Lafayette had conceived that the capital of Virginia would be the principal object of the enemy's attack. Richmond was filled with magazines; its pillage would have proved fatal to the cause. Lafayette marched thither with such rapidity, that when General Phillips, arriving before Richmond, learnt that Lafayette had arrived there the night before, he would not believe it. Having ascertained, however, the truth of the report, he dared not attack the heights of Richmond. Lafayette had a convoy to send to the southern states; he reconnoitred Petersburg carefully. This threatened attack assembled the English, and whilst the removing of cannon, and other preparations for an assault, amused them, the convoy was sent off rapidly with the munition and clothes which General Greene required. After the death of General Phillips, who died that same day, Arnold wrote, by a flag of truce, to Lafayette, who refused to receive his letter. He sent for the English officer, and, with many expressions of respect for the British army, told him that he could not consent to hold any correspondence with its present general. This refusal gave great pleasure to General Washington and the public, and placed Arnold in an awkward situation with his own army.
Lord Cornwallis, on entering Virginia by Carolina, got rid of all his equipage, and did the same also respecting the heavy baggage of the army under his orders. Lafayette placed himself under the same regimen, and, during the whole of that campaign, the two armies slept without any shelter, and only carried absolute necessaries with them. Upon that active and decisive conflict the issue of the war was to depend; for if the English, who bore all the force of the campaign on that point, became masters of Virginia, not only the army of Lafayette, but also that of Greene, who drew from thence all his resources,--and not only Virginia, but all the states south of the Chesapeake, would inevitably be lost. Thus the letters of the commander-in-chief, whilst telling Lafayette that he did not deceive himself as to the difficulties of the undertaking, merely requested him to prolong as much as possible the defence of the state. The result was far more successful than any person had dared to hope, at a period when all eyes and all thoughts were directed towards that one decisive point.