University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XXVII

THE REBELLION OF 1676—Continued

While Carver and Bland are preparing for their fatal
expedition, we will turn to the history of the excursion which
Bacon now undertook against the Indians. His own prudence
was illustrated in the fact that he compelled every associate
whose loyalty to himself he distrusted to accompany him into
the woods. He decided to attack the Pamunkeys first, although
that tribe had, for many years, been a bulwark against the
marauders from the north; but in recent months, its fidelity
had fallen under grave suspicion. He was joined at his old
camp at the Falls by Colonel Brent, who had come down from
the region of the Potomac and Rappahannock with a large
band of volunteers, and together they set out through the
forests for the valleys of the modern Mattapony and
Pamunkey.

A heavy and protracted rain came on and stopped the
advance, and the discomfort resulting caused so much discontent
among the soldiers that Bacon thought it necessary to
revive their ardor with a speech. In its course, he admitted
that there was danger that the provisions, owing to the unexpected
delay, might soon run short, "but," said he, "if there
is any one among you who subordinates the suppression of
the heathen and revenge for the murder of our friends to a
particular regard and care for his belly, then let him depart
for home." "Begone," he cried out scornfully to three men
who left the ranks, "begone." "I am sure," he said to those
who remained, "that, when there shall be occasion for a fight,
I would find such men as those the worst of cowards, serving
for plunder and not for service, and (by sharing the food)

starving my best men who would bear the brunt of it, and
disheartening the others of half metal from freely engaging."

The rain holding up, the march was resumed, with the
Indian scouts scouring the woods ahead. Very soon the sound
of the latter's guns were heard, and when the soldiers had
quickly made their way to the spot, they saw an Indian fort,
from which the inhabitants had fled to seek first protection in
a neighboring swamp,—only afterwards to emerge and scatter
in the woods on the further side. An old squaw was captured,
and she was forced to act as a guide for the soldiers,
but as it was discovered after a day's wandering that she was
intentionally misleading them, in her fidelity to her own people,
they knocked her on the head and left her dead on the
trail. Returning through the recesses of the thick forest, they
ran unexpectedly on the Indian encampment, and falling upon
it, slew or captured a large number of the savages before they
could escape.

In spite of this success, the discontent which had prevailed
among the troops was revived by the increasing shortness of
food,—indeed, they were on the verge of starvation, without
any prospect whatever of replenishment. Bacon, recognizing
the reasonableness of the feeling, granted permission to all
the footmen,—who had been worn out by long marches,—to
set out for home; and the same privilege was allowed to every
horseman who requested it. They were supplied with food for
two days, which would bring them to the nearest settlements
without suffering. Gathering about him the troopers who
remained behind, he continued to beat up the swamps and
woods until he reached an open stretch of high land, and, at
this spot, the food still left was found to be nearly exhausted.
Informed of this, Bacon addressed his soldiers as follows, "I
had rather," he said, "that my carcass should be rotting in
the woods, and never see an English face again in Virginia
than miss of doing that service the country expects of me, and
which I vowed to perform against these heathen. If we go
back without finishing them, they would be encouraged, the

Frontlet of the Queen of Pamunkey

English downhearted, and my adversaries would insult and
reflect on me that my defense of the country is pretended, and
not real; and they already say I have other designs, and make
this but my pretense and cloak. All that abide with me must
be ready to endure all the hardships this wilderness can cause,
dangers, and successes, and if need to be, to eat chinquapins
and horse flesh before they return. I only want those who
will freely adventure."

One portion of his troops decided to turn back; the rest,
with Bacon at their head, marched forward from the open
land into the dark forest again, and before three hours had
passed, struck an Indian camp situated in a swamp overgrown
with a mass of small oaks, chinquapin bushes, and wild grapevines.
The savages scattered in the recesses of the immense
thicket, but not before many of them had been killed or captured.
A large supply of food was also taken. It was reported
afterwards that the Queen of the unfortunate tribe,—who had
saved herself by flight,—had made up her mind to give herself
up to the soldiers, when suddenly she came upon the body of
one of her own women shot to death in the woods. This sight
caused her to turn and flee, and she was only rescued from
starvation by eating a land tortoise which had been brought to
her by her little son, who accompanied her.

While these events were happening in the forest, Carver
and Bland had set sail for the Eastern Shore in the guardship.
Arriving in Accomac, Carver promptly went on shore to hold
a personal interview with Berkeley. Prudently for himself
at the moment, he took with him a large company for protection
against a possible surprise, but he failed to weigh the
consequences of leaving the guardship in the hands of a weakened
force under the command of Giles Bland. Indeed, this
force was inferior in number to the original crew.

