nies,
but this was due more to a desire to keep in harmony with the
executive than to military ardour. And it is significant that when
troops were enlisted for distant expeditions, the wealthy planters
were conspicuous by their absence. We see not the slightest
inclination on their part to rush into the conflict for the love of
fighting and adventure that was so typical of the aristocrat of the
Middle Ages. They were more than content to stay at home to attend to
the business of the plantation and to leave to humbler hands the task
of defending helpless families of the frontiers. But the economic and
political conditions in the colony were destined to work a change in
this as in other things in the Virginia planter. The gradual loss of
the mercantile instinct, the habit of command acquired by the control
of servants and slaves, and the long use of political power, the
growth of patriotism, eventually instilled into him a chivalric love
of warfare not unlike that of the knights of old. It is impossible to
say when this instinct first began to show itself. Perhaps the
earliest evidence that the warlike spirit was stirring in the breasts
of the planters is given in 1756, when two hundred gentlemen, moved by
the pitiful condition of the defenseless families of the Shenandoah
Valley, formed a volunteer company, and marched against the Indians.
It is probable that the expedition did not succeed in encountering
the enemy, but it was of much value in animating the lower class of
people with greater courage.[79] In the Revolutionary War the change
had become quite apparent. It is to the Old Dominion that the colonies
turn for the commander-in-chief of their armies. The Lees, Morgan and
other Virginia aristocrats were among the most gallant leaders of the
American army. But the development was even then far from its climax.
Not until the Civil War do we note that dash, that gallantry, and
bravery that made the Virginia gentleman famous as a warrior. Then it
was that the chivalrous Stuart and the reckless Mosby rivaled the
deeds of Bayard and of Rupert. Then it was that each plantation gave
forth its willing sacrifice of men for the defense of the South, and
thousands of the flower of Virginia aristocracy shed their blood upon
the battle field. And Virginia produced for this great struggle a
galaxy of chieftains seldom equalled in the world's history. Robert E.
Lee, "Stonewall" Jackson, Johnston and many other great generals show