at once
a decision was made, opposition ceased and the delegates went forward
together. One has to be careful not to talk too much about conservatives
and radicals. They were all patriots together. The process by which
Virginians moved in unison to revolt was summarized by Jefferson:

Sensible however of the importance of unanimity among our
constituents, altho' we (Jefferson, Henry, Lees, Pages, Masons, etc.)
often wished to have gone faster, we slackened our pace, that our
less ardent colleagues might keep up with us; and they, (Pendleton,
Bland, Wythe, Randolph, etc.) quickened their gait somewhat beyond
that which their prudence might of itself have advised, and thus
consolidated the phalanx which breasted the power of Britain. By this
harmony of the bold with the cautious, we advanced with our
constituents in undivided mass, and with fewer examples of separation
(Tories) than perhaps existed in any other part of the Union.[32]

[32] "Jefferson's Recollections," 400-401.

The committee quickly went to work and authorized formations of at least
one infantry company and one cavalry troop in each county. Supplies would
be furnished as quickly as possible. Each company would commence drilling
at once.

Throughout the spring of 1775 Virginia was alive with signs of rebellion.
County committees and associations coaxed, cajoled, and frequently
coerced reluctant colonists, particularly the Scots merchants, to comply
with non-importation, non-consumption agreements. Militia troops drilled,
often in disorderly fashion with little hint of being a threat to British
redcoats. Fashionable gentry took to wearing the plain clothes of
frontiersmen, and shirts emblazoned with the words "Liberty or Death"
were everywhere. County courts had ceased operations, nearly all their
justices were now members of the extra-legal committees which ruled
Virginia.

On April 19, 1775, General Thomas Gage, learning that the Massachusetts
independent militia had armed itself, marched on known caches of arms and
powder at Lexington and Concord. The colonial militia under Captain John
Parker, warned by Paul Revere and William Dawes, drove the British
regulars from the two villages and harrassed them all the way back to
Boston. The next night, in a totally unrelated incident, Governor Dunmore
of Virginia, for the same reasons, seized the gunpowder in the magazine
at Williamsburg. Fighting in Virginia wa