The British soldiers under Colonel Tarleton stopped for refreshments in Louisa County at a place called Cuckoo Tavern. The tavern keeper had an American soldier son, Captain Jack Jouett of the Virginia Militia, who happened to be at the tavern but out of sight of tavern visitors on that particular Sunday afternoon. He observed the two hundred and fifty British soldiers, overheard some of their personal conversations and their casual references to their military mission. He waited until the British had departed from the tavern and then he traveled on horseback over a different road--forty miles of brush and thicket, field and forest, vines and brambles. He rode without delay although the scars of some of the branches which struck him in the face as he was riding so rapidly became permanent ones. He believed that the British would probably make another stop for refreshments at the home of Dr. William Walker, the only one in the vicinity. Thus, he took time out to warn them of Tarleton's plans and to urge them to delay the British as long as possible. Jouett reached Monticello at dawn, roused the inhabitants within and informed them of Tarleton's plan. Jefferson and his guests fled on horseback and Mrs. Jefferson and their three children escaped to a neighbor's house by carriage. As the British rode up one side of the steep hill of Monticello, the Governor and his friends reached the bottom of the hill on the other side. Jouett then safely led the Governor's party via a secluded road to Staunton, which became another temporary capital. In the meantime, Tarleton had tarried before coming to Monticello to burn a wagon train filled with Continental Army supplies and had stopped as predicted at Castle Hill, the home of the Walkers. Mrs. Walker fed the soldiers before the officers, thus causing an added delay in their departure. Jack Jouett can be truly classified as the "Paul Revere of the South." The Assembly members were so appreciative of the courage and perseverance of Jouett that they subsequently presented him with a sword and a pair of pistols. [Illustration: RICHMOND CHAMBER OF COMMERCE _Gunston Hall_ _Home of George Mason, Author of "Declaration of Rights"_] On July 4, 1781, General Cornwallis and his troops left Williamsburg, fought an inconsequential battle at Greenspring (near Jamestown) and then crossed the James River to Portsmouth where he proceeded to Yorktown. By September 1781, he had approximately eight thousand soldiers garrisoned on the peninsula at Yorktown. He had selected this site because he thought it was a secure one: the Chesapeake Bay was on the east, the York River on the north and the James River on the south. Actually, he had placed his soldiers in a most penetrable trap.