Sold – Just Months After Taking the Governorship, Jefferson Appoints a War Hero to Guard British Prisoners of the Saratoga Convention

The surrender of General Burgoyne to General Gates at Saratoga, N.Y. on October 18, 1777, placed nearly 6,000 British and Hessian prisoners of war in the hands of the Continental Congress. According to the terms of their surrender, written in a document entitled the “Convention of Saratoga,” the prisoners were to be marched to Boston and then shipped back to Great Britain. When they arrived at Boston, a dispute arose between the Americans and Burgoyne, and on the 8th of January 1778, Congress resolved to suspend the terms of the Convention and keep the prisoners in custody. Late that year the decision was made to relocate them to Charlottesville, Virginia, where they could be more closely watched and better supplied. The local population was alarmed to have introduced into their presence so many enemy soldiers.

Jefferson urged his fellow citizens to remain calm and willingly serve as hosts to the Convention troops. He engaged personally in erecting barracks for the privates and establishing accommodations for the officers, made arrangements for supplies and was tireless in his endeavors to render the situation of the captives comfortable. He also personally undertook the task of guarding them. This was no easy task.  Almost immediately, Virginia faced threats that it had never known during Patrick Henry’s administration. From 1776 to 1779, Virginia had remained largely untouched by enemy operations, except Indian raids on its western frontier. During that same period, the state became a granary, magazine, and arsenal for American armies fighting to the north and south. Jefferson encountered the misfortune that British officials decided to do something about Virginia’s supporting role in the Revolution just as he became governor. In 1779, the British began a series of increasingly destructive raids along the coasts and up the rivers of Virginia. As these incursions grew in size and penetrated ever more deeply into its countryside, Virginia’s economy suffered, and concerns grew that the British would rescue the Convention Army and use it for reinforcements.

Colonel John S. Slaughter was a hero of the Revolutionary War.  A contemporary newspaper account on his death recounted his great career in service. “At the age of 16 he shouldered his musket in the cause of his country, and continued between two and three years in the most arduous service. He was one of the feeble band, that at Trenton and Princeton, under the great Washington, rolled back the tide of war which threatened to overwhelm our country. Under the gallant Morgan, he breasted the storm at Saratoga and Stillwater and witnessed the surrender of Burgoyne and his whole army. He was subsequently employed in the militia of his own state, and was a Lieutenant among the troops appointed to guard the British prisoners at the Barracks near Charlottesville, where he continued a considerable time.”

Autograph Document Signed, Williamsburg, Virginia, October 8, 1779, being Slaughter’s original appointment to guard the Convention Army, with the document filled in by Jefferson himself. “….Know you that from the special trust and confidence which is reposed in your fidelity, courage, activity, and good conduct, our governor, with the advice of the Council of State, doth hereby constitute and appoint you the said John Slaughter a Lieutenant in the regiment of guards to the British Prisoners….” Until seeing this document we were unaware that Jefferson personally made appointments to safeguard the Convention Army, as we’d never seen an example in all our decades in the field.

This piece bears the notation of renowned early autograph dealer Thomas Madigan, an uncommon and desirable provenance.