Glenn Beck: Miracles and Massacres: True and Untold Stories of the Making of America

“Of course.”

“Governor, a large force of British is approaching Charlottesville. They’re led by Tarleton!”

“Are you sure?”

“I am.”

“How many in his command?” Jefferson asked, his manner growing more grave with each syllable.

“Two hundred, maybe more. Most of them Green Dragoons.”

“Have they arrived in town?” Jefferson asked as his houseguests, woken by the commotion, began arriving in the hall.

“I cannot say. I’ve ridden through the night from Louisa on back trails and they’re moving on the main road.”

Jefferson extended a hand to Jouett and took closer notice of his torn clothes and scratched, bruised face. “Well done.” He turned to a servant. “When the soldiers arrive, raise the flag over the dome. Retract it only when they’ve left and it’s safe to return.” He pivoted to his houseguests and announced with authority, “Gentlemen, let us secure our belongings quickly and depart.”

As the others dressed, Jefferson calmly ate breakfast, sorted through sensitive state papers crucial for the success or failure of the revolution, and gathered his wife and children to be sent twenty miles to the west. There they would take refuge at the Enniscorthy Plantation, home of his friend and business associate Colonel John Coles.

Jefferson had not a moment to spare as Tarleton’s crack cavalrymen and Royal Welsh mounted infantry began to invade the grounds of his estate. But even under the intense pressure, he could not forgo his pronounced sense of southern hospitality. “A glass of madeira, Captain Jouett?” Jefferson asked.

“Yes, Governor,” answered Jouett with a smile. “I think I could use one right about now.”

Soon the preparations were complete.

“God bless Charlottesville,” Jefferson whispered before mounting the horse that had been saddled for him. The governor looked at his home one last time before kicking the stallion and riding up nearby Carter’s Mountain. As he did, enemy horsemen clattered through his front door, riding through the entire depth of his great mansion—and out the back.

And God bless Jack Jouett .

At a safe distance from the advancing Dragoons, Jefferson stopped for one last look at his beloved Monticello—and sadly watched as a flag of occupation was raised over its stately dome.

Swan Tavern

Charlottesville, Virginia

9:00 A.M.

As Jefferson and the other legislators fled, Jouett rode furiously to his father’s inn. He burst through the front door, with the sight of his crimson British uniform startling the elder Jouett, who soon recovered his senses, however, and the two embraced. Quickly, Jack warned him and the several Virginia legislators he sheltered to flee for Staunton, in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.

He relayed the prior evening’s ride and his father’s eyes gleamed with pride, for John Jouett Sr. was as great a patriot as his son. He had risked his life to sign the crucial Albemarle Declaration of 1779, which supported independence; provided beef for Continental armies; had two other sons in George Washington’s service; and had lost a fourth son at the 1777 Battle of Brandywine.

When the young captain finished, the elder Jouett told him, “Your work isn’t done yet, son. General Edward Stevens is here and he’s wounded in the thigh. He was hit at Guilford Court House in North Carolina and is still too unsteady to run. He’s healing, but not yet strong enough, I fear, to survive a chase.”

Jouett knew that Tarleton’s potential capture of Stevens, who was also a state senator, would fuel British confidence. The general’s lack of mobility was a problem, but he had a plan. With his father’s help, Jouett assembled a small militia to meet the British at the river. Then they disguised the general in a shabby cloak and helped him mount a borrowed horse.

Meanwhile, Jack Jouett dressed himself in a clean blue Continental uniform and made off in the other direction aboard Sallie. He was barely finished and mounted when the British began to close in. Tarleton and his men soon spotted Jouett, whom they correctly assumed to be an American officer, and gave frantic chase, ignoring Edwards entirely.

Jouett led the British on a winding pursuit through the woods, smiling all the way. Just as his all-night ride had allowed Jefferson to escape, this midmorning ride would do the same for General Stevens.

When the exhausted British finally gave up, Jouett stopped to let his horse drink from a creek not far from where he’d started the previous night at Cuckoo Tavern. Jouett took a long drink, too, letting the cool water run down his neck and into his uniform.

A breeze kissed the trees and his faithful horse gave a grateful whinny.

“I know, Sallie. I know.”

EPILOGUE

Colonel Tarleton had arrived in Charlottesville not long after Jouett had come through to warn its citizens. Tarleton and his men destroyed goods and uniforms, along with hundreds of muskets and barrels of gunpowder. They also freed a number of prisoners and captured seven remaining assemblymen, including Daniel Boone. All were later released unharmed.

When the Virginia legislature reconvened in Staunton three days later, they voted to reward Jouett’s heroics with an elegant sword and a pair of pistols. They recognized immediately what many others would not learn for days, months, years, or, perhaps, ever: Jack Jouett’s courageous ride may have saved not only Jefferson and a slew of other patriots, but also the very country they were so desperately fighting to free.

Later that year, in October 1781, Lieutenant General Lord Charles Cornwallis found himself outwitted and surrounded at Yorktown. Brigadier General Edward Stevens, whose life Jouett very well may have saved, led the Third Brigade—750 men—during the battle.

Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown effectively ended the revolution that, if not for Jack Jouett, the “Paul Revere of the South,” and his incredible ride four months earlier, might have been lost.

2

Shays’ Rebellion:

A Loud and Solemn Lesson

Mount Vernon

Fairfax County, Virginia

October 12, 1785

“I’ll ride out to the front gate with you, James,” George Washington said to his young visitor upon the end of his three-day visit.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that, sir,” answered thirty-four-year-old James Madison. But the look on Washington’s face indicated that this offer wasn’t simply a courtesy; his host had something more to say.

Madison, returning to his beloved Virginia from official business in Philadelphia and New York, had stopped at Mount Vernon to consult with Washington—and to vent his frustrations. The nation, the Confederation, was falling apart. The states could not agree on anything, be it taxes, a common defense, or trade either with foreign nations or among themselves. They were not so much a patchwork quilt of pieces sewn together, but thirteen shards of jagged glass, lying haphazardly upon the ground, ready to cut anyone foolish enough to try to reassemble them.

Before his visit, Madison had strongly suspected that Washington shared his concerns.

Now, Madison knew he did.

Riding out to Mount Vernon’s front gate, Washington fumed once more that a stronger national government was essential to protect everything the revolution had been fought for. Madison nodded silently in agreement, his small hand firmly on his large traveling carpetbag.

The carriage reached the gate and came to a sharp halt. Washington, limber for his fifty-three years, jumped out. Rather than saying goodbye to Madison, he instead handed him a copy of Noah Webster’s new pamphlet advocating a strong national government. “Read this,” he counseled. “We are either a united people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern, act as a nation. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending it.”