In my Texas life, my birthday was celebrated with serene tea time in the garden experiences in either Gruene or Fredericksburg in the Texas hill country.
Now that I’m in Virginia, my favorite event is Prelude to Victory which coincides with my birthday.
So now I’m hanging out with General Washington, his staff, and the Continental Army, and training to become a dragoon!
Although not very girly, it still speaks to my patriot heart!
LAFAYETTE, WE ARE HERE
In the first program, titled Lafayette We are Here, Lafayette announces the impending arrival of the 20,000 men in the Continental and French armies, with their commanding officers, Generals Washington and Rochambeau, to prepare for a siege on Yorktown, where Cornwallis’ 9,000 men are cornered.
New for us this year was meeting Lafayette’s aide, Major McHenry, at the Wythe House where the officers planned the siege of Yorktown.
Also in attendance this year was General Knox, whom we were glad to meet because we knew of his amazing exploits!
Every time he tried to tell the amazing story of the cannons that he and his men retrieved from Fort Ticonderoga to scare the British away from Boston, everyone beat him to the punch in telling that story.
Shocked, he wondered how we knew!
(Many thanks to great homeschool books and our recent trips to Fort Ticonderoga and Boston that allowed my kids to super-engage with him with in-the-know information.)
Although we discovered that McHenry was a doctor, we learned a lot more about him when we were privy to a secret meeting under the trees.
Uh oh! En route, we saw a slave, named James Armistead, captured at the Magazine…more of that in a bit.
Upon arrival underneath the shady trees, we saw the harried Maj McHenry immersed in the obligatory mass of paperwork of an aide-de-camp.
Then General Knox arrived to snoop, I mean, to look through the paperwork.
Finding disturbing information that didn’t make any sense to him, Knox questioned McHenry’s evasiveness.
Then James Armistead arrived, captured because he allegedly had been spying for the British.
Angrily, General Knox lambasted the prisoner, while the spy and McHenry evasively skirted around the edges of details in the presence of the soldier who brought the spy to their meeting.
When alone, McHenry explained some secret intelligence to General Knox…
JAMES ARMISTEAD SPY STORY
Enslaved by William Armistead of New Kent County, located between Richmond and Williamsburg, James Armistead attended his master in Richmond, as William Armistead served as Virginia’s commissary of military supplies.
In the late summer of 1781, General Lafayette and his dragoons cornered Cornwallis’ British army in nearby Yorktown, on a peninsula surrounded by the York and James Rivers, that drained near the Atlantic Ocean.
Meanwhile, James Armistead’s servitude transferred to Lafayette, who abhorred slavery.
Trusting James Armistead, Lafayette established him as a double agent in the British encampment in Yorktown.
Posing as a runaway slave, Armistead successful gave the British false information about the Continental Army, while achieving vital information that soon led to America’s victory in Yorktown.
While waiting on the British staff, Armistead smuggled British papers and reported the conversations he overheard to Lafayette in Williamsburg.
During his return trips to Yorktown, Armistead carried messages from Lafayette to other double agents: of the most secret & important kind…the possession of which if discovered on him would have most certainly endangered his life. -written by Armistead to Virginia Assembly, 1784
Most likely writing about Armistead, Lafayette wrote to General Washington about: Correspondant of Mine Servant to Lord Cornwallis…My Honest friend…A Very Sensible fellow.
After the surrender of the British at Yorktown, one of the officers who recognized Armistead standing next to Lafayette angrily exclaimed: Ah you rogue, then you have been playing me a trick all this time.
JAMES ARMISTEAD’S FREEDOM
In 1783, the Virginia General Assembly enacted legislation granting freedom to slaves who fought as soldiers.
Because James Armistead served as a double agent, his top secret deeds had never been recorded.
During his 1784 trip to Virginia, Lafayette ran into Armistead in Richmond, since Armistead’s master was now a delegate in the General Assembly.
As a result, Lafayette wrote to the General Assembly: This is to Certify that the Bearer By the Name of James Has done Essential Services to Me While I Had the Honour to Command in this State. His Intelligence from the Ennemy’s Camp were Industriously Collected and Most faithfully deliver’d. He perfectly Acquitted Himself With Some Important Commissions I Gave Him and Appears to me Entitled to Every Reward his Situation Can Admit of.
Submitting a petition for emancipation to the General Assembly, James Armstead learned that the assembly had just adjourned.
Finally on December 25, 1786, the House of Delegates passed an act freeing him from slavery, followed by the Senate, seven days later.
Thus freed, James Armistead adopted Lafayette for his surname.
MEETING OF THE LAFAYETTES IN 1824
A Richmond newspaper reported that the venerable and respectable James Armistead Lafayette highly anticipated greeting General Lafayette in Yorktown, on the anniversary of the successful siege of Yorktown, October 1824.
Recognizing James in the crowd, Lafayette called him by name and embraced him.
ACCOLADES FOR JAMES ARMISTEAD LAFAYETTE
In 1828, James E. Heath published Edge-Hill, or, The Family of the Fitzroyals, A Novel, in which he described James Lafayette’s heroic work during the American Revolution, quoting Lafayette’s testimony of James’ service to the patriot cause.
At about the same time, artist John Blennerhasset Martin painted a portrait of James Lafayette with which he also included Lafayette’s testimony about James.
THE NAMING OF FORT MCHENRY
Since Major James McHenry was aide-de-camp to General Lafayette, it’s possible that he knew of the work James Armistead did for the Continental Army as a double agent. (as far as I know, there is no proof because of little written evidence of the top secret information)
However, we do know that Maj. McHenry wrote detailed observations of the American Revolution.
After the successful siege on Yorktown, McHenry returned to his home state of Maryland, where he served in the senate from 1781 to 1783.
After serving as a delegate to the Continental Congress from 1783 to 1786, he served as delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
From 1787 to 1796, McHenry served in the Maryland State assembly.
McHenry served under President George Washington as secretary of war from 1796 until the Adams administration began, in 1800.
Fort McHenry in Baltimore was named in his honor in 1798.
After many years of service to his neighbors, state, and country, from 1800 to 1816, he passed away and was buried in Westminster Burying Ground.
THE NAMING OF FORT KNOX
After the war Henry Knox served as the second Secretary of War, from 1785 to 1789.
He was preceded by Benjamin Lincoln, whom we’ve also met at Prelude to Victory.
Towns are named after him, as in my favorite road trip stop between San Antonio, Texas and Virginia, Knoxville, Tennessee.
Among many locations named after him, Fort Knox in Kentucky, located next to the United States Bullion Depository where our gold reserves are stored, are often listed as one and the same.
ENLISTED TO SEW FOR THE TROOPS
A fun memory of the weekend was upon our visit to the encampment of the Continental Army, where we met a soldier carving a yoke.
In exchange for his yoke, he a asked me to sew three shirts for him by Tuesday.
I told him I’d do it for free…anything for the troops!
MARCH TO YORKTOWN
Then the Continental and French armies marched out of Williamsburg to Yorktown.
As they marched out, Lafayette rode by on horseback.
Seeing my son, he told him he’d see him in Yorktown.
EPILOGUE
The next meeting of Lafayette and my son did, in fact, occur days later in Yorktown. Stay tuned!
