For  the  first  time  in  her  history,  Virginia  became  a  manufac-
toring  State.     "  Our  smiths,"  wrote  the  governor,  August  4,  "  are
making  five  hundred  axes  and  some  tomahawks  for  General  Gates,''
—  turning  out  twenty  a  day;  "  and  we  are  endeavoring  to  get  bay-
onet-belts made,"  —  though  leather  was  so  scarce  tliat  people  stole
the  flaps  of  cartouch-boxes  from  the  wagons  to  mend  their  shoes
with.     The  governor  sent  messengers  all  over  the  State  to  pick  up
little  lots  of  material,  such  as  duck  and  leather.     And,  when  he  had
accumulated  supplies,  he  was  at  his  wit's  end  for  wagons  in  which
to  transport  them.     Nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  had  elapsed  since
!Braddock  had  found  wagons  so  scarce  in  Virginia  and  Maryland  ;  and
Governor  Jefferson,  since  he  had  no  mpney  in  his  treasury  to  hire  or
Imy  them,  found  them  scarcer  still.     In   this   extremity  he  was
obliged  to  impress  wagons,  not  sparing  his  own.     His  principle  was,
to  leave  on  every  farm  the  horses  and  vehicles  absolutely  necessary
to  secure  the  ripening  crops,  and  take  all  the  rest  for  the  public  ser-
vice.    This  he  did  upon  his  own  farms  in  Albemarle.     It  is  inter-
esting to  note,  that,  in  the  crisiis  of  the  campaign,  the  governor  was
sending  about  to  try  and  find,  for  the  use  of  General  Gates,  a  copy
of  the  old  map  of  Virginia,  made  when  he  was  a  child,  by  Professor
Fry  and  his  own  father.     The  ladies,  this  summer,  were  contribut-
ing the  costly  trifles  of  their  jewel-drawers  to  the  cause,  besides
huge  packets  of  the  paper-money  of  the   period.     Mrs.  Jefterson,
the  gentle  wife  of  the  governor,  was  active  in  the  work.     Among  the
Gates  papers  in  the  priceless  collection  of  the  New- York  Historical
Society,  is  a  letter  in  the  neatest,  firmest  hand,  which  she  wrote  to  a
friend  at  this  time,  —  the  only  scrap  of  her  writing,  perhaps,  that  has
iped  the  privacy  in  which  her  life  was  passed :  —


Richmond,  Aug.  8,  1780.
