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John Long

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From the RoundTable blog

Imagine a world in which you live on a frontier farm you carved out of the wilderness. Imagine that threats abound. To the west, hostile Shawnee warriors raid your neighbors and carry them off captive, never to be seen again. And to the east, an oppressive British governor tries to tax and legislate your independent spirit into submission.

You'd be imagining a world in which pioneer, patriot and great Virginian Andrew Lewis never existed.

Lewis, the intrepid Revolutionary War general who resided in his later years in modern-day Salem, has been left in the historical shadows for too long. It's time to bring him out and pay tribute to a forgotten Founding Father.

Andrew Lewis was born in 1720 in Ireland, but emigrated to the Virginia wilderness as a boy. Growing up on the frontier necessitated learning to fight, and Lewis became an experienced soldier in the militia of Augusta County. He served admirably in the French and Indian War alongside a man who would become a good friend: Col. George Washington. Afterward he was a leader in the Staunton region.

It was likely an act of political courage that brought him to the Roanoke Valley. In 1765, Lewis granted passage through the county to a group of friendly Cherokee. But some local ruffians, apparently mistaking them for hostile Shawnee, assaulted the group and killed five. Lewis arrested the ringleader, but soon thereafter a mob broke him out of jail and publicly announced that no white man would stand trial for killing a red man.

Lewis' attempt to enforce justice resulted in a price being put on his head. Soon afterward, he (with friend William Fleming) moved to the Roanoke Valley, away from those who would kill them. Lewis and Fleming became leaders, helping organize Botetourt County in 1770.

It was in 1774 that Lewis played his greatest role in Virginia history. Shawnee warriors were attacking frontier homesteads in western Virginia, and the deprecations were becoming intolerable. Lord Dunmore, British governor of Virginia, ordered Lewis, the most experienced frontier fighter in the west, to take a force of men to the Ohio River and end the threat.

Lewis and his army marched to modern-day Point Pleasant (now West Virginia) and camped to await Dunmore and a force of British regular troops, who never showed up. While waiting, the Virginians were attacked by a Shawnee force under legendary Chief Cornstalk. By the end of the day, Lewis had won the crucial Battle of Point Pleasant, and the Shawnee would never again threaten the Virginia frontier.

This was important, because the Revolution was just around the corner. Had Virginia had to defend the Ohio frontier and fight the British, the division of forces may have led to defeat; if Virginia fell, the rest of the rebellious colonies likely would have too. Independence could have become a lost cause.

But that's not all Lewis did to secure Virginia's future. In 1776, within days of declaring our independence, Lewis again led men into battle. At Gwynn's Island in Mathews County, Lewis' troops evicted Dunmore and his Tory supporters from the newly independent commonwealth. Thus it was Lewis who secured the Virginia frontier from Indian attack and chased out the last British royal governor -- not a bad record for a local boy.

In fact, legend holds that Washington, when offered command of the Continental Army, had humbly suggested the honor go to Lewis.

Yet few today know his name, or if they know it from the Salem school or the stretch of Interstate 81 named for him, they probably don't know his full significance. So obscure is he that an old statue of him in Richmond is usually mistaken for explorer Meriwether Lewis. His contemporaries Washington, Thomas Jefferson or Patrick Henry, are household names. Andrew Lewis deserves to be as well.

A ceremony next Monday in Richmond will help rectify this historical anonymity. A bust of Andrew Lewis donated by the Salem Education Foundation and others will be dedicated at the State Capitol. The bust is only a guess at his appearance -- no contemporary images of the general survive. Nevertheless, it's high time Lewis, who more than most made our commonwealth what it became, emerge from the mists of the past and claim his place among other heroes of Virginia.

Long, a Roanoke Times columnist, is director of the Salem Museum and teaches history at Roanoke College.