William Cabell, Jr. in the Revolution
A Virginia home-front leader, militia major, and organizer of men and supplies during the critical 1781 campaign
William Cabell Jr. (born March 25, 1759) belonged to the generation of Virginians who entered adulthood as the Revolution shifted from distant headlines to immediate local crisis. The second son of William Cabell Sr. and Margaret Jordan, he studied at the College of William & Mary from May 1779 to September 1780 and served as treasurer of the Phi Beta Kappa Society while there.
Early war context and a first attempt to join the army (1780)
By late 1780, Cabell—then twenty—set out to join the army, inspired in part by the example of his older brother Samuel Jordan Cabell, who had already served in the Continental Army for several years and had earned recognition for his leadership. On November 3, 1780, William Cabell Jr. left home “to join the army below on account of the present invasion.” With the immediate danger passing, he returned home about two weeks later.
Marriage and a turn toward sustained service in Virginia (1781)
On November 18, 1780, he traveled to Col. Paul Carrington’s to marry Carrington’s daughter, Nancy. Soon after, his Revolutionary contributions became steady and practical—focused on mobilizing people, protecting supplies, and enabling Virginia’s war effort during the year the fighting most directly threatened the state.
On January 30, 1781, Cabell began assisting his father in carrying out Virginia’s supply measures—securing clothing, provisions, and wagons for the army—and he remained engaged in this public service through the close of the Yorktown campaign and Cornwallis’s surrender, performing the procurement and coordination that proved essential in 1781, when military success often depended on how quickly communities could feed, clothe, and transport men.
Militia leadership: a major in Amherst County
Alongside supply work, Cabell carried militia responsibility. He qualified as a Major of the Amherst County Militia of the Lower Battalion at the June Court 1781. , and aligns with the moment when his correspondence and responsibilities show him acting in urgent public service—raising men, securing arms, guarding stores, and preparing to march.
June 1781: protecting arms and stores—and marching to Lafayette
The pressure on Amherst County (and the surrounding region) intensified in June 1781. On June 9, Col. Hugh Rose, the county lieutenant, wrote Cabell on “Public Service,” warning that supply depots near Scottsville were in real danger. Rose directed Cabell to quickly assemble militia assigned to duty, recruit volunteers nearby, meet an expected shipment of 200–300 muskets at Key’s Gap, and guard the stores until reinforcements arrived, asking him to report intelligence on enemy movement.
Cabell succeeded in raising a substantial force. A surviving roster lists five captains, six lieutenants, three ensigns, and 277 non-commissioned officers and privates—and it is endorsed: “March to join the army commanded by the Honorable Major-General the Marquis de la Fayette.”
By mid-July, Cabell was back in Amherst on “public service.” Col. Rose pressed him to keep men turning out—ordering officers to punish no-shows, arrest deserters, and call up replacements so the battalion could continue to furnish relief detachments as needed. Taken together, the record presents William Cabell Jr. as a wartime leader whose service was defined less by a single battlefield moment and more by steady responsibility in Virginia’s most dangerous year: supplying the army, mobilizing militia, protecting arms and stores, and raising men to march in support of Lafayette—continuing in service “until the surrender of Cornwallis.”
Landon Cabell (1765-1833) in the Revolutionary War
16 year old student at The College of William and Mary in 1781 when tradition holds he joined the William & Mary College Company led by his Uncle Col. Joseph Cabell.
Joseph Cabell, Jr. (1762-1831) in the Revolutionary War
19 year old student at The College of William and Mary in 1781 when tradition holds he joined the William & Mary College Company led by his father, Col. Joseph Cabell.
Works Consulted
- Brown, Alexander. The Cabells and their Kin: A Memorial Volume of History, Biography, and Genealogy. Richmond, Va.: Garrett and Massie, Inc., 1939. First published 1895.
- Nance, Joanne Lovelace. “Revolutionary War Minute Men.” Magazine of Virginia Genealogy 31, no. 4 (November 1993).