very genteelly with me. On his approach to Charlottesville, which is
within three miles of my house at Monticello, he despatched a troop of
his horse, under Captain McLeod, with the double object of taking me
prisoner, with the two Speakers of the Senate and Delegates, who then
lodged with me, and of remaining there in _vidette_, my house commanding
a view often or twelve miles round about. He gave strict orders to
Captain McLeod to suffer nothing to be injured. The troop failed in
one of their objects, as we had notice of their coming, so that the
two Speakers had gone off about two hours before their arrival at
Monticello, and myself, with my family, about five minutes. But Captain
McLeod preserved every thing with sacred care, during about eighteen
hours that he remained there. Colonel Tarleton was just so long at
Charlottesville, being hurried from thence by the news of the rising of
the militia, and by a sudden fall of rain which threatened to swell the
river and intercept his return. In general he did little injury to the
inhabitants on that short and hasty excursion, which was of about sixty
miles from their main army, then in Spotsylvania, and ours in Orange. It
was early in June, 1781. Lord Cornwallis then proceeded to the Point of
Fork, and encamped his army from thence all along the main James River,
to a seat of mine called Elk-hill, opposite to Elk Island, and a little
below the mouth of the Byrd Creek. (You will see all these places
exactly laid down in the map annexed to my Notes on Virginia, printed by
Stockdale.) He remained in this position ten days, his own head-quarters
being in my house, at that place. I had time to remove most of the
effects out of the house. He destroyed all my growing crops of corn and
tobacco; he burned all my barns, containing the same articles of the
last year, having first taken what corn he wanted; he used, as was to be
expected, all my stock of cattle, sheep, and hogs, for the sustenance
of his army, and carried off all the horses capable of service; of those
too young for service he cut the throats; and he burned all the fences
on the plantation so as to leave it an absolute waste. He carried off
also about thirty slaves. Had this been to give them freedom, he would
have done right: but it was to consign them to inevitable death from
the small-pox and putrid fever, then raging in his camp. This I knew
afterwards to be the fate of twenty-seven of them. I never had news of
t