North Carolina Office of Archives and History

Carter Braxton, Virginia Signer: A Conservative in Revolt by Alonzo Thomas DillReview by: George W. TroxlerThe North Carolina Historical Review, Vol. 61, No. 1 (January 1984), pp. 115-116Published by: North Carolina Office of Archives and HistoryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23518439 .

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Book Reviews 115

A Richmond Reader, 1733-1983. Edited by Maurice Duke and Daniel P. Jordan. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983. Frontispiece, preface, introduction, illustrations, appendix, sources, index, acknowlegments. Pp. xxii,

446. $19.95.)

Louis D. Rubin, Jr., states in his introduction to this book, edited by two professors from Virginia Commonwealth University, that the volume

is "not merely a Richmond reader, but a Richmond treasury." He is right. This remarkable city on the James, like some stubborn Faulknerian

character, has endured. Rarely has it been served so well as in this collec

tion of documentary and literary sources painstakingly and impartially

compiled by the editors, with each entry preceded by a concise, know

ledgeable introduction. The editors have arranged the book chronologically and in two sec

tions, the first containing forty eyewitness accounts of various events

and ethnic groups in the city's history from its founding by William Byrd in 1733 to the present; and the second part consisting of sketches of

Richmond's leading personalities from John Marshall to its first black

mayor, Henry L. Marsh III. It would have been more appropriate to inte

grate these biographical vignettes with the eyewitness accounts to pro vide better continuity for the volume and to enable the reader to place the

particular figure in his or her proper historical milieu.

The organizational problem aside, the book is a professional work that

will serve as a valuable resource for research into one of the South's most

important cities. The portrait that emerges, especially from the eyewit ness accounts, is a city with initially grand pretensions. Buoyed with

hope and promise during the antebellum years and the early stages of the

Civil War, it sank in tragedy and destruction at war's end; rose again,

promising yet diminished in significance and potential; then suffered a

not-so-graceful decline beginning in the 1920s, compounded by racial dif

ficulties in the post-World War II era. Finally, the editors portray a city with hope for a modest resurrection in the 1980s. It is the story of any American city but more especially of a southern city.

Daniel P. Jordan's excellent annotated bibliography concludes an at

tractive book.

University of North Carolina at Charlotte David R. Goldfield

Carter Braxton, Virginia Signer: A Conservative in Revolt. By Alonzo Thomas

Dill. (Washington: University Press of America, 1983. Frontispiece, acknowl

edgments, preface, footnotes, index. Pp. xii, 284. Paper, $12.95; cloth, $23.50.)

Carter Braxton was born in King and Queen County, Virginia, in 1736

and named for his maternal grandfather, Robert or "King" Carter, one of

Virginia's wealthiest planters. Braxton was intermittently a member of

the Virginia Assembly and of the Council of State from 1761 until his

death in 1797. He served in the state's Revolutionary conventions

between 1774 and 1776 and in the Continental Congress in 1776. In 1785

VOLUME LX1, NUMBER 1, JANUARY. 19X4

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116 Book Reviews

as chairman of the Virginia House Committee of Commerce, he played a

significant role in the call for the Annapolis Convention. Braxton aligned himself with the conservative tidewater merchant

planters and against the more radical Lee-Henry alliance from the North ern Neck and western Virginia. In the years prior to independence Brax ton supported greater autonomy in the empire while opposing separation. He was elected to the Continental Congress in October, 1775, and took his seat in February, 1776. Braxton served until August when the Lee faction

deprived both Braxton and fellow conservative Benjamin Harrison of their seats by reducing the size of the Virginia delegation. The author notes that while Braxton was accused of lingering "British prejudices," he not only voted for independence in Congress but also played an active role in the formation of an independent Virginia government.

Dill gives careful attention to Braxton's role as a merchant and sup plier of goods to the Revolutionary forces. During the war he supplied state and Continental forces on commission by continuing his prewar trade and mercantile activities. Braxton purchased tobacco in Virginia and shipped it to the Caribbean and Europe in his own ships, which returned with needed supplies. Dill discredits accusations of wartime

profiteering made by Braxton's enemies. Instead of reaping unreasonable

profits, Braxton sustained heavy losses from which he never recovered.

Barely escaping debtors' prison, he spent the last years of his life in a rented town house in Richmond. At his death the compassionate local sheriff was withholding court orders against Braxton for nonpayment of debts.

Understanding of the Revolutionary period is enhanced by careful stud ies of middle-echelon leaders like Braxton who were involved in the details of state government, military supply, and wartime trade. This is the first published biography of Carter Braxton, a task rendered more difficult by the absence of an easily accessible collection of personal pa pers. Dill's research is impressive. He consulted a wide range of scattered

manuscript and printed sources and produced a definitive biography. Dill, as readers of his Governor Tryon and His Palace will attest, writes in a crisp, clear style. He provides ample background for those unfamiliar with congressional politics and the genealogy of Virginia's first families. While careful to avoid overinflating Braxton's achievements, Dill's study will force a reassessment of Braxton's role in Virginia's Revolutionary history.

Elon College George W. Troxler

Revolutionary Virginia: The Road to Independence. Volume VII: Independence and the Fifth Convention, 1776: A Documentary Record. Compiled and edited by Brent Tarter and Robert L. Scribner. (Charlottesville: University Press of

Virginia, 1983. Part One: Frontispiece, preface, apparatus, chronology, appen dix, additional documents. Pp. xxvi, 415. Part Two: Frontispiece, apparatus, chronology, appendix, index. Pp. xviii, 440. Set, $50.00.)

THE NORTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL REVIEW

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