During the “public times” in Williamsburg that year, when the House of Burgesses was in session, there was great furor over the King’s decision to retaliate upon the port of Boston for the destruction of the tea: Courts were placed under direct British control, local officials would now be appointed by the Crown, and town meetings were outlawed throughout all thirteen colonies.

“What on earth had we to do with it?” Martha protested to George’s fellow Burgess, lanky red-haired Tom Jefferson, one evening. “Why punish Virginians for something those people up in Massachusetts did?”

In July of ’74 there was a general Congress of the thirteen colonies in Philadelphia, and as a war hero of unquestioned honesty and probity—not to mention being the man who’d married the wealthiest widow in the colony—George was elected one of Virginia’s seven delegates. Martha remembered being worried, because in the climate of royal vengefulness there was no telling who might get punished for what, but even then she had no real sense that their lives had changed.

Like a boat in a squall, even after Patcy’s death she had expected things to right themselves eventually. Even though she knew that George was helping to drill the State militia, and that weapons, ammunition, cartridge-paper, spades, and food were being stockpiled, she thought of the matter as a passing “flap,” as her father used to call such alarms. Certainly less critical than the ever-present whispered threat of slave insurrection, a fear that had run like a dark undercurrent through the whole of her childhood.

Then in April of ’75, as George was preparing to leave for a second Congress in Philadelphia, Royal Governor Dunmore ordered the marines from a warship in the James River off of Williamsburg to seize the powder that was traditionally kept in the Williamsburg Magazine against the threat of an uprising among the slaves. The local patriots protested, triggering a near-riot on the Palace green.

And at almost the same time, General Gage, in charge of occupied Boston, sent eight hundred of his men to destroy a patriot cache of arms in the town of Concord.

And instead of a concerned magistrate riding to a conference on the subject of finding some means to redress colonial grievances, when George rode away down Mount Vernon’s shallow hill in his new blue-and-buff uniform, he was a man who placed himself in the camp of those who had taken up arms against their King.

A traitor, who would face sentence of death.



George returned a little before three. Martha was in the kitchen, putting the finishing dashes of cinnamon into a custard that she knew was her granddaughter’s favorite—not that Uncle Hercules couldn’t make equally marvelous desserts, but it gave her great pleasure to make the treats for her grandchildren herself. There was always a commotion when the General rode into the stable-yard, audible from the kitchen. Martha raised her head sharply, and with a smile the big, handsome cook took the spice-caddy from her hand.