General William Phillips was in command of all British forces in Virginia when he died at Petersburg from a fever in May, 1781
Source: National Army Museum, Lieutenant-Colonel William Phillips, 1764 (c)
General William Phillips was in command of all British forces in Virginia when he died at Petersburg from a fever in May, 1781
Source: National Army Museum, Lieutenant-Colonel William Phillips, 1764 (c)
There is a monument in Petersburg honoring a general who fought for the "enemy" (the British) during the Revolutionary War.
General William Phillips led a portion of the British army that marched from Canada into New York in 1777. He forced the surrender of Fort Ticonderoga, by careful placement of cannon on a hill where the Americans thought would be impossible to fortify.
General Phillips surrendered himself at Saratoga with the rest of Burgoyne's army, after that British invasion failed. He was imprisoned at Charlottesville and socialized with Thomas Jefferson before being sent to New York. He was exchanged in 1780 for General Benjamin Lincoln, the highest ranking prisoner in British custody. Lincon was commander of the Continental Army in Charles Town when it was captured by the British.1
As an exchanged (rather than paroled) officer, he was entitled to resume his role in the British Army. Sir Henry Clinton in New York sent Phillips to command in Virginia in 1781. He superseded Benedict Arnold, who had captured Richmond and brought British forces back to their base at Portsmouth before Phillips arrived.
General Phillips renewed the offensive in order to disrupt the delivery of troops and supplies that were going south from Virginia to American forces in South Carolina. He captured Williamsburg and then Petersburg. He had left Petersburg and planned to occupy Richmond, but while at Manchester he learned that General Lafayette had arrived with Continental Army troops in the capital city.
General Phillips chose to return to Portsmouth. He was with his army sailing down the James River when a message arrived around May 6 from Lord Cornwallis. It directed him to bring his British forces to Petersburg.
While on the ship, Phillips became seriously ill from typhus, typhoid, or malaria. He was carried in a stretcher to Bollingbrook, the home of Mary Bolling. It had been his headquarters earlier after capturing the city. He died in Petersburg at Bollingbrook on May 13, 1781.
General Phillips was buried in the cemetery of Blandford Church. The burial was secret and the grave unmarked, so American rebels could not desecrate the body or even dig it up for display in an undignified manner. Benedict Arnold resumed command of the British forces that had invaded Virginia, until Lord Cornwallis arrived.2
In 1914, 133 years later, a chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution installed a monument at the Blandford Church graveyard. The stone was inscribed with:3
The first monument to commemorate a military event in the United States is located in Massachusetts. That monument was erected at the Lexington Battle Green in 1799, where the "shots heard 'round the world" were fired in 1775 to trigger the military phase of the American Revolution.
The second oldest war memorial is also associated with the Revolutionary War. It is a marker, erected in 1815, thought to document the graves of four American officers and Col. Patrick Ferguson, the British officer in charge of the Tory forces defeated at Kings Mountain on October 7, 1780. Because the inscription is so eroded, a second monument with the same words was erected next to it in 1914.. It reads:4
a monument at Kings Mountain in South Carolina commemorates the leader of Tory forces who was defeated by the Overmountain Men from Tennessee, the Carolinas, and Virginia on October 7, 1780
a monument at Kings Mountain in South Carolina, the second-oldest war memorial in the United States, has a 1914 version whose inscription is legible