riod, no
satisfaction upon this point seems thus far to have been obtained.
There is, however, a piece of later testimony, derived by authentic
tradition from a prominent member of the Virginia Committee of Safety,
which really helps one to understand what may have been the exact
difficulty with the military character of Patrick Henry, and just why,
also, it could not be more plainly stated at the time. Clement
Carrington, a son of Paul Carrington, told Hugh Blair Grigsby that the
real ground of the action of the Committee of Safety "was the want of
discipline in the regiment under the command of Colonel Henry. None
doubted his courage, or his alacrity to hasten to the field; but it
was plain that he did not seem to be conscious of the importance of
strict discipline in the army, but regarded his soldiers as so many
gentlemen who had met to defend their country, and exacted from them
little more than the courtesy that was proper among equals. To have
marched to the sea-board at that time with a regiment of such men,
would have been to insure their destruction; and it was a thorough
conviction of this truth that prompted the decision of the
committee."[229]

Yet, even with this explanation, the truth remains that Patrick
Henry, as commander-in-chief of the Virginia forces, never was
permitted to take command, or to see any real service in the field, or
to look upon the face of an armed enemy, or to show, in the only way
in which it could be shown, whether or not he had the gifts of a
military leader in action. As an accomplished and noble-minded
Virginian of our own time has said:--

"It may be doubted whether he possessed those qualities
which make a wary partisan, and which are so often possessed
in an eminent degree by uneducated men. Regular fighting
there was none in the colony, until near the close of the
war.... The most skilful partisan in the Virginia of that
day, covered as it was with forests, cut up by streams, and
beset by predatory bands, would have been the Indian
warrior; and as a soldier approached that model, would he
have possessed the proper tactics for the time. That Henry
would not have made a better Indian fighter than Jay, or
Livingston, or the Adamses, that he might not have made as
dashing a partisan as Tarleton or Simcoe, his friends might
readily afford to concede; but that he evinced, what neither
Jay, nor Livingston, n