On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, Virginia Delegate Thomas Nelson, Jr. wrote to his fellow Delegate Thomas Jefferson with news about the war. Jefferson had returned to Virginia from Congress to care for his ailing wife:

A Vessel arriv’d two nights ago with 60 Tons of Salt Petre, 13 Tons of Gunpowder and 2000 Stands of Arms and we are in daily expectation of 25 Tons more of Gun powder.

Troops are marching every day from hence to support the remains of our Army before Quebec. The Eastern Governments are raising Men for the same purpose. One Battallion has already march[ed] from Connecticut, so that We are still in hopes of reducing the Garrison before it can be reliev’d in the Spring.

General Washington has sent Major General Lee New York at the head of 1200 Volunteers from Connecticut to defend that Province against a detachment sent from Boston, which the General was informed by a deserter, was certainly intended for that place. The Deserter, I fancy, was mistaken, sufficient time having elaps’d since they sail’d for their arriving there, and we have no account of them. The Committee of safety of New York however sent a remonstrance to Lee setting forth the extreme danger the City would be in from the Men of War, should he enter it, and especially as they were apprehensive he intended to make an attack upon the Ships. Lee sent the remonstrance to Congress and wrote the President that he thought it his Duty to carry his Orders into execution, which he was preparing to do with the first division, the rest of the Troops being ready to support him. The Letter and remonstrance being read, a violent debate arose on one side as to the propriety of an armed force from one province, entering another without permission of the civil power of that province, or without express orders of Congress. It was alledged that this was setting up the Military above the Civil. On the other side was urged the absolute necessity of securing that province, the loss of which would cut off all communication between the Northern and Southern Colonies and which if effected would ruin America. The debate ended in the appointment of a Committee of Congress to confer with Lee and the Committee of Safety. Harrison, Lynch and Allen were the Committee and they sat out the next day upon their Ambassy, but what the result has been we are not inform’d, not having heard from them since they went.

Source: “Thomas Nelson, Jr., to Thomas Jefferson, 4 February 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0148. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 1, 1760–1776, ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950, pp. 285–286.]

On this day 250 years ago in Goochland County, Virginia, Edward Herndon enlisted as a Sergeant in Capt. Samuel Woodson’s Company of the 9^th Virginia Regiment. Edward Herndon is my 6th great grandfather.

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