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.