Cornwallis was here

 

Imagine if you will, five thousand troops of the world’s most powerful army with hundreds of camp followers and escaped slaves moving along River Road West through Goochland Courthouse.

The plot for a Sci Fi movie maybe with a cameo by Godzilla? No, local history. On March 15, as part of the 11^th annual premier conference on the American Revolution, a bus tour followed the movements of Lord Cornwallis, a name that those of us who studied history in another century recognize, in and around Goochland.

Moderated by John Maas, Ph.D., a historian at the National Museum of the U.S. Army at Fort Belvoir and author of several books on 18^th century miliary history.  Maas wrote The greatest terror imaginable: Cornwallis brings his campaign to Goochland, June 1781, for Volume 41 of the Goochland Historical Society Magazine in 2009.  History buffs from around the country mounted a tour bus for a day long up close and personal look at sites where the fate of our young nation was decided.

John Maas holding Goochland Historical Society magazine

The conference, headquartered at the Virginia Crossings Hotel and Conference Center in Glen Allen—Goochland does not have a hotel large enough to accommodate the conference—featured a host of well credentialed experts on various facets of the American Revolution. (Go to americashistoryllc.com for information about next year’s conference and other history tours.)

 According to Bruce Venter of Sandy Hook, CEO of America’s History, LLC, holding the conference near Richmond presented an opportunity to hold the bus tour of sites in Goochland and Hanover.

Venter, who summers on Lake George in upstate New York where he leads tours of Revolutionary War battle sites, never fails to proudly proclaim that he is from Goochland. He has wanted to do the Cornwallis tour with Maas for several years, but, as earlier conferences were held in Williamsburg, it was not practical.

That all changed on March 15 when intrepid history buffs from near and far set off to follow the path of Cornwallis on his way to Yorktown.

The first point of interest was the historic Hanover Court house built in 1735. George Washington, Cornwallis, and the Marquis de Lafayette passed through here at various times during the Revolutionary War.  Goochland’s current courthouse was built around 1827.

At Ground Squirrel Bridge over the South Anna River, the group left the bus as Maas described movements of more British troops under the command of Lt. Col. John Graves Simcoe who also had an army running around in the area. As there were few bridges, moving large numbers of men and equipment over the area’s many creeks and rivers was dependent on knowing where they could easily be crossed and how they were affected by weather. Heavy rains could make rivers impassable and change battle plans.

Crossing rivers like the South Anna complicated troop movements (Bob Warwick photo)

The tour passed Mount Brilliant in Hanover County, which Cornwallis used as a headquarters. It drove down Glebe Road, now known as Fairground Road on the way to Columbia and Point of Fork, where the James and Rivanna Rivers meet. Following a skirmish with Simcoe American troops under Baron Von Steuben abandoned the arsenal and supply depot there. Troops under Lafayette shadowed Cornwallis, but, because they were a smaller force, took care to keep one waterway removed from the British.

Venter gestures toward Point of Fork

Elk Hill plantation, owned by Thomas Jefferson was used by Cornwallis to rest his troops before he burned everything there was the next stop.

View of Elk Hill area today. Cornwallis burned everything there in 1881

The tour next enjoyed southern cuisine at iconic Tanglewood Ordinary in Maidens.

Lunch at Tanglewood Ordinary

On the way to the final stop at Tuckahoe Plantation, where Jefferson lived as a boy, the tour passed what is left of Powell’s tavern, a Lafayette related site.

It will be no surprise to Goochlanders that there is evidence that Cornwallis was struck by the beauty of our county, especially a bluff overlooking the James River in the east end, near the current site of the headquarters of Luck Stone by its Boscobel quarry. Had the revolution been put down by the British, Cornwallis might have retired here.

(Venter, also a Civil War historian, is the author of Kill Jeff Davis about Dahlgren’s Raid, which traversed Goochland County.)