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Of all the states,
Virginia, of which
Jefferson was
then the governor, lay most exposed to invasion from the sea, and was in constant danger from the savages on the west; yet it was unmindful of its own perils.
Its legislature met on the ninth of May.
Within ten
minutes after the house was formed,
Richard Henry Lee proposed to raise and send twenty-five hundred men to serve for three months in
Carolina, and to be paid in tobacco, which had a real value.
Major Nelson with sixty horse, and
Colonel Armand with his corps, were already moving to the south.
The force assembled at
Williamsburg, for the protection of the country on the
James river, consisted of no more than three hundred men; but they too were sent to
Carolina before the end of the month.
North Carolina made a requisition on
Virginia for arms, and received them.
With a magnanimity which knew nothing of fear,
Virginia laid herself bare for the protection of the Carolinas.
The news that
Charleston had capitulated found
Kalb still in
Virginia.
In the regular
European service he had proved himself an efficient officer; but his mind was neither rapid nor creative, and was unsuited to the exigencies of a campaign in
America.
On the twentieth of June he entered
North Carolina,
and halted at
Hillsborough to repose his wayworn soldiers.
He found no magazines, nor did the governor of the state much heed his requisitions or his remonstrances.
Caswell, who was in command of the militia, disregarded his orders from the vanity of acting separately.
‘
Officers of
European experience alone,’ wrote
Kalb on the seventh of July to his wife, ‘do not know what it is to contend against ’
