Apr 17, 2012 - Sale 2276

Sale 2276 - Lot 163

Price Realized: $ 3,840
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
"THE OLD DOMINION HAS BEGUN TO SHOW HER TEETH" (YORKTOWN CAMPAIGN.) GRAYSON, WILLIAM. Group of 9 Autograph Letters, as a member of the Board of War, to Brigadier General George Weedon, contemplating a return to military command and reporting on the latest war news. 3 of the letters signed by Grayson, the others unsigned. Each 1 or 2 pages, most folio; various conditions but generally strong. Dumfries [VA] and Philadelphia, February to August 1781
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William Grayson (1740-1790) was a Virginia lawyer who served as a colonel early in the war, and then served on the Congressional Board of War from 1779 to 1781. He was later a United States Senator. In these letters, Grayson considers whether to resign his seat on the Board of War to play a more active role in the Yorktown campaign. The first letter was written on 7 February, during Benedict Arnold's predations in Virginia: "I shall be much obliged to you to acquaint me of your prospects of co-operating with the French fleet. Without their assistance, I am satisfied, nothing can be done with Arnold. If there is such a plan in view, and a certainty it will be put in execution, I will decamp from this on Munday next, to take the command you have been kind enough to reserve for me, as I would not be absent on such an occasion for any consideration whatever." On 2 March, he writes "I shall thank you to reserve the P. Wm. & F militia for me. . . . I expect the object is the capture of Arnold; if this is not the case, it will not suit me to stay long."
In the later letters, Grayson drops the plan of returning to active military duty, and sends Weedon the latest war news and rumors from Philadelphia, along with promises of ammunition and supplies. On 14 May he wrote "yesterday we had advice that Cornwallis and Philips were on the point of forming a junction. If this is the case, I tremble for the fate of poor Greene! . . . Poor America!" Grayson is also not shy about expressing his Virginia bravado: "I am glad to hear the Old Dominion has begun to show her teeth" (8 May) and "It is no longer a disgrace to be a Virginian. The Big Knife begins to reassume her former importance" (3 July).