"Lynch Law" in the American Revolution

 

Particularly unlucky were those Loyalist who actively took up arms or plotted against the Patriot cause. They suffered all of the pent up rage that accompanies civil war. The houses of such Loyalists were burned and their property seized. 

A particularly glaring example occurred in southwest Virginia in 1780. A Patriot spy uncovered a Loyalist plot to sabotage Virginia’s all important lead and saltpeter mines in the area and then march on Charlottesville to free British prisoners of war. Governor Thomas Jefferson ordered Judge Charles Lynch to arrest the ringleaders and send the guilty to Richmond for trial. Lynch arrested seventy five suspected Loyalists and brought them to his plantation called Green Level, some twenty five miles south of present day Lynchburg. Judge Lynch decided to administer his own version of summary frontier justice. A few of the accused were acquitted but many others were imprisoned for terms ranging from one to five years. The ringleaders were tied by their thumbs to the branches of a black walnut tree and given thirty-nine lashes with a cat o’nine tails whip. If the convicted Loyalist begged for mercy with the cry “Liberty forever,” he was cut down and forcibly impressed into American military service. In 1782 the Virginia General Assembly immunized Lynch from legal action that might have arisen because of his extra-legal methods of dealing with Loyalists. The General Assembly found that the measures taken by Judge Lynch were warranted given the emergency situation.

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The Virginia Navy in the American Revolution

 

Late in 1775, Colonel Patrick Henry, on his own initiative, commissioned James Barron to arm a vessel and pursue two suspicious ships.  In December, Virginia’s Committee of Safety was authorized to arm as many vessels as necessary to protect Virginia’s rivers.  The Committee of Safety immediately purchased five vessels including two small boats, a somewhat larger schooner and two large brigs.  Virginia also bought vessels to serve as state-owned traders sent on voyages to the West Indies and Europe to procure gunpowder and other war materiel.

Throughout the war, vessels were bought and built.  Particularly popular were row galleys, shallow draft vessels that could maneuver using both oars and sails.  These vessels were particularly well suited to coastal and river defense.

Manning the vessels proved difficult because the Navy had to compete with privateers for manpower. The Virginia Navy officially commissioned seventy-seven vessels during the war, while a hundred Virginia vessels sailed as privateers, attacking enemy shipping for personal profit. The Navy’s view on prize distribution became more liberal as the war progressed and the manpower crisis grew worse.  The percentage of a captured vessel’s value going to the crew that took the prize rose from one third for unarmed merchantman and one half for an armed vessel to one half for a merchantman and the entire value for a naval vessel.  By October 1780, Virginia promised crews the full value of any vessels they captured.

Nevertheless, the Virginia Navy always had more vessels than it could adequately crew. The Navy could never compete with privateers who from the first had the right to keep a hundred percent of the value of the prize and could devote their full energies to taking prizes. The initially stingy Navy was furthered hobbled by non-income producing official tasks such as convoy duty, transporting troops, and carrying messages, all tasks not likely to result in capturing rich prizes.

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