1
Jack Jouett:
The Ride That Saved America
Albemarle County, Virginia
June 3, 1781
10:15 P.M.
A thin dogwood branch slashed across the rider’s face like a leather whip. But the sting was no worse than any of the dozen that came before. A quarter mile earlier, a limb had cut him so deeply that blood flowed from a gash high on his cheek to the corner of his mouth.
Captain John “Jack” Jouett rode on.
With forty miles to go, the muscular twenty-six-year-old sliced through the night and gave thanks for the full moon. It could not protect his face or clothes, but it might safely deliver him and his bay mare Sallie to the green lawns of Thomas Jefferson’s beloved and now-endangered Monticello estate.
It was possible, Jouett knew, that the future of the revolution might very well depend on how fast he got there.
The Cuckoo Tavern
Louisa, Virginia
One Hour Earlier
Jack Jouett had decided to live dangerously.
The British army was on the march in Virginia—even that damnable traitor Benedict Arnold had been assigned there—and Jouett had been lucky enough to capture one of Arnold’s men. He might have been content to simply turn the man over to army jailers, but a daring idea had seized him. Jouett’s captive was an unusually big man, roughly his own size. “Off with your clothes!” Jouett ordered him.
The prisoner’s brilliant red coat festooned with equally grand gold braid fit him as though it had been tailored just for his six-foot-four-inch frame. The grand plumed hat only added to the picture. Now dressed as his enemy, Jack Jouett mounted his steed Sallie—said to be the best bred and fleetest of foot in seven counties—and hurried off to see if he might find more of the enemy. The British were up to no good, and Jouett wanted to know exactly what that might be.
Not long after riding off in his new attire, Jouett quickly stumbled across the British in the form of a fearsome detachment of Green Dragoons near the local tavern. He rode up cautiously, worried that someone might willingly or accidentally reveal his true identity. Jack Jouett was playing a very dangerous game.
A stranger wiped sweat from his unshaven face with his soiled coat sleeve as he passed Jouett outside the tavern doors. “Captain, do something about this dreadful June air, would you?” The man laughed over his shoulder and slyly shouted, “What’s a soldier of the king for if not to fight for better weather?”
Jouett wasn’t sure if he had been recognized but he certainly wasn’t about to ask. In any case, he remained outdoors, enjoying what passed for a breeze. Sallie whinnied from her hitching post. “I know, Sallie. I know.”
Jouett pretended to be absorbed in his own thoughts while he tended to his steed, but as more tavern patrons came and went, he eavesdropped on their conversations. Today, with British cavalry loitering just outside the Cuckoo, the locals were more guarded than usual. Jouett listened in to their still-energetic discussions, which became more energetic and less guarded with each draft of hard cider or flagon of rum. They soon veered toward politics. “The stubborn boys in Maryland came around,” a patron shouted atop the noise. “Did you hear they finally signed the Articles?”
“I suppose every man—and colony!—has their price,” belted another.
A feisty argument erupted over Maryland and Virginia’s simmering land-rights feud and Maryland’s long-delayed ratification of the Articles of Confederation. The Second Continental Congress had become the Confederation Congress three months earlier, but most people still didn’t know quite what to call their fledgling government.
The discussion turned to Thomas Jefferson and the impending end of his tenure as Virginia’s governor. “He’s in mourning!” one patron loudly guffawed. Another pointed out that, for several days, there might be no governor. “Appoint me!” slurred a man hunched over the bar, his gnarled fist firmly hugging his precious pewter mug.
But none of this, of course, was Jack Jouett’s real interest. He was there to hear what foes, not friends, might reveal. So far, he had heard nothing to justify risking the noose. Perhaps, he thought, it was time to call a halt to this perilous adventure and just ride away.
Suddenly, Sallie again called out and skittishly pulled her rope taut. Jouett moved to provide her with more water. As he bent down something caught his ear. He wasn’t sure, but . . .
Right before him was the infamous Colonel Banastre Tarleton, commander of the Dragoons—one of the most hated of all the new nation’s foes. Sallie had always been a good judge of bad character.
Jouett had difficulty making out exactly what Tarleton said. Fearing to advance any closer toward the colonel, he strained to catch whatever information he could. The words were soft and the background noise made it difficult to hear clearly, but Jouett was able to understand two words clearly: Monticello and Charlottesville.
That was all he needed to know.
Near Cuckoo Tavern
10:30 P.M.
