to several of the local boys in a log cabin, including the Pedigo sons and others such as Jack Reeves and George Duncan. Another tells of Victoria Stuart Boyden giving a picture and a hat to Mary Pedigo.

Stuart's political career progressed, as did life at Laurel Hill. Described as having an excellent speaking and singing voice, a good wit, Stuart had a gregarious personality that led him to be comfortable in public situations.

At noon on October 5, 1829, an older man rose to call the meeting to order in Richmond, Virginia. He stood in the Capital of Virginia, designed by his old friend Thomas Jefferson. The assembled ninety-eight men were to revise the 1776 Virginia Constitution, and as the elder statesman spoke, thirty-four-year-old Archibald Stuart no doubt marveled at the men around him.

Stuart found himself in the presence of several giants of Virginia and American History at the convention. The old man had once written, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” Standing before Archibald Stuart this day, he was one of the last “Founding Fathers,” and he spoke on constitutional matters as few could. Today we consider him the “Father” of the United States Constitution. James Madison, the former fourth President of the United States, still had seven years to live, and this day he nominated the former fifth President, James Monroe as President of the Convention. The Chief Justice of the United States, Virginian John Marshall, seconded the nomination. Madison, Marshall, and Monroe, who crossed the Delaware River with George Washington in 1776 were joined in the assembly by the infamous John Randolph of Roanoke and the future tenth President of the United States John Tyler, who lived long enough to be part of the government of the Confederate States of America. Stuart served as a Delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention from October 5, 1829, until January 15, 1830. Among other serving from the 21st Senatorial District were Joseph Martin of Henry County, Benjamin W. S. Cabell, and George Townes of Pittsylvania County.

The Convention of 1829-30 revised the 1776 Constitution of Virginia. Stuart served on a committee charged with the “Bill of Rights and matters not referred to foregoing Committees.” Described as a “reformer,” Stuart voted 80% of the time for a change in the constitution. He was one of only four delegates east of the Blue Ridge along with Henry A. Wise calling for a “white basis” in representation that challenged the authority of Piedmont plantation owners and increased the power of the western part of Virginia. While that measure failed along with a resolution on dueling, but an amendment passed to make removal of corrupt or incompetent judges “more efficient.” Stuart supported opening the right to vote to “leaseholders” not just property owners.

Although, as early as 1807, Patrick County called for a change in the Virginia Constitution, the county voted against having the convention in 1829 (400 to 95). There were 1,146 white males over sixteen, and 578 were qualified to vote. Only landowners held the suffrage. The county voted for the final constitution 274 to 246.

Described as a charmer, orator, advocate, a man of wit, humor, and a man of song, Stuart began representing Patrick County on December 6, 1830, until April 19, 1831, in the Virginia House of Delegates. Isaac Adams contested the election, and Stuart lost his seat.

Many counties in Southwest Virginia have evidence of Archibald Stuart’s legal career and his vices. In the Grayson County Law Order Book, officials indicted Stuart for gambling in a poker game. He pled guilty and paid a $2.00 fine. The Grayson County Order Books mention Stuart as early as August 1826 and in legal proceedings in 1833, 1835 and 1842. In 1842, he was a commissioner to choose a location and draw up a contract for the construction of the courthouse and jail in Carroll County, along with William Lindsey, Madison D. Carter, and Mahlon Scott. Henry County shows Archibald as early as 1827, receiving $10 for prosecuting a John Montgomery.

On March 1, 1831, Archibald Stuart took the oath as Commonwealth Attorney in Floyd County. A few days later, officials appointed Stuart to a commission to locate the county seat. Floyd County Attorney and Historian Gino Williams researched Archibald Stuart in Floyd County and supplied information, where Stuart was Commonwealth Attorney from September 20, 1831, until September 26, 1837, appointed by his brother in law Judge James Brown. Later Stuart replaced Jubal Early temporarily in the same position in March 1847. As late as December 1854, Stuart served on a committee “examining” the Clerk’s Office.

