Community Viewpoint: The Race to Poplar Forest

On June 14, 1781, Thomas Jefferson, accompanied by his wife, Martha, and their children, maneuvered their carriage onto a ferry to cross the James River. They were on their way to Poplar Forest, the final leg of one of the most remarkable yet little-noted escapes in American history.

Today, Poplar Forest is known as “Jefferson’s retreat,” where the nation’s third president built an octagonal masterpiece with its triple-sash windows and Palladian porticoes. But long before Jefferson’s elegant villa in southwestern Virginia would be constructed, Poplar Forest was a place of retreat in a different sense of the word.

It was here that Jefferson spent some of the darkest days of his life, finding sanctuary after months on the run from the British, who had overtaken Virginia during his governorship. He lived in an overseer’s cabin on the plantation during the early part of the summer in that fateful year, composing a lengthy response to charges by some legislators that he had let the state be overrun by the enemy and left the state without leadership.

The charges against him, Jefferson later wrote, left a wound on his spirit that would only be cured by the “all-healing grave.”

In writing my book, “Flight from Monticello: Thomas Jefferson at War,” I became particularly intrigued by Jefferson’s decision to flee his beloved home and his route to safety that ended at Poplar Forest. It soon became clear that this part of the story was relatively little known. There are no historical markers directing tourists to Jefferson’s escape route. This was no march to victory to be memorialized. So, I set out to recreate Jefferson’s escape route, using 18th century maps and Jefferson’s memorandum books — and to understand what caused him to flee.

Jefferson, it turns out, took numerous flights throughout the first half of 1781. Jefferson and his family had fled Richmond in January after the forces led by the traitor Benedict Arnold occupied the capital. Jefferson took his wife and children to two hiding places up the James River, and then returned to watch parts of Richmond go up in flames.

He went back and forth to Richmond as the British came and went. Finally, in May 1781, Jefferson sought safety at Monticello, hoping the hilltop home would be a haven, only to learn that cavalry under the command of Banastre Tarleton were ascending the mountain. It was only after receiving separate warnings from two local men, Jack Jouett and Christopher Hudson, that Jefferson decided that he must flee Monticello.

“In my flight, I stuffed in papers where I could,” Jefferson wrote. He decided not to take a third term as governor, leaving the state without leadership at a crucial hour, which would lead his harshest critics to accuse him of cowardice. He explained later that he had no military training and that others were better suited to lead the fight against the British. It would have been foolhardy, he explained, to try to fight alone against an enemy force.

Having sent his wife and children ahead, Jefferson plunged through the woods and caught up with his family. Unlike in later years, when Jefferson took a more leisurely western route to Poplar Forest, he sought the most direct path. Fording rivers, traveling through winding mountain passes, bisecting the lovely Findlay’s Gap, he made his way to the home of his childhood friend, Hugh Rose. The Rose home stood in a spectacular setting in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Leaving his family in the Roses’ care, he returned briefly to Monticello, noted with satisfaction that the British had left the house undisturbed, and then rejoined his family at the Rose home. Concerned that the British could encounter them at any moment, Jefferson decided to head farther south to a plantation that he had acquired through his marriage to Martha. Thus, in mid-June 1781, the Jeffersons arrived at Poplar Forest.

Jefferson learned that an investigation into his conduct had been launched by angry legislators who had fled from their assembly in Charlottesville, traveled over the Blue Ridge and met in Staunton. Learning that some of his friends were behind the investigation, Jefferson sat down at the overseer’s cabin at Poplar Forest and began writing a defense of his actions. Some of these words would be used in his book, “Notes of the State of Virginia,” and in letters, explaining his actions.

Jefferson would eventually restore much of his reputation, and 20 years later he would begin the first of two terms as president. But it was the darkest days of the invasion that taught him lessons he applied throughout his life. Serving in the White House, Jefferson deployed a series of controversial measures such as embargoes to avoid having to once again fight against a European power.

“I think one war,” Jefferson wrote, “is enough for the life of one man.”
Kranish is the author of “Flight from Monticello: Thomas Jefferson at War” (Oxford, 2010). He will deliver a talk about the book at 2 p.m. today at Poplar Forest. He can be reached at www.michaelkranish.com. He wrote this commentary for The News & Advance.