The 1780 evacuation order in Virginia

On this date October 26 in 1780, as the wartime Governor of Virginia, I wrote an urgent military letter to General George Washington because I was terrified of a major crisis in my state. We were holding thousands of British prisoners of war from the Battle of Saratoga, and I feared they were about to break out and join a secret network of local British loyalists to overthrow my government.

Making matters worse, our citizens had almost no weapons left, and the fear of a local uprising was badly distracting our militia from fighting off actual British invasions.

To stop this disaster before it could start, I officially ordered Colonel Wood to pack up and evacuate the prisoners immediately, using every bit of resources we had left to move them safely out of Virginia.

Nowadays, the biggest dangers the British pose to us Virginians are World Cup tourists and Monty Python re-runs.

Read my letter to General George Washington here: https://www.thomasjefferson.com/jefferson-letters/october-26