"To frustrate these intentions" “Cornwallis was not an aristocratic dilettante,” says Andrew O’Shaughnessy, director of the International Center for Jefferson Studies. “He was a real military professional. He was also a gambler, someone willing to take major risks. He essentially wanted to make Virginia collapse.” Frustrated at his inability to ensnare Lafayette— whom Cornwallis called the “aspiring boy”— the 43-year-old Britisher decided instead to raid Virginia’s interior. Knowing that the governor and the relocated legislature would soon call out more state troops, Cornwallis ordered Tarleton— the brutal cavalryman— “to frustrate these intentions, and to distress the Americans, by breaking up the assembly.” It was May 10, 1781 when the Virginia legislature determined to quit the state capital and reconvene in Charlottesville, beyond the Southwest Mountains. Early on June 3, Lieutenant Colonel Tarleton set out from Hanover Court House, north of Richmond, with 180 dragoons from his own Legion and 70 mounted infantrymen from the 23rd Regiment, the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. These improvised horsemen, foot soldiers atop horseflesh stolen from the Virginia countryside, rode with light muskets slung across their red tunics. At the time, an average horseman traveling unchallenging terrain could expect to cover 30 miles in a day. Tarleton had something much bolder in mind. As he later wrote, he planned “a march of seventy miles in twenty-four hours.” Because the weather was unusually hot, however, the going was slow, and Tarleton’s column spent most of the first day to reach Cuckoo Tavern, a distance of about 30 miles. In order to bag his game, however, Tarleton was pushing his men to cover more. It was about two hours before midnight when Jouett awakened to see the enemy raiders trotting past Cuckoo Tavern. Jouett quickly donned his riding boots, “scarlet coat, and military hat and plume,” wrote Jefferson biographer Henry S. Randall. His bay mare Sally— which another historian called “the fleetest steed in seven counties," was nearby in the tavern’s paddock. It would have been much easier to go back to sleep and hope that someone else could save Virginia’s government. Jouett knew, however, that his knowledge of the wilderness trails was unsurpassed. Providence could not have selected a better messenger. A history in taverns Born in Albemarle County on December 7, 1754, the 26-year-old Jouett has been widely described as intelligent and resourceful. He was also a strapping young fellow, according to Joel Meador, executive director of the Jack Jouett House in Versailles, Kentucky. “He stood 6 feet 4 inches tall, and weighed about 220 pounds.” Unfortunately, little is known of his early days. “He was the son of a tavern owner,” says Meador. Indeed, the running of wayside taverns— a lucrative business in the days when friendly stopping-places were few— seems to have been in the Jouett family blood. In 1742, Jack’s grandfather, Matthew Jouett, had opened an “ordinary” in his house near the present-day town of Louisa. Matthew’s son—John Jouett Sr., Jack’s father— had once been the owner of Cuckoo Tavern itself. After selling that establishment in 1773, Jouett Senior, wrote Edgar Woods (Albemarle’s first historian), purchased “one hundred acres adjoining [Charlottesville] on the east and north, and at that time most likely erected the Swan Tavern, of famous memory.” During the Revolution Jack Senior acted as a commissary, wrote historian Virginius Dabney, selling “considerable beef and other needed supplies... to the quartermasters of the Continental Army.” The standard story— that Jack, as wrote Dabney, “was a captain in the Virginia militia, as were his three brothers” does not hold up under examination. A search of the state’s militia records revealed no Captain John Jouett. Instead, one of the early accounts—Randall’s 1858 biography of Jefferson—referred to Jack as a “showy gentleman” who “was no officer,” but had “an eccentric custom” of wearing military-style getup. Patriotism, evidently, was also a dominant trait in this French Huguenot family. With two Jouetts serving in the Virginia Continental Line (the regular army at the time)—older brother Matthew in the 7th Virginia (mortally wounded at the 1777 Battle of Brandywine), and Robert in Col. James Wood’s 12th Virginia– Jack and his father may have felt compelled to make a political statement of their own. In June of 1779 both signed the curious Albemarle “Declaration of Independence” which stated in part that: “we renounce… all Allegiance to George the third… [and] will be faithfull & bear True Allegiance to… Virginia as a free & independent state.” 2
Posted on: Wed, 03 Jul 2013 14:20:01 +0000
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