The Richard Blackburn journal includes an account of his journey from Virginia, through Pittsburgh, to Lexington, Kentucky, from March 26-May 3, 1789. The journal consists of brief entries describing the course of travel, the landscape and towns, and occasionally the people he encountered. Included are interesting descriptions of Marietta, Ohio, and other small settlements along the Ohio River established by Revolutionary War veterans from the Virginia Line, as well as descriptions of Lexington, Kentucky. Blackburn stopped writing in the journal before departing Lexington for New Orleans.
The copybook portion of the journal includes over ninety copies of letters written by Blackburn to military officials. Many of the letters from Dumfries and Fort Washington are concerned with administrative matters, often provisioning, but a few from Georgia document special military discipline problems posed by life on the frontier and the proximity of the border with Spain. In his first two months at Fort Washington, Blackburn lost 10 men to Florida by desertion.
Richard Scott Blackburn was born around 1760 in Prince William, Virginia, to Thomas Blackburn and Christina Scott Blackburn. He was married to Judith Ball in 1781. As captain of the 1st Regiment of Artillery and Engineers, he left Winchester, Virginia, on March 26th, 1789, to join General James Wilkinson on his second trip to New Orleans. The goal of the trip was to gain the favor of Governor Esteban Miro, and solidify the trading monopoly Wilkinson had won two years previously. Traveling by way of the Youghiogheny and Ohio Rivers, Blackburn met with Wilkinson in Lexington, Kentucky, on April 21st, and from there proceeded to New Orleans.
From 1799 through June 1801, Blackburn was posted at Dumfries, Virginia, but in June 1801, was transferred to the border outpost at Fort Washington, Georgia, on the St. Mary's River, which formed the border with Spanish Florida. There, Blackburn had to contend with unusual discipline problems posed by an overabundance of rum and an international border that proved tempting to soldiers wishing to desert in order to avoid punishment. To make matters worse, Fort Washington was also, according to Blackburn, underprovisioned: "Troops of Frontier stations remote from the Seat of Government, will always be made to suffer, in order to fill the Pockets of those Blood Hounds [contractors]." Blackburn was promoted to major in April 1803, and died the following November.
