Corneluis Bybee, Rev. War Records - Fluvanna co., Va. The American Revolutionary War can be viewed as fought in two stages. The first stage was fought in the northern colonies beginning in 1775 as the British concentrated their troops in the Boston and New York areas and actively pursued putting down the "rebellion" I this region through 1779. The second stage shifted the theatre of the war to the southern colonies, including the colonies of North and South Carolina as well as Virginia. The war came to Mathew Jones’ and Nealy Bybee’s backyard along the James River in 1780-81. This second stage, which intensified in 1781, was largely due to the fact that the war in the north had bogged down to a war of occupation by the British. The British held the upper hand with troops comfortably stationed in the large cities of New York and Philadelphia, while Washington’s army remained exposed to the elements in the countryside. Virginia’s favorite son, George Washington, was challenged to hold together men and materiel to meet the British threat of attacking wherever they wished. The British hoped for a tiring Patriot cause and a melting away of George Washington’s Army. Virginia had been largely untouched except for a few early British raids along the James (e.g. Mathew Jones’ early reports of Patriot troop concentrations in Suffolk) and was depended upon by the entire American cause to provide men, food, and other materiel to keep the war going. The plantations, especially those along the James River, were literally the bread basket of the American revolutionary cause. Hence, Mathew and Neilly did double duty for their county, farming to provive supplies and taking up arms during times of emergency. Despite the entry of the French as allies to the American Revolution, the British held control of the sea lanes and hence could rapidly move in force between the northern colonies and any place of attack they chose from the Chesapeake Bay, south into the Carolinas. The British had already struck a major crippling blow to Charleston,. South Carolina and decimated a large part of the southern colonial army. This southern British spearhead, after securing Charleston, began penetrating the Carolinas with the ultimate goal of attacking the Virginian breadbasket from the South. Lord Cornwallis, a very able and aggressive British general, began operations in South and North Carolina that were to demonstrate that the American revolutionary cause was hopeless. During his attacks on scattered patriot outposts he rallied southern loyalists to join the ranks of his army. Many of these Southern loyalists put on the British red coat and fought a civil war against their patriot neighbors. In general, Cornwallis and his commanders fought a string of victories interspersed with a few defeats, such as that at King’s Mountain in South Carolina, and had the patriots on the defensive. George Washington was forced to send an expedition to blunt this threat to the Carolinas and Virginia in the person of General Horatio Gates, the hero of the patriot victory at Saratoga, New York. Horatio Gates led a disastrous counter-attack that further weakened American hopes for victory for independence. Horatio Gate’s rapidly assembled threadbare army was nearly wiped out at Camden and sent into a headlong retreat. In fact, Horatio Gates who ran away faster than the rest of his army was almost court marshaled for cowardice by George Washington after this ignominious defeat. A second, more able commander, General Nathanial Green, was susbsequently given command of the Southern American armies and fought a wiser guerilla-type warfare against the British. Using continental regulars and militia from North Carolina, General Green fought a war of attrition, never facing the British en mass but rather holding defensive positions and meeting smaller British expeditions face- to- face on ground he was familiar with. Lord Cornwallis, after marching his British regulars and loyalist allies across the North Carolina countryside but never crushing Greene,s forces, went into winter quarters at Wilmington, North Carolina. During the Winter of 1780 he laid down bold plans to thrust North to destroy the Virginia breadbasket that was largely supplying men and materiel to his foes in the Carolinas. In December of 1780, Benedict Arnold, the turncoat American hero of Saratoga, was sent by ship from New York to the Chesapeake Bay to destroy military stores in Virginia, rally loyalists, and stop the support being sent to Greene. This was the first assignment the traitor Arnold was given after being given a commission as a British brigadier general. On December 20th, the resourceful Arnold reached the port of Hampton Roads and headed up the James River with 1,200 men with captured American vessels. By January 3rd, the Redcoats had occupied Richmond, Virginia, and burnt tobacco