Charlottesville

Charlottesville in the American Revolution: The Piedmont Town That Nearly Lost a Nation Its Leaders

Few places in Virginia carry the weight of Revolutionary history quite like Charlottesville. Nestled in the rolling Piedmont at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, this small town was never a major battlefield, never the site of a prolonged siege, and never home to a large garrison. Yet in the spring and summer of 1781, Charlottesville found itself at the very center of the American crisis — a place where the survival of Virginia's civilian government, the fate of its controversial governor, and the dignity of the revolutionary cause all hung in a precarious balance. What happened in and around Charlottesville during those fraught weeks remains one of the most dramatic episodes of the war, a story involving daring cavalry raids, desperate midnight rides, legislative flight, and the near-capture of Thomas Jefferson himself.

Founded on December 23, 1762, by an Act of the Virginia Assembly as the new Albemarle County seat, Charlottesville was named in honour of Queen Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, wife of British King George III — an irony not lost on later generations who would remember the town chiefly for its defiance of that king's armies. The town lies in the heart of ancestral Monacan Indian territory, near where the town of Monasukapanough had been settled for centuries.

Monasukapanough was a Monacan Indian village located on the Rivanna River about five miles north of Charlottesville's current downtown.

It was a chief's village dating to at least the fifteenth century, located along both sides of the South Fork Rivanna River at a crossing point; the name is believed to derive from "moni," the Siouan word for "ford." Monasukapanough was featured alongside four other major Monacan communities in Captain John Smith's 1612 Map of Virginia.

Before Charlottesville became the scene of one of the war's most dramatic near-disasters, it had already played a significant — if less celebrated — role in the Revolution as a prisoner-of-war camp. The Albemarle Barracks was a prisoner-of-war camp located outside of Charlottesville that housed British and Hessian prisoners captured during the Battles of Saratoga (September 19 and October 7, 1777). The captives, approximately 4,000 men, women, and children, were initially held near Boston. In November 1778, this Convention Army, named for the Convention of Saratoga, was marched south to Virginia because of strain on local supply chains and fear that the British would attempt to free the prisoners. The prisoners arrived in January 1779 at the Albemarle Barracks, a camp of crudely constructed log huts about five miles northwest of Charlottesville.

Land for the prison camp was provided by Colonel John Harvie, a lawyer who was a member of the Continental Congress and a childhood friend of Thomas Jefferson. Harvie offered several hundred acres of land on the north bank of Ivy Creek, approximately five miles northwest of Charlottesville, rent-free. However, Harvie was hardly a philanthropist — he was in dire financial straits and realized that the prisoners would undoubtedly improve his land, thus increasing its resale value after their departure.

The Continental Congress decided on Charlottesville on October 16, 1778, and instructed the Board of War to contract for building "temporary log barracks" near the town and completing them by December 15.

Congress also put commissary officer Captain George Rice in charge of building the barracks and provided him with $23,000.

The army marched from Massachusetts on November 9 through 11, 1778, and arrived at Charlottesville in January 1779, to find an unfinished set of barracks awaiting them.

The barracks consisted of about 300 log huts, around twenty-four feet long by fourteen feet wide, each of which reportedly held up to eighteen prisoners. The remaining soldiers numbered some 2,000 British, upwards of 1,900 German, and roughly 300 women and children.

As the barracks were barely sufficient in construction, the officers were paroled to live as far away as Richmond, Virginia, and Staunton, Virginia.

The prisoners worked to improve their living conditions by establishing gardens, raising livestock, and building stores, taverns, and churches. The prisoners also managed to build a theater on the site. They worked outside the camp and farmed the surrounding land, while many officers lived in Charlottesville and socialized with local gentry. However, hundreds escaped Albemarle Barracks, owing to the lack of an adequate number of guards.

Thomas Jefferson saw the prisoners as an economic stimulus to the local economy, and the officers as an intellectual resource worthy of engagement.

The situation at the barracks changed dramatically in October 1780, when a small British force captured Portsmouth and was soon reinforced by additional troops under the command of General Benedict Arnold. Unable to stop British advances, Patriot leaders feared that the prisoners at the Albemarle Barracks would be liberated and rejoin the army. On November 20, 1780, the remaining British prisoners, now numbering approximately 1,200 men, women, and children, were evacuated north to a new camp at Fort Frederick in western Maryland.

The Hessian prisoners, numbering about 1,400, remained until the following February, when they too were sent north, first to Winchester and then on to Maryland.

A Continental harness factory staffed by several German prisoners who had been left behind operated at the barracks during the spring and summer of 1781, but following Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown in October, it was apparently closed.

Sometime thereafter the crude log buildings vanished, either decaying naturally or being pulled down by local inhabitants seeking building materials or firewood.

Charlottesville as Virginia's Temporary Capital

Charlottesville was, very briefly, the capital of Virginia. The General Assembly met there between May 28 and June 4, 1781.

In May 1781, as the British gathered their forces at Petersburg, antidraft riots rocked the state, and enslaved Virginians used the turmoil to escape. Jefferson called another session of the General Assembly — this time to meet at Charlottesville, near his home at Monticello, where he thought they would be safe from the British.

The Legislature met in the Court House, the overflow occupying the Swan Tavern across the street.

Noted patriots among the assemblymen were Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Harrison, and Thomas Nelson.