Colonel Banastre Tarleton’s uniform clung to his chest like a wet wool blanket. Like most British soldiers fighting the war, Tarleton believed the only thing worse than the insects and thick Virginia humidity was the morale of both America’s people and Washington’s army. The would-be nation’s independence hung by a thread in the early summer days of 1781 and Tarleton lusted to sever it with his saber.
General George Washington knew that the soldiers’ grievances against their officers and the Continental Congress over supply shortages and pay were legitimate. He’d experienced deplorable conditions and supply problems himself during a brutal winter in Valley Forge just three years earlier. He knew what shoeless, bleeding, frozen feet and empty stomachs did to a patriot’s mind.
Tarleton and his fellow British commanders were well aware of the festering discontent that racked the Continental camp. It was their job to stir the pot and hope that discontent would boil over into chaos—and, so far, that job was going very well. The most important year of the war had begun with the New Year’s Day mutiny in the ranks of the Pennsylvania Continentals.
It was no secret that many of the Pennsylvanians had been unpaid since receiving the twenty-dollar bounty bestowed for their three-year enlistments. Tired and angry, with their families facing destitution back home without them, they were ready to walk away from the front lines and return to their loved ones. Meanwhile, other colonies were enticing men with much larger sums, as high as one thousand dollars in neighboring New Jersey. General Washington and his officers did their best to prevent defections to the British, but Tarleton and his allies schemed at every turn to lure them away with fortune and impressive military appointments. With this strategy, they hoped to break the American spirit and finally deliver victory for the king and Parliament.
Washington, however, was intelligent enough to know that additional pay alone wouldn’t solve the problem. What good was another twenty dollars when you had no musket balls or powder and wore the same ragged, lice-infested uniforms for weeks on end? Washington recognized what the British already knew and were capitalizing on: his men couldn’t fight both the Royal Army and such insufferable conditions for much longer.
Alerted to the mutiny among the Pennsylvania Line, Washington stood with his men and demanded that additional resources be provided. After negotiations—and despite the British using the uprising to further hunt for Loyalists among the disenchanted American soldiers—the episode ended peacefully and the vast majority of soldiers were back in the fight within weeks.
Tarleton was impressed by such loyalty, even to a cause he considered disloyal. But, to his great delight, a mutiny in the New Jersey Line just a few weeks later ended quite differently.
Washington had quickly realized that the Pennsylvania Line’s mutiny would only inspire other disgruntled troops to demand similar concessions. He needed to send an important, possibly war-saving message to the whole army: mutinies would not be tolerated. He quickly stamped out New Jersey’s insurgency and court-martialed its ringleaders. Two were executed. All twelve members of the firing squad had also participated in the mutiny. George Washington, when he had to, could play very rough indeed.
Though he liked little about Americans in general, Tarleton secretly admired Washington’s aggressive tactics to quell the insurrection. If given the chance, Tarleton would have done the same thing with his own men—though he would have liked to carry out the executions himself. Unlike some of his colleagues, he liked to get his hands dirty.
? ? ?
Attired in a bright white coat and high black boots polished to a shine as bright as the Virginia sun, Colonel Tarleton now watched two men stumble out of Cuckoo Tavern and exchange whiskey-weakened blows. “Such unlicked cubs,” he muttered to himself.
Then, without a word, he pointed with his saber west up the road and his two hundred Dragoons fell in line behind him.
Backwoods Trails to Monticello
11:45 P.M.
Snap!
Another branch punished Jouett’s forehead, but the rider knew his wounds and shredded clothing would have to wait. Plus, with Tarleton and his Green Dragoons headed west on the only main road to Monticello, Jouett knew that the mountain trails and back roads overgrown with dense thickets were his only hope for beating the British to Thomas Jefferson’s front door.
Sallie stumbled to her side and Jouett hung on tight to keep his massive frame upright. His mind wandered, to images of Jefferson and members of the Virginia legislature gathered in the safety of the governor’s famous retreat on the outskirts of Charlottesville. The great patriot Patrick Henry was there. So were Benjamin Harrison, Richard Henry Lee, and Thomas Nelson—each of them signers of the Declaration of Independence. They’d all fled Richmond and the red-hot pursuit of British general Charles Cornwallis as the war had moved south.
Even the most intoxicated patron at Cuckoo Tavern that night would have understood that the men atop the mountain at Monticello were in great danger. Relatively peaceful conditions in Virginia had sent the majority of its best fighting men northward. The local militia, though spirited and anxious to break free from British tyranny, were too few and without enough resources to battle the brutal Tarleton.