warehouses and other supply depots. This raid created great alarm along the James River and led to most of the subsequent action that will be described in the section on Mathew Jones’ military service along the James River. Our Virginia farm lads received their call to arms in the general panic of the Virginia countryside faced with being put to the torch by an invading foreign army. With the fertile farmlands along the James openly exposed to British attack (Southampton County, Fluvanna County, Chesterfield County, and six other south side Virginia counties), George Washington was compelled to send a second Continental force to protect his native soil in Virginia. General Lafayette, the personal friend who George Washington lavished praise on as a savior of our nation, was appointed to lead an expedition to help counter the British threat in Virginia. During 1780 and going into 1781 homegrown patriots under the rather inept military leadership of Governor Thomas Jefferson did all they could to slow the British juggernaut. Lafayette counted on the native Virginian militia and a few Colonial regulars to hold out until he could organize and march his force to the James. Largely unknown at the time, the stage was being set for Cornwallis’ thrust from North Carolina into Virginia, a link up with Benedict Arnold, and expectations of dealing the American cause a fatal blow in Virginia. These plans appeared a guarantee of success by the arrogant British in the early months of 1781. History now knows they were plans that underestimated Patriot resolve and resourcefulness and backfired in the capture of Cornwallis’ combined British force at Yorktown. Going into the Spring months of 1781 after British raids by Arnold, Phillips, and Simcoe had largely cut off supplies to the Patriot cause, the situation was very bleak, if not hopeless in Virginia. Virginia had given all that she had to the cause of Liberty. Food, clothing, wagons, arms, gunpowder, etc. were not at hand to counter the British treat since nearly all had been sent to Greene in the Carolinas or Washington in the North. What little supplies remained were what our ancestors Mathew Jones and Nealy Bybee had to make do to fight the well-supplied British. Lafayette, coming from the North was delayed by difficulties in finding supplies to clothe and arm his men. The wealthy French nobleman spent most of his personal fortune coming to the aid of his friend George Washington The Virginia "Minutemen" (Committee of Safety records in Southampton County use this term profusely), including Mathew and Nealy, were largely left on their own to find arms, food and clothing. The Minutemen or newly recruited continental soldiers in Virginia were not as one sees in pictures - blue-clad continental soldiers in full regalia. One can hardly imagine the true opposite extreme that our forefathers were subjected to in picking up arms and rallying to the patriot cause. As local Continental commanders, including Baron Von Steuben and General Muhlenberg spent most of their time foraging for supplies to organize a defense, Governor Jefferson and Committees of Safety in the counties under threat sent impassioned pleas for any supplies that could be sent. What sustaining supplies could be gathered were rushed to depots near Petersburg, Virginia and Point-of-Forks in Fluvanna County, Virginia. These two locations, that were to prove historic in the lives of Mathew Jones and Nealy Bybee, were among five supply depots used for mustering in and supplying troops. The history of the Petersburg depot and surrounding counties of Chesterfield and Prince Georges is full of accounts of how militia and new recruits to the Continental army huddled in roughly built huts with very little clothing. The pictures were have seem of soldiers with bloody feet wading in muddy snow at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania depicts the conditions which Mathew and Neilly faced. The Minutemen and regulars were literally in tattered rags waiting for arms and supplies as they courageously stood up against the British juggernaut. April of 1781 during the regular Spring planting time was the most severe in these camps. Huddled in log huts with little clothing to go out foraging for food in the countryside, soldiers suffered a sickness rate of 30-50%. Accounts from the Chesterfield courthouse barracks picture soldiers coming out of their crude huts without shoes and naked to the waist to drill upon General Von Stueben’s command and then put in several hours of camp duty. In fact the situation was critical that many of the Minutemen were given leave for days to go home and find their own food and clothing. It is with this background that Nealy Bybee, only 17 years old, was called to service at Point- of- Forks barracks and Mathew Jones, age 23, marched up from Southampton County to Petersburg. One must