Henry Patrick - Patrick Henry

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ALSO BY JON KUKLA

A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America

Mr. Jeffersons Women

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Copyright 2017 by Jon Kukla

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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition July 2017

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Interior design by Paul Dippolito

Jacket design by Jim Tierney

Jacket art: Dodge, Mary Mapes St. Nicholas an Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks (New York, New York: The Century Co., 1886)/Clipart etc. Florida Center for Instructional Technology, College of Education, University of South Florida.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kukla, Jon, 1948 author.

Title: Patrick Henry : champion of liberty / Jon Kukla.

Description: New York : Simon and Schuster, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016027735| ISBN 9781439190814 | ISBN 143919081X

Subjects: LCSH: Henry, Patrick, 17361799. | GovernorsVirginiaBiography. | LegislatorsVirginiaBiography. | VirginiaHistoryRevolution, 17751783.

Classification: LCC E302.6.H5 K86 2017 | DDC 973.3092 [B] dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016027735

ISBN 978-1-4391-9081-4

ISBN 978-1-4391-9083-8 (ebook)

Frontispiece art: Dodge, Mary Mapes St. Nicholas an Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks (New York, New York: The Century Co., 1886)/Clip Art Etc. Florida Center for Instructional Technology, College of Education, University of South Florida.

For Sandy

IN 1882 HENRY ADAMS, one of Americas great historians and certainly the finest writer among them, offered a distinct opinion about how to write a biography of Patrick Henryan opinion directly informed by his own experience. Although a Philadelphia publisher had just issued the twenty-third edition of William Wirts Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry since its original appearance in 1817, Henry Adams demanded something better. Henrys life is still unwritten, Adams declared in a letter to editor John T. Morse, Jr., as indeed is the case with all the Virginians except G.W.and one other.

Adams could also except John Randolph of Roanoke, whose life can now be read in the biography that he had just published in the American Statesman series, which Morse edited for Houghton, Mifflin and Companythough neither man was happy with the books presentation of Patrick Henrys eccentric Charlotte County neighbor. Randolph himself caused one of the books problems. The acidity is much too decided, Adams lamented, even if its tone had really been determined by the subject and the excess of acid is his. The other problem Adams attributed to his biography of John Randolph was his own identity as the Boston-born great-grandson of President John Adams and grandson of President John Quincy Adams. A man who really understood his material could do a great deal with Patrick Henry, Adams suggested, but he ought to be a Virginian and a hard studentit needs a Virginian to write of Virginia, if he would write the truth.

To be sure, several good books about Patrick Henry have appeared in the century and a third since the great historian declared that Henrys life was still unwritten, but there is some truth in the qualifications Adams highlighted. A Wisconsin-born author may be forgiven for supposing that Henry Adams had something more in mind than geographic place of birth when he advocated a Virginian and a hard studenteven if the Badger State had still been a part of the Old Dominion during Henrys first three terms as governor of the commonwealth. By testing everything against the best available primary sources, this book attempts to avoid the accumulated errors that mar many previous biographies. Many newly discovered sources provide fresh insights about Henry and his times. Finally, a greater appreciation of the social and political contexts of Henrys activities enriches this narrative of his life and career. If a historian who has devoted four decades to the study of Virginia counts as a hard student, then perhaps these pages can provide a fresh approximation of the truth about Patrick Henry. Toward that end, as Henry Adams counseled, an author can only do his best.

Jon Kukla

Richmond, Virginia

AFTER SWALLOWING A DOSE of liquid mercury on Thursday morning, June 6, 1799, Patrick Henry sat calmly near a window at the northeast corner of his modest house in Charlotte County, Virginia. As he pondered the blood congealing under his fingernails, Henry whispered words of comfort to his wife and children and waited for the mercury to cure him or kill him.

Henry was sixty-three. He had been seriously ill since early April, when he described his symptoms to physician George Cabell, of Lynchburg, as something like the Gravel. Kidney stones large and small the stone and the gravel were common afflictions in the eighteenth century, painful or annoying but rarely fatal. Pharmacy ads in the Virginia Gazette touted cures and treatments such as tincture of goldenrod, Blackries Lixivium, and Swinsens Electuary for the Stone and Gravel.

By the first of June, Dr. Cabells diagnosis was more grim. Henry was now suffering from a life-threatening intestinal obstruction called intussusception. Part of his intestine had telescoped into itself, blocking the digestive tract. Infection and death were imminent unless the blockage could be relieved. The remedy was risky. With luck the weight of a large dose of liquid mercury, which is 20 percent heavier than lead, might unravel the intestinal knot, pass through his bowels, and save Henrys life. If the blockage persisted, however, Henrys body would absorb the mercury, the muscles of his chest would fail, and he would die by suffocation.