When author and journalist Andrew Lawler was growing up, history wasn’t in books, it was what his family did on weekends. Apart from Appomattox, there isn’t a colonial or Civil War battlefield site in Virginia that the family didn’t visit.

Williamsburg, Yorktown, and Jamestown were as familiar as Lawler’s own home.

“My grandparents would see an old house and shamelessly knock on the door to ask for a tour,” he recalls. “When we spoke of the author of the Declaration of Independence, it was of Mr. Jefferson.”

Lawler’s latest book, “A Perfect Frenzy: A Royal Governor, His Black Allies, and the Crisis that Spurred the American Revolution” explores the little-known story of the early American Revolution in Virginia, focusing on Lord Dunmore, an earl and the colony’s royal governor.  Lawler comes to the Library of Virginia to discuss the book as part of the library’s programming commemorating Virginia’s role in the 250th anniversary of American independence.

After writing a piece on Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment a few years ago, Lawler realized that much of what he’d been taught was either incomplete or inaccurate. The earl was not the villain he’d learned of as a child. Using his journalistic instincts to probe the historical record, Lawler discovered a history radically different from the expected tale of good guys versus bad guys.

He spent three years pulling the story together, probing archives in Scotland and England as well as the U.S. He found himself going down multiple rabbit holes to unearth more, learning of the earl’s youth fighting for Bonnie Prince Charlie in the 1745 rebellion against King George II and the important role played by the Shawnee and other indigenous tribes as the Revolution gathered force.

Readers may be surprised to learn the full story of the crisis that spurred the revolution. While New Englanders were upset about taxes on tea, elite Virginians in 1775 were far more focused on King George III’s refusal to allow them to own land west of the Appalachians. People like George Washington wanted indigenous lands in the Ohio Valley, but Britain wanted to avoid an expensive war.

With the prospect of owning more land, Virginia’s conservative gentry considered the radical step of independence. “And Dunmore’s move to free their enslaved workers felt to them like a dagger to their social and economic well-being,” Lawler says. “The liberty of others was a threat to their own notion of freedom.”

As for how it could be that Lord Dunmore had Black allies at that time, Lawler says it’s as simple as war making odd bedfellows. Dunmore was a slave-owning member of the gentry, but with British troops based in Boston, he needed a local army to fight the patriots. “Four out of ten Virginians were enslaved, and eager to gain their liberty,” he says. “So, both had an interest in allying with the other to defeat the rebels. And they very nearly succeeded.”

Lawler’s most moving – and disturbing – research moment came when he opened a box in the Library of Virginia that contained heartrending depositions made by eyewitnesses to the burning of Norfolk on Jan. 1, 1776. They describe patriot soldiers ruthlessly and intentionally burning the town, forcing women in labor from their beds, setting pharmacies aflame, and looting the homes of the elderly. “It was all so awful, made worse by the fact that this truth was intentionally covered up by patriot leaders,” he says. “It’s high time we face up to such ugly realities of the conflict.”

On a lighter note, Lawler found it a treat to research in the archives of Blair Castle, the ancient home of the earl’s Murray clan. He’s hoping the Internal Revenue Service understands why he wrote off his return trip on the Queen Mary. “It was the only way I could gain a feeling for what Dunmore experienced crossing the Atlantic in 1770,” he says. “My ship was bigger, but I bet his cabin was more spacious.”

Through extensive research, Lawler learned that his childhood villain was anything but the incompetent and brutal drunk of patriot propaganda. Worse, that caricature had long been accepted as fact by historians. In truth, Dunmore was incredibly well educated and had hobnobbed in Scotland with well-known intellectuals such as James Boswell, Adam Smith and David Hume.

When he arrived in Virginia, Lord Dunmore brought one of the largest private libraries then in the colonies. Years later, James Madison ended up buying many of his books for a song. Dunmore also brought an impressive suite of scientific and musical instruments. “He was a gregarious Highlander who loved fast horses, fancy clothes, theater, and fine food and drink,” Lawler says. “That explains why he was such a close friend of George Washington. And why he was always deep in debt.

“A Perfect Frenzy: A Royal Governor, His Black Allies, and the Crisis that Spurred the American Revolution” is Lawler’s fourth book, all of which deal with different aspects of world history. He acknowledges the changes he’s experienced as a writer since his first book was published in pre-pandemic 2014. One lesson is to let the story unfold in its own time, rather than trying to make it fit his own ideas and timeline.

“It’s all so mysterious and maddening,” he says. “The more patience I have, the more open my mind and the less control I assert, the better the outcome.”

“A Perfect Frenzy: A Royal Governor, His Black Allies, and the Crisis that Spurred the American Revolution,” a book talk with Andrew Lawler, will be held on Thursday, June 12 at 6 p.m. at the Library of Virginia. Registration required.