Forces commanded by Charles Cornwallis, William Phillips, and Benedict Arnold, destroyed about 10,000 hogsheads of cured tobacco leaf.

[2] The British wanted to win in the southern colonies by causing steep economic losses.

This complemented existing efforts by the Royal Navy to seize shipments of tobacco leaving American ports.

[5] The troops led by Phillips burned about 8,000 hogsheads of tobacco in Petersburg, Manchester, Blandford, and Osborne.

Some of the scorched tobacco fields and 30 of the freed slaves[7] belonged to Jefferson, who wrote that it was a "useless and barbarous injury".