Everyone knows Paul Revere's ride. Almost nobody knows Jack Jouett's. His was longer, harder, and he saved Thomas Jefferson.
June 1781. The war had come to Virginia hard. Cornwallis was tearing through the state, and Virginia's government, including Gov. Thomas Jefferson, had fled Richmond and moved to Charlottesville. Cornwallis saw a chance to end the rebellion in Virginia in one night. He sent Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton, the most feared cavalry officer in America, with about 250 horsemen to ride to Charlottesville and capture the governor and the whole legislature in their beds.
On the night of June 3, Tarleton's column passed the Cuckoo Tavern in Louisa County. Sitting there was a 26 year old militia captain named Jack Jouett. He was about 6'4", rode a fast horse, and knew the country better than anyone. He watched the green-coated dragoons go by and figured out where they were headed.
Tarleton had the main road. So Jouett took the back trails. Around 40 miles through the woods, in the dark, on paths so overgrown that branches tore up his face. Accounts say he carried those scars the rest of his life.
He beat Tarleton by hours. Tarleton helped him without knowing it, stopping along the way to burn wagons and grab a few prominent men from their homes.
Around dawn on June 4, Jouett rode up the mountain to Monticello and woke Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, cool as ever, reportedly offered him a glass of Madeira. Then he got his family out, gathered up papers, and stayed longer than he should have. He rode off into the woods just before the British got to his door.
Jouett didn't stop at Monticello. He rode down into Charlottesville and warned the legislators, many of them staying at the Swan Tavern, which belonged to his own father. They scrambled out of town and fled over the mountains to Staunton. Tarleton arrived to find most of the government gone. He caught only seven legislators. One of them was Daniel Boone.
There's a story that Jouett, wearing a fancy scarlet coat and a plumed hat, helped one wounded general, Edward Stevens, get away by drawing the dragoons after himself while Stevens, dressed plain, slipped off on a slow horse. The British chased the man who looked important.
Think about what he stopped. If Tarleton had grabbed Jefferson and the Virginia legislature that morning, the author of the Declaration of Independence would have been a prisoner, maybe sent to England, and Virginia's government would have collapsed in the middle of the war.
Virginia's legislature voted him a sword and a pair of pistols as thanks. He moved west to Kentucky, helped push for Kentucky statehood, and served in its legislature. His son Matthew became one of the best portrait painters in early America.
Revere got the poem. Jouett got almost forgotten. He deserves better.