In December 1832, Judge Alexander Stuart returned to Virginia from Missouri and died in his native Augusta County. His will recorded in the General Court of Virginia is not available as it burned during the evacuation of Richmond in 1865. Either through mismanagement or the burden of his father’s estate, Archibald Stuart began to experience financial problems. As no copy of the will of Alexander, Stuart could be found, the precise reason is not known. Still, it is evident through the following recordings in the Patrick County Deed Books that Archibald Stuart carried his father’s estate for many years to come as collateral.

On June 8, 1835, Archibald sold 2000 acres of his father’s estate to Walker Merriweather in Lincoln County, Missouri. Four years later, on March 14, 1839, Archibald Stuart owed Chiswell Dabney $2000 “due in land” plus interest with four weeks’ notice at Patrick Court House over the estate of Alexander Stuart. Twenty-three slaves would go to J. E. Brown and John B. Dabney if Stuart did not pay. The slaves listed are Peter, Jack, Charles, Bob, Moses, Jefferson, Suckey, and children (Catharine, Lucy, John, Louisa, Charles, and infant) Celia and four children Henry, Suckey, David, Winney, and her children (Amy, Lavinia, Scott, and Jackson) On August 14, 1839, a Deed of Trust recorded on page 276 of Patrick County Deed Book #10 between Archibald Stuart, Madison Carter, and J. E. Brown states that Stuart is indebted to Brown for $1250.80 plus interest from September 24, 1832. Brown was responsible to Abram Staples for $615.09 as Staples and Stuart had a legal suit pending in Grayson County. The slaves involved in this transaction from Stuart to James Madison Carter included Peter, Jack, Bob, Moses, and Winney and children (Amy, Lavinia, Scott, and Jackson) for $1251.86 from Carter to Brown. The next day, August 15, 1839, the slaves listed on page 277 of Patrick County Deed Book #10 include Charles, age 40, Suckey, age 43, Jefferson age 19, Catharine age 17, Lucy age 15, John age 13, Louisa age 11, Charles Henry age 5 and Martha Jane age 3. This transaction states that Chiswell Dabney sold slaves in Missouri for $4480, along with slaves valued at $2000 in Virginia. Archibald Stuart received $4530 via Dabney.

Alexander Stuart transferred the property to Archibald in December 1828 with his recorded will on November 11, 1832. The Patrick County Deed Book #10 on page 255 lists a recording on September 12, 1835, with Archibald Stuart and Chiswell Dabney of Lynchburg acting as agents. The value listed as $939.14 included a library at $213.97, a law library at $162.75, furniture at $271.50, livestock at $237, including six cows at $12 each and schoolbooks at $6.92. Dabney was to receive property from the estate, and Stuart’s brother in law, J. E. Brown, held some of the property.

The exact cause of Archibald Stuart’s financial woes is unknown. The tradition in the biographies of his famous son J. E. B. Stuart are vague, dismissing his problems as a simple lack of business skill portraying Elizabeth Stuart as taking over the running of the Laurel Hill Farm, but the evidence points to other causes. From early in their marriage, there are rumors of a gambling problem. There were problems from the estate of Judge Alexander Stuart. Either or both of these wreaked havoc on the financial condition of the Stuarts at Laurel Hill. One fact that speaks volumes is the will of Bethenia Letcher Pannill recorded in Pittsylvania County Will Book #1 on page 507, which states clearly that her land is “not for the payment of Arch Stuart’s debts” and James Peirce will act as trustee for Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart, not Archibald.

Chiswell Dabney, along with J. E. Brown, comes up in the transactions regarding Archibald Stuart often. Dabney, who lived near Lynchburg, was Arch Stuart’s maternal uncle. Chiswell’s brother John had a famous grandson also named Chiswell Dabney, who served as “Aide de camp” on J. E. B. Stuart’s staff from 1862 until 1863 during the Civil War. The many people in the Stuart family with Dabney as a middle name included Archibald’s sister, and son John Dabney Stuart denotes the importance of this relationship. Chiswell Dabney, who administered Judge Alexander Stuart’s Will, along with Judge Brown, allowed Archibald Stuart to survive the financial problems that plagued him throughout much of his adult life along with the inheritance from his father.

