August Events in Virginia

August 1

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August 2

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August 3

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August 4

- Robert Carter, land agent for Lord Fairfax's proprietary land grant, died. Lord Fairfax did not authorize anyone to issue new grants for four years, until he physically came to see his property in 1736.

August 5

- Gerald Ford signs a law restoring the citizenship of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, 1975. Lee signed the Oath of Allegiance in Lexingon on October 2, 1865, after his inauguration as President of Washington College - but then the "paperwork was lost" in the Federal bureaucracy.

August 6

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August 7

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August 8

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August 9

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August 10

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August 11

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August 12

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August 13

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August 14

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August 15

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August 16

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August 17

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August 18

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August 19

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August 20

- The Wheeling Convention passed the ordinance for creating West Virginia in 1861. In 1863, when Congress accepted West Virginia into the Union, the boundaries had shifted eastward to incorporate the border counties from Mercer to Morgan into West Virginia. In 1871, the Supreme Court ruled that Berkeley and Jefferson counties had been added legally to West Virginia.

August 21

- Nat Turner's Rebellion started in Southampton County, resulting in the death of approximately 55 men, women, and children between August 21-23. Turner claimed in his Confessions that, at one point, "Our number amounted now to fifty or sixty, all mounted and armed with guns, axes, swords and clubs..." (1831)

August 22

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August 23

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August 24

- The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are taken from the State Department just ahead of the invading British army, who will end up burning the "White House." The national documents are carried across Chain Bridge to a gristmill at Pimmitt Run, then left overnight in the Littlejohn House in Leesburg. (Later, they are stored at Rokeby Manor in Leesburg, before finally being returned to DC.) President Madison flees to Salona, home of William Maffitt in today's McLean, where he planned to meet Dolley Madison - who brought Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington from the Executive Mansion. Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail (see pp.28-31 of the National Historic Trail Feasibility Study and Draft Environmental Impact Statement

August 25

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August 26

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August 27

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August 28

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August 29

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August 30

- Gabriel Prosser reportedly planned to launch a major slave insurrection, starting in Henrico County north of Richmond and moving to capture Governor James Monroe and the State Capitol (and including plans to capture Petersburg and Norfolk). However, a thunderstorm blocked the slaves from travelling on the local roads to assemble, and the plot was revealed before the "rain date" of August 31.

August 31

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