appreciate that they likely did it barefooted, cold, wet and hungry. This tattered "army" that set the stage for Cornwallis’ defeat at Yorktown did not march on a full stomach, but rather a full heart of patriotism, hope and courage. One can better understand and appreciate the historical significance and movements of our two ancestors, Mathew Jones and Nealy Bybee with this bleak picture in mind. The following two accounts assembled from from historical documents and personal records of our ancestors fit well with what has been written of the history of this Spring, 1781 conflict. We are most fortunate to have personal accounts in the pension applications from both Mathew and Nealy which give a week-by-week, if not day-by-day account of where they went and what they did. The attachments show in the modest words of aging patriots where they went and what they did. It is up to us to reconstruct the conditions surrounding these modest words and to honor what they did to win our freedom. Nealy Bybee’s Revolutionary War service, 1781-1782. Nealy Bybee, a 17-year-old Fluvanna County farm boy, answered the call issued by Governor Thomas Jefferson in April of 1781 to muster into 18-months of service in the Continental army. Neilly was thus a regular army soldier as opposed to a Minuteman attached to a regular army regiment as was the case of Mathew Jones. The assembly point for this mustering, Point-of- Forks, was a key supply depot in Virginia and located at the fork of the James River and the Fluvanna River in Fluvanna County. As shown on the map (Point #1), this is approximately 50 miles up the James River from Richmond, Richmond being located at "the falls" where shipping cannot proceed further upstream from the Chesapeake Bay. This staging point was somewhat protected from immediate British attack along the James River. More exposed downstream from Richmond were several towns, most notably the supply depot at Petersburg along the Appomatox River. The concentration of troops at Point-of-Forks was strategically important to reenforce Lafayette as he hurried down from the North meet the British threat. The regiment into which Nealy Bybee mustered was that of Colonel Gaskins who was later to be one of the commanders under Lafayette. Since Lafayette at this time was not in condition to engage the British, much of the maneuvers of Gaskin’s regiment included marching from point to point and patrolling the countryside, partially to show a presence and partially to discourage mustering in of loyalists. In April from the barracks at Point-of-Forks, Nealy marched further up the James to another fork in the river near Lynchburg (point #2). After a brief encampment he then marched back to Point-of-Forks barracks in Fluvanna County (point #3). It is this time that Nealy Bybee states he served under John B. Carter, wagon master of the 17th regiment of the Virginia continental line, a statement substantiated by Carter himself in 1833. Very few roads were extant in Virginia especially in these backwoods rural areas;hence, these marches were across traces, fields and often times through dense forests. Neilly Bybee must have been very strong physically in moving regimental supplies through this terrain so rapidly. It is not mentioned in Nealy Bybee’s pension application but it is possible that he was on patrol and in the area of Petersburg in May of 1781 when Mathew was engaged with Gaskin’s regiment against Benedict Arnold. In the general confusion of troop movements in these battles, especially amongst militia units, regimental commanders did not have time to sit down and write an accurate history. A closer study dates and locations of militia and regular units from other pension applications will be needed to establish whether Mathew and Neilly fought side by side against the British at Petersburg on May 17, 1781. In early June, Gaskin’s regiment crossed the south bank of the James and started a southward march ostensibly to join Greene’s army in North Carolina, still expecting a continued war of attrition against Cornwallis. Nealy describes his march to Stanton River at Cole’s Ferry (point #4), which is documented by Gaskins to have occurred on the 10th of June, 1781. Accounts state that the troops under Gaskin’s command were very uneasy leaving Virginia since they wanted to stay and defend their homeland rather than proceed further south. It is likely that for this or separate reasons, orders were countermanded and Nealy return marched across Carter’s Ferry on the Appomatox, across the James, and to Richmond. On the 19th of June Gaskin’s regiment was encamped at Colonel Daindridge’s house in Hanover County 22 miles northwest of Richmond (point #5). This is in the general location of Bottom’s Old Field, likely a cleared patch of forest being at one time an Indian field. According to Nealy Bybee’s account, after this encampment