Patrick County, in 1833, the year J. E. B. Stuart was born, was “rural isolation.” The county seat called Taylorsville, named after a Revolutionary War figure George Taylor, but always referred to as Patrick Court House by the Stuart family, had forty homes, three taverns, two stores, a tailor shop, saddlery, tanyard, flour mill, and two tobacco factories. The Stuarts lived on the far western end of Patrick County in The Hollow or Ararat along the state line with North Carolina.

Excerpted from “The Dear Old Hills of Patrick:” J. E. B. Stuart and Patrick County Virginia by Thomas D. Perry.

Elizabeth Perkins Letcher And Her Daughter, Bethenia Letcher Pannill

J. E. B. Stuart Mural at Patrick County High School

Elizabeth Perkins Letcher And Her Daughter, Bethenia Letcher Pannill

In September 1852, a couple walked together through the boxwoods and cedar trees of Beaver Creek Plantation in Henry County, Virginia. The pleasant day included a hunt for blackberries and spending time near the cooling waters of a nearby spring, where the young man tried to impress her with watery exploits and her playing the piano while he secreted himself out of sight to listen. As the sun sank, in the west, they sat in the grass while nearby a rooster caused a spectacle chasing fireflies. The voices of many slaves raised in song returning from the fields came to the ears of the young people reflecting on why “the caged bird sings.” He told her in a later letter that thinking of the day that it would “revive in my heart unfading recollections of the joy I experienced during that visit. I will never forget it.” Nearby the graves told the story of their shared family history. They shared a common ancestor, his great-grandmother, and her grandmother for Elizabeth Perkins “Bettie” Hairston and James Ewell Brown Stuart descended from Elizabeth Perkins Letcher Hairston.

After the death of William Letcher, the romantic and family tradition holds that George Hairston led troops into The Hollow, captured Nichols, the assassin of William Letcher, gave him a drumhead trial, and hung him. The area for years went by the name of Drumhead, including the letters written by J. E. B. Stuart. The author believes the Stuart family associated the area near William Letcher’s grave with the tradition that the murderers of the former after capture succumbed to execution by hanging after receiving the justice of a drumhead court-martial. Laurel Hill became synonymous with the area on the bluff above the river where Archibald and Elizabeth Stuart built their home and where their son James Ewell Brown Stuart was born.

George Hairston carried Elizabeth Perkins Letcher and her baby, Bethenia, to the Hairston home, Marrowbone, in Henry County. As this was several day's journey with overnight stops and no chaperone. Honor caused George to propose marriage to the wife of his friend rather than sully her reputation. George Hairston married Elizabeth Perkins Letcher on January 1, 1781. Family tradition tells he gave her two Chickasaw ponies and buckskin saddle heavily embroidered as a wedding gift. The newly married couple rode to their home at George Hairston’s house, Beaver Creek, just north of Martinsville in Henry County, Virginia, with a groomsman carrying baby Bethenia.

George Hairston described as a man of “great firmness of character combined with elegance of manner and appearance,” began his house along with the land between Beaver and Matrimony Creeks in 1776. It burned after his death, and his son Marshall rebuilt the present structure in 1837. George gave Henry County fifty acres that, along with much of downtown Martinsville includes the site of the old courthouse.

The marriage of George and Elizabeth Perkins Letcher Hairston produced twelve children beginning with Robert in 1783 followed by George in 1784, Harden in 1786, Samuel in 1788, Nicholas Perkins in 1791, Henry in 1793, Peter in 1796, Constantine in 1797, John Adams in 1799, America in 1801, Marshall in 1802 and Ruth Stovall Hairston in 1804.

George Hairston did not forget the friend, William Letcher, he lost during the American Revolution, and family tradition points to the warm feelings he held for his stepdaughter, Bethenia Letcher. Exhaustive searches of multiple county land records in Virginia did not reveal ownership by William Letcher of Laurel Hill. In 1790, John Marr purchased the 2,816-acre tract that included Laurel Hill and two years later conveyed 550 acres to William Letcher’s daughter, who was still a minor, for five hundred pounds. Hairston and Marr had a business relationship dealing in land speculation, including the “Iron Works Tract” that today encompasses Fairy Stone State Park. Six years later, the property was appraised at $1.75 an acre for a total of $962.50. Hairston paid the taxes on the land until Bethenia’s marriage. George lived on until March 7, 1827.

