Long afterwards, he thought that the wound must have fevered him, because one afternoon he found himself leaning on his mattock, ankle-deep in ooze but well apart from the others, and he was listening to a voice trailing away:
“…you jes slow down, boy,” he heard. It was his own voice. He had been engaged in a spirited argument with himself, although the sides and the arguments were slipping away like a dream to a man awakening. But the other voice had sounded more like the preacher’s, he was sure, and it scared him to the bone that he was possessed, or that the whites had broken him at last.
He shook his head, to clear it, and looked back to where he could see other men working in a line stretching for a hundred yards, with the ancient trees hanging over them and birds in the high canopy. The men seemed to have as much consequence as the birds and again he thought of the preacher, and that he had said that the Lord saw even the fall of a sparrow. Why a sparrow? He thought. Why that bird in particular? Those tiny hummingbirds, now they was small. Smaller than a sparrow.
And again, he realized that he had been speaking the words aloud, and again he was afraid, both that he was broken like the other broken men, and that he would stand and talk to himself about sparrows until Gordon put a pistol ball in his head.
Later, he caught himself weeping, and he didn’t know why, but if that was a fever, it broke then, because he didn’t talk to himself again.
Virginia Convention, Richmond, Virginia, March 23, 1775
“The establishment of such a militia, composed of Gentlemen and Yeomen, is at this time particularly necessary, by the state of our laws for the protection and defense of the country, some of which have expired, and others shortly will do so; and that known remissness of government, in calling us together in a legislative capacity, renders it too insecure, in this time of danger and distress, to reply that opportunity will be given of renewing them in General Assembly—”
“Make your point, Mr. Henry.”
“I will, sir.”
“Rather, Mr. Henry, you have done. You want us to vote an extraordinary militia act because it is unlikely that Lord Dunmore will call the Burgesses?”
“Yes, sir. May I continue?”
“If you must.”
“Sir, I must.” Patrick Henry, the prime orator of the House of Burgesses, raised his papers for a moment, recalling his place, and his voice continued in a deliberately humdrum manner.
“Ahem…General Assembly, or making any other provision to secure our inestimable rights and liberties from those farther violations…” The rumble from the Convention seat was not all royalist; and Henry’s tempo began to change as he added emotion to his voice. “Violations with which they are threatened. RESOLVED, therefore…”
Washington’s neighbor leaned over to him. “This isn’t about defending ourselves from the Delaware, is it?”
Washington smiled carefully, hiding the remnants of his teeth.
“I think not.” He thought back to his review of the Dumfries Independent Company a few days before. They had their new colors, a company standard with a motto, and a dark blue color with the union in the canton. It was a gesture toward the king’s men in the county, but a far cry from the king’s color that had traditionally graced every regiment of militia, a union flag two fathoms across. They were uniformed in blue and buff, his favorite colors and the traditional colors of the liberal Whig party in England.
Washington’s other neighbor leaned across him to George Mason, two down on his right.
“It’s rhetoric like this that costs us support in England. Let this man go on and we’ll lose every friend we made with the Congress.”
Down on the floor, Patrick Henry raised his face to the men in the benches and drew himself to his full height. He looked around him like a man entering a ball and searching for friends.
“We must fight.” Uttered with regret, but uttered. A silence fell over the hall; the royalists sat thunderstruck. It had been whispered. Now it had been said. A murmur from the back benches.
“You do not care for the sentiment? But it is being forced upon us by unprecedented tyranny. It is not our property that is threatened, but our liberties, not the pennies of taxation, but the pounds of chains that this government would load upon us. Did I say we must fight? Perhaps what I should have said is, we must fight. We must fight! There, ’tis said.”
Mason and Andrew Stephen were talking so fast that Washington had to crane forward past them to hear Henry on the floor; indeed, the only thing he heard clearly was the reiteration that he must fight. He nodded. It was obvious that it was now to come to blows; every thinking Whig saw it. Many men looked shocked, or angry, even at this late date; Washington could see Benjamin Harrison, red in the face; and Pendleton, Bland, and Nicholas looked as if close friends had been murdered before their eyes. Behind them, one of Washington’s grooms gestured to him from the doorway; forbidden in the church, he could only try to catch his master’s attention, but it was now riveted to the floor before him.
“…and so retain our liberty, regardless of the cost. Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
The groom’s head rose with every word, but no one paid him any mind.
It was a brilliant piece of rhetoric; it stifled opposition, though the royalists tried valiantly to change the course of debate and delay the call to arms. None could match the heights of eloquence that Henry had reached; none could banish the fear of “chains and slavery”. And so, with many a beating heart, the Virginia Convention voted to put the colony of Virginia into a “posture of defense” and named a committee of twelve men to be responsible to the colony for embodying, arming, and disciplining such a number of men as might be sufficient for the purpose. Patrick Henry was the first man named to the committee. The second was George Washington.
Great Dismal Swamp, March 26, 1775
“They arming the militia. All ovah the country they be gettin’ guns and men togethuh. I seed ’em down by our place, men marchin’ and trainin’.” The new man was from the Lee plantation on the Chesapeake, and he was a fund of information. He was not a broken spirit, either, but had been sent to the Dismal for insubordination.
“I jus’ don’ think the time to run is when ever’ white boy in Virginny has got his gun to hand.” Virgil had come in with his crew the night before. The rising sun barely slanted through the canopy yet, and they were all enjoying the only cool breeze they would have for the day while a young boy with a torn foot stirred a battered copper pot of corn meal. It contained several frogs; both Caesar and the new man, Lark, had developed some skill in catching frogs, and they were plentiful. Virgil had set himself to learn the art.
“Maybe the governor will arm the slaves.”
“That’s foolishness, Lark.” Caesar was surprised to hear his own voice. “Who’s gon’ arm slaves?”
“I heard it happen’ befo’. Not just one time, neithuh.”
Old Ben spoke from the gloom of his blanket. “They done it before this, boys. They armed us in Carolina once. We was to fight Cherokees.”
The little group fell silent. Caesar gave the boy by the fire a little slap and pointed him off to another fire. The boy looked at him, pleased somehow, even at being sent away, and Caesar wondered what he had been like these last weeks.
“You run ‘long.” He tried to sound kindly. Perhaps he smiled. It didn’t come easily. The boy showed his teeth and hobbled off. He waited till the boy was out of earshot. “We have to kill Gordon.”
Only Virgil met his eye and