Larramore wrote slyly to Berkeley on shore that, if he
would send a company of gentlemen to the vessel, they would
be admitted through the gunroom portholes, and having thus
got on board, could easily surprise and disarm the rebel seamen.

Berkeley took the cue, detained Carver by one device
or another, and hastened Lieutenant Philip Ludwell, with a
band of companions of his own social rank, across the water
to the anchored ship. These men entered the vessel in the way
advised, and with the immediate assistance of Larramore's
crew, overpowered Bland and all his adherents. When Carver
and his escort on their return reached the vessel they were
confronted by a line of muskets, and compelled to throw up
their hands and surrender. In vain Carver stormed and
reviled Bland. They were clapped in irons, and subsequently
paid the penalty for their lack of caution with their lives.
Berkeley came off and embarked in triumph; and the recaptured
ship, accompanied by the Adam and Eve, under Captain
Gardner's command, and numerous sloops, all manned with
the governor's partisans, set sail for Jamestown. On his
arrival there, Berkeley issued a flaming proclamation, in which
Bacon and his lieutenants, and every man in their army, were
denounced as rebels to the governor and traitors to the King.

The news of this outlawry was quickly brought to Bacon,
and he at once summoned his principal officers to his presence;
and when they heard of Berkeley's acts and denunciatory
words, they swore, with renewed energy and enthusiasm, that
they would uphold their leader to the last ditch. The fatigue
of their long marches, the depression of their protracted
absence from home, were forgotten. "You have," he
exclaimed, "the victory before you fight, the conquest before
battle. I knew that you can and dare fight, while they will lie
in their place of refuge and dare not so much as appear in the
field before you. You have the prayers and well wishes of all
the people of Virginia, whilst the other side is loaded with
their curses."

At Bacon's command, his followers swore that they would
neither ask for nor give quarter; and in this grim and resolute
mood, they began the march to Jamestown. A proclamation
for recruits was sent to the upper plantations; and as the
little army made its way through New Kent County, many

volunteers joined its ranks, until it came to number at least
three hundred men. The sight of the Indian captives shrewdly
driven along with it caused the people to bless Bacon as their
preserver and their defender from the tomahawk; and they
brought large quantities of food for his troops, while the
women cried out that, if their husbands, sons, and fathers
should fail to take up arms, they themselves would rush to
the field in their stead. Berkeley had concentrated in the town
one thousand men, who were reported to be seasoned and fully
equipped. Bacon, informed of this fact, smiled, and quietly
said, "I fear them not." Learning that scouts had been sent
out to watch his movements, he took extra precautions as he
advanced to prevent surprise. He halted his army in the
deserted fields at Green Spring, and in a speech which he
made to them so soon as they grounded their arms, he
exclaimed, "Now is the hour to fight. What care we for the
advantages possessed by the enemy in the point of ground, in
the ease with which they can retreat, or in the freshness of
their energies. Come on, my hearts of gold. He that dies on
the field, lies on the field of honor." Although the soldiers had
gone forty miles that day, they cheerfully resumed the march.

At Paspaheigh, Bacon, with a small escort, advanced some
distance ahead of his men, and dismounted in full view of
the town. Satisfied from this inspection that it could not be
successfully assaulted, he ordered a breastwork to be thrown
up. With one spade and two axes, his men labored in the
moonlight until dawn and with logs and dirt constructed a
strong fortification. When the sun made clear the way, six of
Bacon's soldiers, full of a daredevil spirit, ran across the open
space and fired their muskets at the guard, and then withdrew
unscathed behind their defenses.

It was reported that Berkeley had ordered his troops not
to shoot the first gun, for the reason that he was not only
reluctant to shed the blood of Virginians, but also thought that
the differences between himself and the rebels could be settled,
now that the Indians had been humbled and driven from the

frontiers. That such was his real attitude,—however prudent
in itself at this time,—is doubtful, for reconciliation with
Bacon would have required, on his part, concessions to the
popular cause which a man of his passionate temper would
hardly be likely to consent to make, and which, in the state of
his resources at that hour, did not appear to be justified. There
was certainly no spirit of conciliation at work in Bacon's heart,
and this was simply because he had no confidence in Berkeley's
promises. "This talk of unwillingness to shed blood first,"
he scornfully exclaimed, "did he not send his boat to places
where the public provisions were stored for the maintenance
of the war against the Indians, and carry them off by force in
order to support a war against the people themselves? Cannot
our men show the scars which his bullets have inflicted?"

