Peninsula In Passage

remainder were scuttled or burned. The disaster on the James left the navy with a single ship, the Liberty, which was hidden in the Nansemond River. She supported operations that resulted in the Siege of Yorktown later in 1781. After the treaty of Paris in 1783 the state retained two ships, the Liberty and the Patriot, as revenue cutters into the late 1780s. The Liberty was one of the longest-serving ships in service to the Patriot cause.

The Brig Liberty

The American Revolution’s other Revolution Winning the war with England in 1781 led to a new revolution. The introduction of steam power in the early 1800s impacted local residents by accelerating transportation, farming methods, and manufacturing. This industrial revolution increased the need for hand labor to harvest crops, a demand met by increased slavery. Nansemond County residents were caught in the middle of the struggle to decide the slavery question. William H. Jordan, a plantation owner in Driver, expressed his concerns in March 1861, about the impending secession of Virginia from the Union in a letter to his neighbor William J. Wright Esq. on nearby Waverton Farm. The letter, written prior to the Virginia convention, reads in part My neighbor, …I think we are, as Virginians, in a most critical condition….do you think she (Virginia) will go with the South? I see there is a proposition to buy the slaves in the border states at a nominal or insignificant price and tax us to pay for them. Shall we who hold slaves submit? How can we help ourselves?... Our Governor says that no northern troops shall pass through Virginia to invade the South…Fort Monroe is in the hands of our enemy and I have heard from reliable sources that the working class of Portsmouth say they will assist Lincoln in securing the navy yard and publics property there. What then are the prospects of the slave holders...Will you give me your views? Perhaps I may find some consolation. We will see the Ides of March. Truly your friend, Wm. H. Jordan Delegates to the Virginia Convention voted for secession on April 17, 1861 and Virginia voters at the polls approved the Ordinance of Secession by votes of 125,950 to 20,373. Wm. H. Jordan’s Ides of March were upon him.

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