Elizabeth Perkins Letcher Hairston died on January 7, 1818. Bethenia Letcher married David Pannill on October 29, 1798. On her wedding day, tradition holds that Bethenia Letcher, “a very beautiful woman,” wore white plumes in her hair, but an ill omen of a black spot marred the nuptials. The groom cut the place out, but his wedding gift to his bride of a new carriage along with two horses burned up in a stable fire within days. The couple settled in Pittsylvania County at Chalk Level east of Chatham, Virginia.

On January 4, 1801, Bethenia gave birth to her first child, a daughter she named Elizabeth Letcher Pannill. The second child, William Letcher Pannill, came into this world on September 10, 1803, just months before his father’s death. David Pannill died in November 1803, leaving a wife and two small children. His tombstone reads, “He had a warm, generous heart, was just to all men and died among many friends who sincerely regretted the death of their best friend and benefactor.” Bethenia found herself in the same situation as her mother over twenty years earlier.

William Letcher Pannill married his cousin Maria Bruce Banks on December 22, 1831, and produced fifteen children. William’s descendants became prominent founding Pannill Knitting Company, and their generosity helped preserve Laurel Hill.

Bethenia gave Chalk Level to her son and moved into a nearby home called Whitehorne in 1839. Bethenia Letcher Pannill died on February 23, 1845. Her will divided the Patrick County land between her children. David and Bethenia Pannill lie together in the Chatham town cemetery with a marker noting their relationship to their famous grandson, James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart, who was born at Laurel Hill.

The Assasination Of William Letcher

William Letcher’s daughter was born on March 21, 1780. Elizabeth Perkins Letcher gave birth to her first child, Bethenia. This small child became the connection that led to her famous grandson's birth at Laurel Hill over fifty years later. That same year the American Revolution would come to Laurel Hill with tragic consequences.

Bethenia’s daughter, Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart, wrote of William Letcher at this time that, “He had the promise of long years of happiness and usefulness and domestic felicity, but a serpent lurked in his path, for whom he felt too great a contempt to take any precautions.” The clouds of war reached the home of William and Elizabeth Letcher that summer with tragic results in the form of Tories, those loyal to the British. John Adams said of the Tories, “A Tory here is the most despicable animal in the creation. Spiders, toads, snakes are their only proper emblems.”

The same day Bethenia was born, Virginia Governor Thomas Jefferson wrote to Colonel William Preston in Montgomery County, stating, “I am sorry to hear that there are persons in your quarters so far discontented with the present government as to combine with its enemies to destroy it.” It was four years since this famous Virginian had penned the words of The Declaration of Independence.

On March 29, the British began a siege of Charleston, South Carolina, resulting in the surrender of the city on May 12, 1780. This marked a change in British strategy to a southern front. Up to this time, the opposing armies fought most of the battles in the corridor between Philadelphia and Boston.

It was the time of Banastre Tarleton for the British and Francis Marion “The Swamp Fox” for the Whigs or Patriots. On May 29, Tarleton defeated and then massacred the Patriots under Colonel Abraham Buford at the Waxhaws in South Carolina. Tarleton refused to accept the surrender of the men and killed or wounded 300. Four days later, General Henry Clinton, the British commander in America, issued a proclamation saying, “Anyone not actively in support of the Royal government belonged to the enemy and was outside the protection of British law.”

With the presence of a large army in the region, the Tories began an aggressive campaign against Patriot groups. Historians estimate the population evenly divided over the cause of independence with one-third in favor, one-third indifferent and one-third pro-British. Political, religious, and even personal feelings directed the decisions of those involved and made for a volatile situation.

Lord Charles Cornwallis commander of the British commented on it this way, “In a civil war there is no admitting of neutral characters and those who are not clearly with us must be so far considered against us, as to be disarmed, and every measure taken to prevent their being able to do mischief.” Cornwallis’ opponent in the Southern Campaign, Nathaniel Greene, said, “The whole country is in danger of being laid waste by the Whigs and Tories who pursue each other with as much relentless fury as beasts of prey.” One participant summed up this civil war within the American Revolution in the following statement, “The virtue of humanity was totally forgot.”