his regiment marched across the Wilderness Bridge much further north above Fredericksburg (point # 6). After this long trek, and spending about a month along the Rappahannock River, the regiment about-faced and marched back to Bottom’s Old Field (point #7). Colonel Gaskin’s regimental history times this encampment at about the 8th of August 1781. This time point is documented in Nealy Bybee’s pension application by the notorious shooting at Bottom’s Old Field of Captain Kirkpatrick by Private James Grant. Accounts state that Private James Grant’s wife, a camp follower, was romantically involved with Captain Kirkpatrick. James Grant having discovered this illicit relationship, ceremoniously walked into Captain Kirkpatrick’s tent, announced his purpose for being there, and shot Kirpatrick in the face. Dropping his flintlock, Grant announced that he would have shot them both if he could and surrendered himself to authorities. Private Grant was hanged for "malicious wounding" within a fortnight. It should be mentioned that during the intervening weeks between June and August of 1781 Lafayette and his regiments were doing a dance with Cornwallis’ overwhelming force that had thrust into Virginia in May (note Mathew’s statement that "Cornwallis was then in the country"). Cornwallis, the British bulldog, had been drawn out of the Carolinas on a personal vendetta against Lafayette. His famous words "The boy shall not escape me" is largely agreed by historians to indicate that Cornwallis was personally angered by the presence of a French nobleman in the English colonies. Cornwallis in being drawn into Virginia, against the wishes of his superior officer, Major General Clinton in New York, was to fall victim to his youthful foe. Nealy Bybee’s rather brief account includes a description of marching across the Dismal Swamp to Cabin or Stony Point and hence to "York" (point #8), where "Cornwallis was taken in the fall of 1781" Again, Nealy Bybee’s words are very modest given the magnitude of this great Continental victory and all of the events leading up to it. Attached is a time line of Gaskin’s battalion troop movements and actions during the summer of 1781 as Nealy Bybee experienced the rigors of marching and encamping, always at risk of attack by superior British forces. Nealy Bybee states that after Cornwallis was taken at the glorious victory at Yorktown, his regiment went into winter encampment at Cumberland Old Courthouse in Virginia (point #9). In the spring of 1782 there was still much to be mopped up to secure American liberty even though the British had largely withdrawn after the Yorktown defeat. In spring of 1782, Nealy’s regiment, under command of Colonel Posey, marched to the Savannah River and encamped in this South Carolina location until the Fall. At this point Nealy Bybee was taken sick, small wonder all he was exposed to during the rigors of his 1781 campaign. Suffering from the deadly malaria or yellow fever along the Savannah and Santee Rivers, he was honorably discharged. From this point at Santee Barracks, South Carolina Nealy Bybee, made his presumably overland trip home. He received his formal discharge papers several months later in 1783, the same year that the treaty of Paris was signed to formally end the American Revolutionary War. These discharge papers from General Scott of Cumberland County were left in the possession of Nealy’s sister in Fluvanna County, Virginia. These historic papers were presumably, although not confirmed, lost after this sister died and Nealy migrated to Kentucky in 1792. It is interesting to note that Nealy Bybee and Mathew Jones finished their exertions after doing their duty in securing our liberty exhausted and infirmed. Although many revolutionary war soldiers died as a result of their various camp diseases, fevers and general exposure to the elements, our ancestors had the robustness to survive. Although few structures survive that were described in Mathew and Nealy’s marches across Virginia, modern place names still mark their passage. Historical markers along modern highways and accounts in written histories do not give adequate description of the physical exertion and exposure that our patriot ancestors lived through. Although reconstructed earthworks and monuments at the Yorktown victory center give glory to the wonderful victory gained there, they do not mirror what was seen through the eyes of our ancestor in 1781. What they saw of courage and heroism of individual soldiers in battle or on the march is what deserves the greatest honor and remembrance. It is the degree of personal sacrifice and valor that should be most remembered along with dates and locations. And it is for us to marvel and take pride in our family history that includes at least two who risked such personal sacrifice. Submitted by Jay B. 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