We have Jefferson!
Jouett’s imagination heard the words burn across the hills and directly to the ears of General Cornwallis. He knew it wouldn’t be long before news of Jefferson’s capture—or, he shivered at the thought, death—would sail across the seas to the king. It would be shorter still until word spread among the colonies that the British had taken the author of their Declaration of Independence. What then? Morale and optimism were already in short supply. The capture of patriots like Jefferson, Henry, and Lee might just be more than the fragile army could handle.
More voices found audience in Jouett’s mind:
We have them all!
Virginia is ours!
One signer, two signers, three signers, four! Hanging from the gallows, traitors no more!
Jouett knew the lives of important men weren’t the only jewels at stake if Tarleton’s infamous butchers successfully took Charlottesville and Monticello. Both the city and the mansion that overlooked it held gold, silver, and something even more valuable: information. The patriots gathered at Jefferson’s estate would surely be discussing war plans and coordination with their top Virginia spies. If Tarleton and his Dragoons succeeded they could ride off with men, maps, and even letters. Perhaps, Jouett allowed himself to wonder, sensitive correspondence to General Washington himself.
He drove his heels into Sallie’s sides and urged her to gallop even faster.
Plantation Near the Louisa County Courthouse
June 4, 1781
12:15 A.M.
“The men and horses need a pause.” One of Tarleton’s lieutenants had approached him to deliver the news.
Unaware that Jouett was dashing ahead via the backwoods trails to Monticello, Tarleton and his men rested for several hours at a large plantation near the Louisa Court House. Tarleton sat near at his own private fire at the edge of camp, satisfied that they’d ridden that night with duty and purpose, if not breathless urgency.
Weeks earlier, General Cornwallis had been provided with an intercepted dispatch revealing that Thomas Jefferson and members of the Virginia legislature had convened in Charlottesville. Cornwallis assigned the task of tracking and capturing Jefferson to Colonel Tarleton, an officer Cornwallis admired for his athleticism, strength, and daring. For better and sometimes, Cornwallis knew, for worse, Tarleton was known for impatience in battle.
Tarleton had found great personal satisfaction and public acclaim for early-war success in raids carried out in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. When the war moved south, Tarleton added to his fearsome reputation at the battles of Cowpens, Blackstocks, Fishing Creek, Camden, Monck’s Corner, and Charleston. But it was at Waxhaws, South Carolina, that his legacy had finally been sealed. There Tarleton attacked the unprepared Continental Army with a vengeance and overwhelmed them. With surrender the Americans’ only option, Tarleton coldly ignored their white flag and allowed his troops to butcher as many patriot soldiers as they could. More than one hundred Continentals died and another two hundred were injured or captured.
“Sir, may I?” One of the younger British Dragoons approached Tarleton at the fire’s edge as the other men rested to prepare for the rest of the ride to Monticello.
Tarleton nodded without looking up, and the two men sat in silence for a long time. “Did you know I was just twenty-three years of age when promoted to lieutenant colonel of the British Legion?” Tarleton finally asked.
“I did not,” the young soldier said.
Tarleton looked at him. “But they say my legend is even older than I am.” For the next half hour the leader of the Dragoons spoke in the third person, painting himself as a rare breed who was simultaneously fearless and feared by others.
“Colonel Banastre Tarleton doesn’t desire acclaim from the throne for his courage alone, but also for his genius. Our gracious Royal does not always appreciate a soldier whose mind is as sharp as his sword.”
After another round of silence, the young soldier finally mustered up the courage to voice the question he’d come over to ask. “So is it true? About the names they use for you?”
Tarleton smiled, knowing he’d earned his monikers honestly. “You refer to ‘Butcher Man’ and ‘Bloody Tarleton,’ I assume?”
The soldier nodded.
“I am, indeed, more hated by the traitors than most of our countrymen. Some of the things they say I’ve done are true. Some are not. But Colonel Banastre Tarleton does not choose to quarrel with the differences.” He paused to stifle a little chuckle—one tinged more with cruelty than wit.
Tarleton poked the fire and a dozen embers raced up into the night sky. “They say that to ask you,” he pointed to the soldier, “and my other Green Dragoons for surrender is futile. I hear they now call it ‘Tarleton Quarter.’?”
