y in the
present State of Virginia, and of these militiamen it was estimated that,
east of the Blue Ridge, only about one in five was armed with a gun. The
treasury was practically bankrupt, and there was a dearth of every kind of
warlike material.

Such was the situation which confronted, as Mr. Parton puts it, "a lawyer
of thirty-six, with a talent for music, a taste for art, a love of
science, literature, and gardening." The task was one calling rather for a
soldier than a statesman; but Mr. Jefferson faced it with courage, and on
the whole with success. In retaliating the cruel measures of the British,
he showed a firmness which must have been especially difficult for a man
of his temperament. He put in irons and confined in a dungeon Colonel
Henry Hamilton and two subordinate officers who had committed atrocities
upon American prisoners. He caused a prison-ship, like the ships of
infamous memory which were employed as prisons by the British at New York,
to be prepared; and the exchange of captives between Virginia and the
British was stopped. "Humane conduct on our part," wrote Jefferson, "was
found to produce no effect. The contrary, therefore, is to be tried. Iron
will be retaliated by iron, prison-ships for prison-ships, and like for
like in general." But in November, 1779, notice was received that the
English, under their new leader, Sir Henry Clinton, had adopted a less
barbarous system of warfare; and fortunately Jefferson's measures of
reprisal became unnecessary.

Hampered as he was by want of men and money, Jefferson did all that he
could to supply the needs of the Virginia soldiers with Washington, of the
army in North Carolina, led by Gates, and of George Rogers Clarke, the
heroic commander who put down the Indian uprising on the western frontier,
and captured the English officer who instigated it,--that same Colonel
Hamilton of whom mention has already been made. The story of Clarke's
adventures in the wilderness,--he was a neighbor of Jefferson, only
twenty-six years old,--of his forced marches, of his masterful dealing with
the Indians, and finally of his capture of the British force, forms a
thrilling chapter in the history of the American Revolution.

Many indeed of Jefferson's constituents censured him as being over-zealous
in his support of the army of Gates. He stripped Virginia, they said, of
troops and resources which, as it proved afterward, were needed at home.
But if Cornwallis were not de