Virginia was preparing for war when Henry rode home from the First Continental Congress in September 1774. “Every county is now arming a company of men whom they call an independent company,” Royal Governor Lord Dunmore wrote to the secretary of state for the colonies on Christmas Eve. In fact, almost every state was arming or planning to do so. Maryland had resolved two weeks earlier to organize a militia to eliminate the need for protection by regular British troops. Delaware followed suit two weeks later, and in early January, George Washington took command of the hundred-man Fairfax Independent Company in Alexandria—Virginia’s first such force. When Henry reached Scotchtown after the Continental Congress, he learned that his wife had attempted suicide during his absence and had deteriorated into deep depression. His oldest daughter, Martha, and her husband, John Fontaine, who had been caring for the five younger Henry children, had brought the entire brood to Scotchtown for the Christmas holidays in hopes of lifting Sarah Henry’s spirits.