The soldier sat motionless as Tarleton described how the enemy had turned the phrase back on the Legion. When encountering surrendering British troops, the Colonials took no mercy. Hardly offended, Tarleton told the young man and several others who’d now gathered at the fire that he took pride in the enemy adopting the term and tactic. “Imitation, after all, is the greatest form of flattery.”
The dragoon laughed nervously until Tarleton pulled him up short with an order, raising his thunderous shout so that all around him might hear. “Now, let us show them through action whether the words they say about Banastre Tarleton are indeed true. To Charlottesville!”
? ? ?
Several miles up the road from where they’d rested, Colonel Tarleton came across a caravan of twelve American supply wagons with clothing and arms headed for South Carolina. He took great pleasure in burning it.
As flames filled the Piedmont sky, Tarleton hoped the winds would move the thick smoke away from Monticello. He wondered aloud to a lieutenant whether Jefferson’s servants would be taking turns throughout the night watching guard. Or perhaps Jefferson thought the grounds of his cherished Monticello provided ignorant, blissful security. “Let them sleep,” he said, watching another supply wagon smolder.
Soon after daybreak, Tarleton and his soldiers stopped at Castle Hill, home of Dr. Thomas Walker, who had once been guardian to the young, orphaned Thomas Jefferson. Tarleton arrested two legislators in their nightshirts and grinned at the thought that the day’s successes had only just begun. Before leaving Walker’s large estate, Tarleton ordered Dr. Walker and his wife to prepare a breakfast for the hungry British Legion. With full stomachs and renewed vigor, Tarleton and his Dragoons resumed their race toward Charlottesville. But his full belly came at a high price: the cost of precious time lost in the pursuit of his great prize, Thomas Jefferson.
Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello Estate
4:30 A.M.
“Faster, Sallie!” Jouett flashed through the final line of trees and across the meadow in front of Monticello. “Go!” Moments later he leapt from the horse and, without bothering to hitch her, sprinted down the brick path to the front door of Jefferson’s home.
“Arise! Arise!” Jouett pounded on the heavy door just before sunrise. “Bloody Tarleton and his Green Dragoons are not far behind!”
A servant appeared and rushed Jouett into the home, where Jefferson met them in the spacious front hall. “What is it?” Jefferson demanded, adjusting his silken night robe as he entered. But his concern for his own disheveled appearance vanished at the sight of the bloody and battered Jouett. “My Lord, what is it? You’ve escaped capture?”
“No, sir,” gasped Jefferson’s visitor. “I’m Captain Jack Jouett. Sixteenth regiment of the Virginia militia.”
“Of course.”
“Governor, a large force of British is approaching Charlottesville. They’re led by Tarleton!”
“Are you sure?”
“I am.”
“How many in his command?” Jefferson asked, his manner growing more grave with each syllable.
“Two hundred, maybe more. Most of them Green Dragoons.”
“Have they arrived in town?” Jefferson asked as his houseguests, woken by the commotion, began arriving in the hall.
“I cannot say. I’ve ridden through the night from Louisa on back trails and they’re moving on the main road.”
Jefferson extended a hand to Jouett and took closer notice of his torn clothes and scratched, bruised face. “Well done.” He turned to a servant. “When the soldiers arrive, raise the flag over the dome. Retract it only when they’ve left and it’s safe to return.” He pivoted to his houseguests and announced with authority, “Gentlemen, let us secure our belongings quickly and depart.”
As the others dressed, Jefferson calmly ate breakfast, sorted through sensitive state papers crucial for the success or failure of the revolution, and gathered his wife and children to be sent twenty miles to the west. There they would take refuge at the Enniscorthy Plantation, home of his friend and business associate Colonel John Coles.
Jefferson had not a moment to spare as Tarleton’s crack cavalrymen and Royal Welsh mounted infantry began to invade the grounds of his estate. But even under the intense pressure, he could not forgo his pronounced sense of southern hospitality. “A glass of madeira, Captain Jouett?” Jefferson asked.
“Yes, Governor,” answered Jouett with a smile. “I think I could use one right about now.”
Soon the preparations were complete.
“God bless Charlottesville,” Jefferson whispered before mounting the horse that had been saddled for him. The governor looked at his home one last time before kicking the stallion and riding up nearby Carter’s Mountain. As he did, enemy horsemen clattered through his front door, riding through the entire depth of his great mansion—and out the back.
And God bless Jack Jouett.
At a safe distance from the advancing Dragoons, Jefferson stopped for one last look at his beloved Monticello—and sadly watched as a flag of occupation was raised over its stately dome.