Battle of Great Bridge
Who Fought
History & Significance
The Battle of Great Bridge was fought December 9, 1775, in the area of Great Bridge, Virginia, early in the American Revolutionary War. The refusal by colonial Virginia militia forces led to the departure of Royal Governor Lord Dunmore and any remaining vestiges of British power over the Colony of Virginia during the early days of the conflict.
Following increasing political and military tensions in early 1775, both Dunmore and colonial rebel leaders recruited troops and engaged in a struggle for available military supplies. The struggle eventually focused on Norfolk, where Dunmore had taken refuge aboard a Royal Navy vessel. Dunmore's forces had fortified one side of a critical river crossing south of Norfolk at Great Bridge, while rebel forces had occupied the other side. In an attempt to break up the rebel gathering, Dunmore ordered an attack across the bridge, which was decisively repulsed. Colonel William Woodford, the Virginia militia commander at the battle, described it as "a second Bunker's Hill affair".
Shortly thereafter, Norfolk, at the time a Loyalist center, was abandoned by Dunmore and the Tories retreated to Royal Navy ships in the harbor who then proceeded to cannonade the Town. Insurgent-occupied Norfolk was destroyed on January 1, 1776 in an action begun by Dunmore and completed by insurgent forces.
Tensions in the British Colony of Virginia were raised in April 1775 at roughly the same time that the hostilities of the American Revolutionary War broke out in the Province of Massachusetts Bay with the Battles of Lexington and Concord. John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, had dismissed the colonial legislative assembly, the House of Burgesses, who then established a provisional assembly in Virginia Conventions. The Burgesses authorized existing and newly raised militia troops to arm themselves, leading to a struggle for control of the colony's military supplies. Under orders from Lord Dunmore, British forces removed gunpowder from the colonial storehouse in the capital of Williamsburg, causing a confrontation between royal and militia forces. Although the incident was resolved without violence, Dunmore, fearing for his personal safety, left Williamsburg in June 1775 and placed his family on board a Royal Navy ship. A small British fleet then took shape at Norfolk, a port town whose merchants had significant Loyalist (Tory) tendencies. The threat posed by the British fleet may also have played a role in minimizing Whig activity in the town.
Incidents continued between rebels on one side and loyalists (Tories) on the other until October, when Dunmore had acquired enough military support to begin operations against the rebellious colonists. General Thomas Gage, the British commander-in-chief for North America, had ordered small detachments of the 14th Regiment of Foot to Virginia in response to pleas by Dunmore for military help. These troops began raiding surrounding counties for rebel military supplies on October 12. This activity continued through the end of October, when a small British ship ran aground and was captured by rebels during a skirmish near Hampton. Navy boats sent to punish the townspeople were repulsed by colonial militia in a brief gunfight that resulted in the killing and capture of several sailors. Dunmore reacted to this event by issuing a proclamation on November 7 in which he declared martial law, and offered to emancipate colonist slaves in Virginia willing to serve in the British Army. The proclamation alarmed rebel and loyalist slaveholders alike, concerned by the idea of armed former slaves and the potential loss of their property. Nevertheless, Dunmore was able to recruit enough slaves to form the Ethiopian Regiment, as well as raising a company of Tories he called the Queen's Own Loyal Virginia Regiment (later absorbed into the Queen's Rangers in 1776). These local forces supplemented the two companies of the 14th Foot, and in addition to the naval forces, that were the sole British military presence in the colony. This successful recruiting drive prompted Dunmore to write on November 30, 1775, that he would soon be able to "reduce this colony to a proper sense of their duty."
The ground they fought on
The site of Battle of Great Bridge lies on Warwickshire Group, bedrock that formed in the Early Permian. The rock here is siltstone and sandstone with subordinate mudstone.
- Virginia Committee of Safety * Patriot militia: 1 wounded
- Province of Virginia * British army * Loyalist militia * Ethiopian Regiment: 62 to 102 British regulars killed or wounded, militia casualties apparently unknown.
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