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Military
service was a duty of every able-bodied male in the colonies and Charles Lynch
served in several posts. He became a member of the Bedford County Committee of Safety
in 1775.
Committee of Safety
Committees
of Safety were established in each country to enforce a boycott on trade with
England ordered by the Continental Congress in 1774. These committees were made up of the most experienced and reputable men
in the country. In Virginia, the
lengthening war necessitated expanding the Committee of Safety’s power. In 1775 the Virginia Convention reaffirmed the committee’s supremacy in
military affairs and assigned it greater economic power than any Virginia
government had ever enjoyed before. The
Virginia Convention granted the Committee the authority to establish public
powder mills, let contracts for the manufacture of munitions, and ration
saltpeter and sulphur. In addition,
they were empowered to appoint sheriffs who had previously been named by the
governor. The Committee of Safety
also put down any pro-British sentiment and organized the country for military
defense.
Militia
The
largest segment of resistance in this area was the militia. It was operated by and under the Committee of Safety and the County
Lieutenant. Every militiaman had to furnish himself with a good rifle or
tomahawk, common firelock, bayonet, pouch or cartouch box and three charges of
powder and ball.
The
Committee of Safety made great demands on the militia. Most militia men were farmers with large families to support and taxes to
pay. Besides rendering service in the military field, they were
called upon to contribute food, cthing, and other supplies to troops in the
south and in the north. Their
frequent drafts into service, when the crops were at a critical stage of growth,
greatly disrupted the economic stability of the county and caused real suffering
in many households.
Charles
Lynch served in the Bedford County militia, and was made a Colonel in 1779.
He retained this commission when Campbell County was formed from Bedford
County in 1782, until peace with Great Britain was established in 1783.
It
is noted in the court record books that Lynch aided the army by furnishing
supplies, teams, and guns. He also
provided guns to citizens for defense against Indians along the frontiers.
Gunpowder
Virginians had
depended on Great Britain almost totally for manufactured goods but when the war
ended importation there was an urgent need to find substitutes for British
supplies, particularly gunpowder. Previously
reliant on imports of gun powder from the West Indies and Europe, colonists had
to find other means to produce this vital commodity. Men began experimenting with homemade recipes on their farms.
Together with Benjamin Clement, a neighbor who lived at
Clement Hill on the south side of the Staunton River, Charles Lynch perfected a
way of making gunpowder utilizing the saltpeter he had discovered in the caves
of Montgomery County. Thomas
Jefferson reported on this in his Notes on the State of Virginia.
An issue of the
Virginia
Gazette, published in Williamsburg June 16, 1775, carried Colonel Lynch’s
statement, “I wish for no more credit than I deserve… Mr. Benjamin Clement
(Capt.
Clement of Pittsylvania County) is a partner with me and the first who attempted
to make it… . Since our
partnership, we have brought it to such perfection with saltpeter of our own
making, that the riflemen approve of it and with the mill we now have, we can
make 50 lb. Weight in a day.”
In the November 20, 1775 issue of the
Virginia Gazette, Lynch wrote that some people were using the
sweepings of smokehouses to obtain saltpeter to be used in making gunpowder, but
that he himself had found a small deposit of the same on the west side of Reedy
River Island.
Superintendent
of Lead Mines
Virginia had been
successful in the production of lead and at the beginning of the war took
possession of the Montgomery County lead mines (near present day Austinville in
Wythe County) on the New River. Charles
Lynch was laced in charge of the mines (1777-1787) and the distribution of its
products which were an important source for the manufacture of ammunition.
The lead was mined by slaves and guarded by the militia because this
resource was an attractive target to the British.
Tories
Not all Americans struggled on
the side of independence. The
British sympathizers were known as Tories. Local Tories plotted to capture the Montgomery County lead mines, the
Oxford Iron Works (east of Lynchburg) which furnished iron for casting ordnance,
and the New London Arsenal. The
plan also involved setting free 4,000 British and German soldiers being held in
Charlottesville. The plot was
uncovered and Colonel Charles Lynch, with neighbors Colonel James Callaway,
Captain Robert Adams, Jr., and Colonel William Preston of Montgomery County, who
controlled the patriot forces in the area, suppressed the conspiracy together
with citizens and detachments of volunteers from other parts of the state.
Tory acts of sabotage increased.
They circulated counterfeit money, destroyed property, burned
homes, and poisoned horses pulling ammunition wagons. To put an end to these actions, Lynch, Callaway, and Adams
formed a local court at Green Level to try suspected Tories. If found guilty, tradition says they received swift
punishment, nine and thirty lashes on the bare back, but never received the
death penalty. In 1782 the General
Assembly upheld Lynch’s court and endorsed its decisions.
Battle of Guilford Courthouse
During the later years of
the Revolution, Colonel Charles Lynch took an active part in the war and, at the
request of Thomas Jefferson, commanded a regiment of riflemen to and General Nathaniel
Greene against the British approach led by Cornwallis in North
Carolina. In the Battle of Guilford Courthouse on March 15, 1781, Lynch
and his riflemen helped protect Greene’s right flank. “Noble was the stand made by the Virginia Militia,” wrote
General Light Horse Harry Lee in his memoirs of the Southern campaign. After the British victory Cornwallis retreated to eastern North Carolina
and Greene followed him for a short time before making the decision to move
southward to South Carolina. It is
reported that Lynch stayed with General Greene’s army in South Carolina until
the fighting ended in October 1781.
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