Documentation about Tory activity in the region exists. The Moravian settlers in nearby Forsyth County, North Carolina, often speak of them in their diaries. Today, Tory Creek, in nearby Laurel Fork on the Blue Ridge, holds to be a traditional hiding place for those loyal to the Crown. One revolutionary war soldier, James Boyd, who served in Captain James Gidens militia from Surry County, North Carolina, stated in his pension application details about the hangings of Joseph Burks, Mark Adkins, Adam Short, William Kroll (Koil) and James Roberts for being Tories.

Tradition holds that William Letcher was a leader among the local people in support of the patriot cause and separation from Great Britain. Letcher left no doubt about his feelings, and this made him a target. As a member of the local militia, he may have been involved in several small battles against the pro-British sympathizers in the region. There is no evidence that Letcher took part in any major campaigns with the Continental Army or was ever a member of a mainline military unit. His granddaughter wrote of him, “He was very active in hunting them from their hiding places. He would frequently go alone, armed only with a shotgun, into the most inaccessible recesses of the mountains, exploring every hiding place…he knew it was for the Tories, who concealed themselves in the daytime but came forth in darkness and secrecy… William Letcher had proclaimed that he would lay down his life before one of them should lay a finger on his property. Hall used this remark to incite the Tories against him; reporting also his known enmity and activity in hunting them down, and representing their property as unsafe so long as William Letcher lived.” William Hall lived in Surry County, North Carolina, south of Letcher along the Ararat River. John Letcher mentions Hall's home, a meeting place for Tories, in the 1856 letter about Letcher.

J. E. B. Stuart’s mother continued her narrative about her grandfather. Late one night, the Tories disguised as “fiends” burned Letcher’s smokehouse full of meat. Awakened by the fire and smell, Letcher scattered them with gunfire. One of the Tories reportedly replied from the darkness, “I am Hell-Fire Dick. You will see me again.” Letcher oblivious to the danger continued a normal life as a farmer with his wife, newborn daughter, and slaves.

Oral tradition abounds today in Patrick County about the death of William Letcher. One version has Letcher shot from a nearby ridge while stepping out onto his porch. Another has him shot through a window of his home by a coward lurking outside at night. The most romantic and accepted story tells that Letcher was in his fields on August 2, 1780, when a stranger came to the house and asked Elizabeth Letcher about her husband’s whereabouts. She replied that he would be back shortly and invited the visitor to stay. When Letcher entered, the man identified himself as Nichols, a local Tory leader, and said, “I demand you in the name of His Majesty.” Letcher replied, “What do you mean?” Nichols shot Letcher. The Tory fled the home leaving the dying Patriot in the arms of his wife, his last words reportedly being, “Hall is responsible for this.” Hall fled towards Kentucky, but Indians along the Holston River killed his entire family.

William Nichols, born in Granville County, today’s Orange County, North Carolina, about 1750, married Sarah Riddle in 1770, the daughter of Colonel James Riddle, a prominent Surry County Tory. Nichols is listed in the 1771 tax list of Surry County and served in the local militia for the Patriot cause, but received harsh treatment for “bad conduct” and swore to seek revenge after he was discharged. Letcher was his first victim.

            Reaction to Letcher’s death was immediate. On August 6, Colonel Walter Crockett in Wythe County believing the murderers were “Meeks and Nicholas…assembled 250 men at Fort Chiswell and was about to march against the Tories on the New River. He reported that one Letcher had been murdered...it is generally believed a large body of those wretches are collected in The Hollow.” The death of Letcher so stirred up the area that they hung the Tories “like dogs,” including a group hanging in nearby Mount Airy, North Carolina. When the wives of the doomed men “cried and lamented the fate of their husbands,” they were “well whipped for sorrowing for a set of rogues and murderers.”

Colonel William Preston in Montgomery County wrote Governor Jefferson on August 8 stating, “A most horrid Conspiracy amongst the Tories in this Country being providently discovered about ten Days ago obliged me Not only to raise the militia of the County but to call for so large a Number from the Counties of Washington and Botetourt that there are upwards of four hundred men now on Duty exclusive of a Party which I hear Colonel Lynch marched from Bedford.”

