ced the merchants
who had stayed in the colonies as well as those who had fled. The latter
had much of their property confiscated and their ships seized. Those who
stayed found there was no neutrality. The key issue here was debt
payment. The assembly declared that the new Virginia paper money
circulated was legal tender and must be accepted for both new and pre-war
debts. Many Virginians took advantage of this opportunity to pay their
debts in the inflated money, a move which caused many problems after the
war when attempts were made to straighten out personal British accounts.
There was no sympathy for those who protested the inequity of this
action. Revolutions and civil wars seldom bring equity. The remarkable
thing is that in Virginia the Revolution progressed with so little
internal strife.[39]

[39] Harrell, Loyalism in Virginia, 66-96.

The War at Home, 1776-1780

From the time Dunmore left in July 1776, until the British moved into
Virginia again in 1779, Virginians fought the war for independence on the
soils of the other colonies. Their main contributions were providing the
men and material which all wars demand. When one considers the natural
reluctance of colonials to serve outside their own boundaries,
Virginians' record of men and supplies were good.

The demands on the Virginia economy were great. With much of the natural
granary in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Long Island occupied by British
forces and the middle state ports blockaded, pleas from Washington for
Virginia meat and food supplies were constant. Munitions works at Westham
(Richmond), Fredericksburg, and Fort Chiswell and naval shipyards at
Gosport, South Quay, and Chickahominy River operated at full capacity. A
major munitions magazine opened at Point of Fork on the James River in
Fluvanna County, and small iron furnaces appeared throughout the Piedmont
and in the Valley areas. In 1779 Virginia exports of food and grain
outside the United States were halted and redirected to the needs of
Congress. Everywhere Virginians began to spin and weave their own cloth.
Simpler life styles became the order of the war.

The plainer way of life was not just a patriotic morale-builder. It was a
necessity. The natural trade routes between the Chesapeake and Britain
were closed and the tobacco trade was ruined. To finance the war the
assembly taxed nearly everything which could be taxed. Many taxes were
those which the Virginians had rejected