December 14

[On December 14, 1781, I wrote this supportive letter from Richmond to General Horatio Gates, the prominent Revolutionary War commander with whom I share a sympathetic friendship. Having recently stepped down from the governorship of Virginia, I am writing as a private citizen during a period of reflection. This letter is composed just two months after our victory at Yorktown, which secures American independence but leaves Gates in political limbo following his devastating defeat at the Battle of Camden. I am comforting him over the ongoing official scrutiny of his southern campaign, laying out my belief that the loss resulted entirely from a lack of bravery and discipline in his troops. I explicitly include my own wife by writing that Mrs. Jefferson will join me in sincere thanks for his kind invitation, a deeply moving inclusion given her tragic passing less than nine months later.]

I have received your friendly letters of August 2d and November 15th, and some of the gentlemen to whom you wished them to be communicated not being here, I have taken the liberty of handing them to some others, so as to answer the spirit of your wish. It seems likely to end, as I ever expected it would, in a final acknowledgment that good dispositions and arrangements will not do without a certain degree of bravery and discipline in those who are to carry them into execution. This, the men whom you commanded, or the greater part of them at least, unfortunately wanted on that particular occasion.

I have not a doubt but that, on a fair enquiry, the returning justice of your countrymen will remind them of Saratoga, and induce them to recognize your merits. My future plan of life scarcely admits a hope of my having the pleasure of seeing you at your seat; yet I assuredly shall do it should it ever lie within my power, and am assured that Mrs. Jefferson will join me in sincere thanks for your kind sentiments and invitation, and in expressions of equal esteem for Mrs. Gates and yourself, and in a certain hope that, should any circumstance lead you within our reach, you will make us happy by your company at Monticello. We have no news to communicate. That the Assembly does little, does not come under that description.