An advance was sounded against the town, only to be
received by a cannonade from the ships in the river, and by a
shower of smaller shot from the palisades. Retiring to the
cover of their own breastworks, Bacon and his soldiers kept
up a sharp fire upon the enemy behind their defenses, and at
the same time, raised and lengthened their own fortifications.
A device of modern warfare was also adopted by the besiegers,—they
posted a scout on top of a tall brick chimney nearby,
who called down the movements of the opposing troops and the
number of men in their ranks. Soon steps towards a sally
were reported, and Bacon, going forward, so disposed his
soldiers that, if they should be successful in resisting the projected
assault, they could follow the enemy pell mell into the
very streets of the town. But before the foe had passed much
beyond the screen of the palisades, they seemed to lose their
courage and quickly retreated to cover again. Informed of
their withdrawal by the watchman on the tower, Bacon ordered
his men to fall back to the breastworks. Hardly had this been
done when the enemy made a second sortie, and assuming a
narrow and wavering front, marched unsteadily up to the spot
where Bacon's troops had again taken position to oppose them.
The impact threw the foe at once into confusion, and casting to

the ground their arms, their drums, and even the corpses of
their fellows who had been killed in the assault, they fled upon
their track to the protection of the palisade.[1]

Within a few hours, a large number of volunteers came to
the rebel breastworks to enlist, but one Chamberlayne was not
so easily influenced by success. He brought his sloop to a point
in the river where he could make his voice heard as he poured
out a flood of boastings and curses. A few shots from two
large guns which Bacon had mounted quickly forced him to
abandon his sloop and take to his boat, bawling, as he retired,
as if severely wounded by the shower of bullets.

Berkeley, discouraged by the cowardly spirit which had
caused the defeat of his force, decided to abandon Jamestown
the second time. He himself does not appear to have taken a
brave part, as in the Indian and Dutch wars of the past, in the
charge against the breastworks. There is no record that he
offered to lead, or even to rally his men, but rather throughout
the time of the fight seems to have been a silent and useless
spectator. The desertion of Jamestown was afterwards pronounced
by the English commissioners to be an act of baseness;
but Berkeley had probably learned that his soldiers could not
be trusted to save him from capture, should the palisade be
resolutely attacked, as now seemed imminent. Twelve hours
after its evacuation, Bacon was in possession of the town; and
he soon decided to burn it to the ground. With the hostile fleet
lingering a few miles down the river, and Brent reported to be
leading an army of one thousand men against him from the
Rappahannock and Potomac, he thought that it would be
impossible to hold it; and so long as it existed, it would be
certain to stimulate the enemy to put forth extraordinary
exertions to recover it. Every house, including the church and
capitol, went up quickly in flames; and it was said that Bacon's

faithful friends, Lawrence and Drummond, threw torches into
their own halls.

Bacon withdrew to Green Spring, and there drafted an oath
of fidelity to himself which he expected to be taken by the Virginian
people at large; and in this paper, he referred to Berkeley
as the "late governor;" denounced him for perfidy in denying
the validity of the commission which he had given to Bacon
himself; and charged him with betraying his official trust in
flying to Accomac, violating the instincts of humanity in levying
war against the colonists, and standing between them and
the King by intercepting the remonstrances against his tyranny
which they had endeavored to lay at the foot of the throne.

If, notwithstanding all the entreaties and offers which would
be made to the commissioners and military commanders who
might be sent from England, they should persist in landing
troops, then,—so this memorable paper declared,—the people
of Virginia would have the right to run together as in a common
calamity, and jointly with their present army, stand or
fall in defense of General Bacon and the country in so just a
cause. Rather than submit to so intolerable a slavery, should
they be unable to hold out against the superior power of the
redcoats, they would prefer to abandon the Colony. "This we
all swear," so the oath closed, "in the presence of Almighty
God, as unfeignedly and freely as ever we desire of him for
happiness to come."

It is clear, from the language of this document, that, in
spite of his triumph over Berkeley,—or, perhaps, because of
the completeness of that triumph,—Bacon had grown acutely
apprehensive of the impression which his acts had made on
the English Government. There is an undercurrent of despair
even in his expression of determination. Could he, with his
small force, have prevented a body of trained troops from
landing? Quite certainly not. But after they had disembarked
and taken up the pursuit on land and penetrated far towards
the frontiers, they would very probably have been drawn into

an ambuscade as destructive as the one which Braddock fell
into under the same circumstances.

