es
created from those territories have the same rights and privileges as the
original states. In so doing, Virginians, under the leadership of
Jefferson, formulated a colonial policy for the western lands which
assured equality for the new states, a most important guarantee that
there would be no superior and inferior states in the new United States.
All states would be equal.

It should be remembered that this was never a total war. Independence
simply demanded that Washington, the Continental Congress, and the states
keep an army in the field and a fleet on the seas until the British
accepted the fact that they could not defeat the Americans or until they
decided victory was not worth the cost. Whenever the call came,
Virginians poured forth in sufficient numbers and with sufficient
supplies in the crucial days of 1777-1778 and 1780-1781 to prevent
defeat. And in 1781 they were there in enough numbers to insure victory
at Yorktown.

Part V:

The War for Independence

[Sidenote: "_He has abdicated government here...._"]

Virginia's participation in the Revolutionary War military operations
developed in seven stages: (1) the initial conflict with Lord Dunmore in
the Norfolk and Chesapeake areas in 1775-1776; (2) the thousands of
Virginians who joined the Continental Army and campaigned throughout the
country; (3) the bloody Cherokee war in the southwest from 1775-1782; (4)
George Rogers Clark's audacious and spectacular victory in the Northwest;
(5) the British invasion and ravaging of Virginia throughout 1780-1781;
(6) the southern campaigns of Generals Gates and Greene in 1780 and 1781;
and (7) the final victory at Yorktown in the fall of 1781.[41]

[41] The best general survey of the war is by John Alden, A
History of the American Revolution (Knopf: New York, 1969). The
best detailed account is by Christopher Ward, The War of the
Revolution, 2 volumes. (MacMillan: New York, 1952). Both have
been utilized in this section.

Virginians and the Continental Army, 1775-1779

The decision to make George Washington commander-in-chief of the
Continental armies was undoubtedly a political act meant to bind the
southern colonies to the war and to blunt charges that this was a New
England revolution. Seldom has a political decision borne greater
positive benefits. Washington is an enigma and he always will remain so
to his countrymen. His greatness as a man and as a commander are