            Another pensioner, William Carter, speaks of “a great excitement was produced by the murder of a distinguished Whig, William Letcher, who was shot down in his own house by a Tory in the upper end of Henry County. Captain Eliphas Shelton commanded a company of militia in which Carter was a sergeant. Ordered by his captain to summon a portion of the company to go in pursuit of the murderer, he rode all night, collected twenty or thirty men early the next morning, and pushed for the scene of the murder. The murderer and the Tories with whom he was connected had fled to the mountains where the detachments pursued them but failed in overtaking them and returned home after an absence of a week or more. He had scarcely returned home when the Tories returned to the same neighborhood and committed a good many robberies.”

James Boyd’s pension applications states that Nichols and others murdered Letcher. Militia companies, including those of Shelton, Lyon, and Carlin of Virginia and Gidens of North Carolina combined to make a force of over 200 men. He continues that Captain Gidens captured Nichols within two weeks, but mentions that it was at Eutaw Springs, a battle that occurred on September 8, 1781, in South Carolina. Another account tells of “nine prisoners were captured, and on our return, two Nichols and Riddle out of the nine were hung…Tories Nichols and Riddle were hung in consequence of it appearing that they had been concerned with robbing a house.” This account mentions that they were involved in robbing a house of “one Letcher murdered by Meeks and Nichols.” Whenever Patriots captured William Nichols tradition holds, they hung him in chains and left him unburied. His motive for killing Letcher was in a letter found on his person after execution from the British offering a reward for every Patriot he murdered.

On August 16, 1780, Cornwallis defeated Patriot General Horatio Gates at the Battle of Camden, South Carolina, and by the end of September, the British moved into that “nest of hornets” known today as Charlotte, North Carolina. The cause Letcher gave his life for rebounded with Patriot victories at King’s Mountain on October 7 and a week later at the Shallow Ford of the Yadkin River. In 1781, Virginian Daniel Morgan crushed Banastre Tarleton at the Battle of Cowpens on January 17. Nathaniel Greene lost to Cornwallis at the Battle of Guilford Court House on March 15, where Major Alexander Stuart fought. The road to Yorktown opened, and the surrender of Cornwallis to George Washington came on October 19, 1781, resulting in a victory for the United States of America, a little more than a year later with the signing of a peace treaty on November 30, 1782.

Over the years, this author often imagined a young man standing in front of the grave with eyes down reading the inscription and then slowly raising his head to view the bottomland along the river. The land full of the life of growing crops with the mountains shaded by the blue mist filled him with pride. He had grown from this very soil, and it was here that he always called home. The young army officer’s uniform was blue, and the summer sun reflected off the polished buttons. He placed his hat with the large dark plume on his head, saluted, and turned to mount his horse. He galloped off to splash through the river and up the hill to the site of his birth, his waiting family, and his destiny. It was the summer of 1859, and First Lieutenant James Ewell Brown Stuart of the First United States Cavalry was home for the last time. The white marble stone from a Richmond stonecutter, William Mountjoy, from the corner of Main and Eight Streets and placed by his maternal grandmother before her death in 1845, marked the grave of her father. As I write this, the grave is the only piece of the history from the Stuart Family that the young man would recognize if he came back today.

Today, William Letcher rests in the bottomlands along the Ararat River in Patrick County’s oldest marked grave. His tombstone placed by his daughter before her death in 1845 says the following. “In memory of William Letcher, who was assassinated in his own house in the bosom of his family by a Tory of the Revolution, on the 2nd day of August 1780, age about 30 years. May the tear of sympathy fall upon the couch of the brave.”

We should not lose sight of the irony of William Letcher’s great-grandson losing his life eighty-four years later at nearly the same age fighting for what he believed was a second American Revolution.

While it might be a stretch to say that Letcher’s life and example led J. E. B. Stuart to a life in the military, it would not be hard to imagine a young man’s fascination with brave ancestor fighting and dying for something he believed in. This strong influence inculcated a strong love of home and a heroic legend he must live up to. You might even say Stuart gave his life defending the legacy William Letcher left him.