Bacon's proposal, in case of failure, to retire into the
woods beyond the Roanoke was the forerunner of Washington's
resolution to take refuge in West Augusta, should his
troops be compelled to abandon the coast. Had the rebel of
1676 retreated to the back country, he would have been accompanied
by such a band of emigrants as had never before
appeared on the American continent. The dark and bloody
ground of Kentucky, or the valleys of the Watauga and Tennessee,
would have been settled by these fugitives many decades
before a white face was destined to be seen on the western
slope of the Alleghanies. There would have been a lost
colony far more numerous than the little band which disappeared
in the sixteenth century from the forests of Roanoke
Island.

As Berkeley's flotilla lingered in the waters of the Lower
James, Bacon sent detachments of troops along the banks to
prevent the landing of soldiers from the ships. At the same
time, he was inclined in this hour of success to show a spirit
of great moderation towards those of his opponents who had
fallen into his hands. One of them alone, James Wilkinson,
who had deserted his colors, was sent to the gallows. Others
equally guilty were simply deprived of their goods or thrust
into prison. It was acknowledged by the English commissioners
that this terrible ogre, as described by Berkeley and his
partisans, had exhibited no bloodthirstiness whatever in the
course of his violent career. Who ever had so burning a temptation
as he to retaliate when the implacable old governor
refused to surrender Carver, Bland, and Taylor, in exchange
for three of his principal lieutenants then languishing in
Bacon's power? The latter released many of his prisoners
captured in the war, and he pardoned others charged with
capital offenses. Finding that his soldiers were growing insolent
and oppressive in their conduct towards the people at
large, he subjected them to the sternest rules of discipline,

with very severe penalties for neglect or violation of the regulations.
All guilty of plundering were punished as soon as
they could be arrested.

The entire area of Virginia situated on the western side of
the Bay had now fallen under Bacon's control. All opposition
to his supremacy had been crushed. He was soon able to
announce a definite policy for the pacification of the distracted
country. First, the government of the region on the south
side of the James was to be confided to a committee of able
and experienced residents; second, a committee of officers was
to decide upon the justice of every seizure of property by the
army; and third, a committee of citizens who understood the
conditions prevailing on the frontier was to regulate the intercourse
between the white people and the Indians in time of
peace, and assume the direction of affairs in time of war.

Before these statesmenlike plans could be put in force,
Bacon, in order to make an inspection in person of the ground,
set out upon a tour of the Colony. His first stage brought him
to Gloucester County; and here his career suddenly ended.
His exposure in his various marches had infected his body with
the germs of malaria, which developed, in time, into chronic
dysentery. In the unwholesome disorder of camp life, he had
also been attacked by vermin, that caused a disease of the
skin which he found it impossible, with the poor medical
resources at hand, to throw off.

It was reported that, in his last hours, his mind was agitated
over the expectation of the arrival of the English troops.
This was through no cowardly dread of such a force. Without
his leadership, he put little trust in the coherence of his
army; and it was quite probable too that he had looked forward
to negotiations with the English commissioners in imitation
of those that took place many years earlier with the representatives
of Parliament. No one but himself could successfully
conduct these negotiations, for no Virginian but himself
possessed an authority to which all on his side would submit.
He frequently inquired as to the strength of his guard, as if

he feared that he was in danger of assassination at Berkeley's
instigation. His body is supposed to have been buried in the
waters of an inlet of the Bay which lay not far from the home
of the planter, Mr. Pate, where he died. The exact spot has
never been disclosed. The secrecy of his interment saved his
remains from the contumely which overtook Cromwell's body
at the Restoration.

Thus passed a man who, in spite of occasional rashness and
violence, proved himself to be a friend of popular liberties, in
an age of sordid selfishness and mean oppression, and who
invited death, even if he should triumph, by the devotion of
his fortune, his talents, and his health to the cause of patriotism.
He staked all that makes existence tolerable in order to
rescue his fellow-countrymen from the red hand of the savages
and the greedy talons of tyrannical magistrates.
Wretched were the times, despicable was the political system,
which, in the end, after the pouring out of so much blood, and
tears, and energy, relegated all the high purposes of his lofty
and manly spirit, all the fruits of his disinterested military
and civic actions, to the disposal of an ignorant and selfish
government oversea, and of vindictive and selfseeking functionaries
in Virginia.[2]