8829. VIRGINIA, British invasion.—[continued].
Their numbers, from the best intelligence I have had, are about fifteen
hundred infantry; and, as to their cavalry, accounts
vary from fifty to one hundred and
twenty; the whole commanded by the parricide
Arnold. Our militia, dispersed over a large
tract of country, can be called in but slowly.
On the day the enemy advanced to this place,
two hundred only were embodied. They were
of this town and its neighborhood and were
too few to do anything. At this time they are
assembled in pretty considerable numbers on
the south side of James River, but are not yet
brought to a point. On the north side are two
or three small bodies, amounting in the whole,
to about nine hundred men. The enemy were,
at four o'clock yesterday evening, still remaining
in their encampment at Westover and
Berkeley Neck. In the meanwhile, Baron Steuben,
a zealous friend, has descended from the
dignity of his proper command to direct our
smallest movements. His vigilance has in a
great measure supplied the want of force in preventing
the enemy from crossing the river,
which might have been very fatal. He has been
assiduously employed in preparing equipments
for the militia as they should assemble, pointing
them to a proper object, and other offices of
a good commander. Should they loiter a little
longer, and he be able to have a sufficient force,
I still flatter myself they will not escape with
total impunity. To what place they will point
their next exertions, we cannot even conjecture.
The whole country on the tide waters and
some distance from them is equally open to
similar insult.—
To General Washington. Washington ed. i, 284.
Ford ed., ii, 408.
(Jan. 1781)
