Yet, even with this explanation, the truth remains that Patrick Henry, as commander-in-chief of the Virginia forces, never was permitted to take command, or to see any real service in the field, or to look upon the face of an armed enemy, or to show, in the only way in which it could be shown, whether or not he had the gifts of a military leader in action. As an accomplished and noble-minded Virginian of our own time has said:-- "It may be doubted whether he possessed those qualities which make a wary partisan, and which are so often possessed in an eminent degree by uneducated men. Regular fighting there was none in the colony, until near the close of the war.... The most skilful partisan in the Virginia of that day, covered as it was with forests, cut up by streams, and beset by predatory bands, would have been the Indian warrior; and as a soldier approached that model, would he have possessed the proper tactics for the time. That Henry would not have made a better Indian fighter than Jay, or Livingston, or the Adamses, that he might not have made as dashing a partisan as Tarleton or Simcoe, his friends might readily afford to concede; but that he evinced, what neither Jay, nor Livingston, nor the Adamses did evince, a determined resolution to stake his reputation and his life on the issue of arms, and that he resigned his commission when the post of imminent danger was refused him, exhibit a lucid proof that, whatever may have been his ultimate fortune, he was not deficient in two grand elements of military success,--personal enterprise, and unquestioned courage."[230] FOOTNOTES: [195] _Hist. Mag._ for Aug. 1867, 92. [196] 4 _Am. Arch._ iii. 375. [197] 4 _Am. Arch._ ii. 1902. [198] 4 _Am. Arch._ ii. 1834. [199] 4 _Am. Arch._ ii. 1849. [200] 4 _Am. Arch._ ii. 1850, 1851. [201] _Ibid._ ii. 1852. [202] _Ibid._ ii. 1878. [203] 4 _Am. Arch._ ii. 1879, 1883. [204] _Ibid._ ii. 1884, 1885. [205] 4 _Am. Arch._ ii. 1902. [206] MS. [207] 4 _Am. Arch._ iii. 377. [208] _Ibid._ iii. 377, 378. [209] _Ibid._ iii. 378. [210] 4 _Am. Arch._ iii. 393. See, also, his oath of office, _ibid._ iii. 411. [211] 4 _Am. Arch._ iii. 776. [212] Wirt, 159. [213] 4 _Am. Arch._ iii. 1067. [214] 4 _Am. Arch._ iii. 1713-1715. [215] Graphic contemporary accounts of this battle may be found in 4 _Am. Arch._ iv. 224, 228, 229. [216] Wirt, 178. [217] 4 _Am. Arch._ iii. 1962. [218] _Ibid._ iv. 1669. [219] _Ibid._ iv. 1517. [220] _Ibid._ iv. 1515, 1516. [221] 4 _Am. Arch._ iv. 1516; also, Wirt, 180, 181. [222] 4 _Am. Arch._ iv. 1516. [223] 4 _Am. Arch._ iv. 1516, 1517. [224] _Ibid._ iv. 1518. [225] 4 _Am. Arch._ iv. 1519. [226] Wirt, 175. [227] _Writings of Washington_, iii. 309. [228] W. B. Reed, _Life of Joseph Reed_, i. 173. [229] Grigsby, _Va. Conv. of 1776_, 52, 53, note. [230] Grigsby, _Va. Conv. of 1776_, 151, 152. CHAPTER XII