By Tom Perry
On Memorial Day, we remember those who gave their lives in defense of this nation. Corporal William Letcher was a member of David Carlin’s Henry County Militia. Patrick County did not exist during the American Revolution. He was a friend of George Hairston and married to Elizabeth Perkins. He was one of the first from our county to give his life in military service, as noted today on the Wall of Honor in the Patrick County Administration Building.
On June 29 at 6 p.m., Patrick County will kick off its America 250 celebration, a weeklong celebration of the history of our country and our county. The first event will be held at the grave of William Letcher at the J. E. B. Stuart Birthplace in Ararat, Virginia, where I will speak on Stuart’s great-grandfathers in the American Revolution.
Letcher lost his life to a pro-British “Tory” during the summer of 1780 in the presence of his wife, Elizabeth Perkins Letcher, and their daughter Bethenia, who was born in March 1780. It was Bethenia who would bring Archibald and his wife, Elizabeth Letcher Pannill, the daughter of Bethenia, to Laurel Hill in the mid-1820s. Their youngest son, James Ewell Brown Stuart, was born here on February 6, 1833.
In 1780, Thomas Jefferson was the Governor of Virginia. George Washington at Morristown, New Jersey, would suffer a blow when, a month after Letcher’s death, Benedict Arnold betrayed the Patriot cause and joined the British.
In May 1780, Lord Charles Cornwallis took Charleston, South Carolina. He began moving up through the Carolinas, enabling those who were pro-British, the Tories, to become active, which I believe led to the death of William Letcher in Henry County, Virginia. It did not become Patrick County until a decade later.
On August 16, 1780, the Patriots lost the Battle of Camden in South Carolina, led “by General Horatio Gates and a British force led by General Lord Charles Cornwallis; the engagement resulted in a British victory. In the aftermath, Congress removed Gates as the commander of the Southern Army, and General George Washington replaced him with General Nathanael Greene.”
Things began to turn on October 7, 1780, when a “Patriot militia from the Carolinas, Virginia, and present-day Tennessee” surrounded and defeated a loyalist force under Major Patrick Ferguson at Kings Mountain, South Carolina. Indicating the deep divisions within America, Ferguson is the only British soldier on the field. Kings Mountain is truly a battle among Americans about their future.”
The Patriot cause continued an upward trend with the Battle of Cowpens on January 17, 1781, when “Continental soldiers and patriot militia under General Daniel Morgan defeated a British force under Banastre Tarleton at Cowpens in South Carolina. Coming on the heels of the victory at Kings Mountain, Cowpens helps convince worried patriots that the British southern strategy can be countered. Many historians believe that the colonies were divided with 1/3 for the Patriots, 1/3 pro-British, and 1/3 on the fence waiting to see what happened.”
J. E. B. Stuart’s great-grandfather, Alexander Stuart, fought at Guilford Courthouse near present day Greensboro, North Carolina, on March 15, 1781. “British troops win a costly victory over Continentals and militia at Guilford Courthouse, N.C. The battle is part of General Nathanael Greene’s strategy of engaging the British on ground of his choosing. Without winning a single clear-cut victory, he will succeed in wearing down the British army through hit-and-run tactics and set-piece battles.”
The following year, 1781, Lord Cornwallis surrendered to Patriot and French forces at Yorktown, Virginia. Two years later, the American Revolution ended with the Treaty of Paris.
Elizabeth Perkins Letcher and her baby daughter, Bethenia, would leave the banks of the Ararat River and end up at Beaver Creek near Martinsville, Virginia, when Mrs. Letcher married George Hairston. Before she died in 1845, Bethenia Letcher Pannill would place the white marble gravestone over her father’s final resting place. It came from a Richmond stone cutter named Montjoy and is the oldest marked grave in Patrick County.
