The Philosopher Governor and the Burning Capital

Thomas Jefferson was not built for wartime command. He was built for thinking, writing, designing, and persuading. As the author of the Declaration of Independence, he had given the Revolution its most powerful expression of principle. As governor of Virginia from 1779 to 1781, he discovered that principles alone could not stop a British raiding party coming up the James River.

The move to Richmond was supposed to solve the vulnerability problem. Williamsburg sat exposed on the peninsula, reachable by any British ship that sailed up the York or the James. Richmond was inland, on the falls of the James, presumably safer. But "safer" was relative. The James River was navigable to Richmond, and in January 1781, Benedict Arnold proved it by sailing a fleet of small vessels upriver and landing his force with almost no opposition.

Jefferson received conflicting intelligence about Arnold's approach and was slow to respond. When the British reached Richmond, the governor had managed to evacuate some government records and military stores, but the defense of the capital was effectively nonexistent. Arnold's troops destroyed what they found and withdrew. The whole affair took about a day.

The political damage lasted much longer. Jefferson's critics in the legislature launched an investigation into his conduct, and while he was ultimately cleared, the humiliation marked him deeply. He had always believed that a free society should rely on the virtue of its citizens rather than the coercive power of its government. Arnold's raid suggested that virtue was not enough when enemy soldiers were at the door.

Jefferson left the governorship in June 1781, months before Yorktown. He retreated to Monticello and his books, nursing wounds that were political and personal. Years later, when asked about his governorship, he was defensive and pained. The man who could articulate the highest ideals of the Revolution had struggled with its most basic practical demand: keeping the enemy out of the capital.