Dispatch from 1775: War breaks out in Massachusetts; Virginia governor seizes gunpowder to tamp down rebellion but might spark it anyway

The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Cardinal News has embarked on a three-year project to tell the little-known stories of Virginia’s role in the march to independence. As part of this, I’m writing monthly columns about the politics of the era, written the same way I’d write them today. The events described here took place in April 1775. You can sign up for our monthly newsletter here:

War has come to Massachusetts, and Virginia teeters on the brink of outright rebellion, with militias preparing to march to Williamsburg to fight against our own governor. 

The past weeks have brought a dizzying, and fearful, turn of events from which there may now be no turning back.

Just weeks ago, a group of Virginia delegates — their status unrecognized by British authorities — met upstream from the capital of Williamsburg in the safer confines of a church in the little town of Richmond to debate how to proceed with our grievances against the crown.

Their ranks were stirred by the thundering oratory of that fiery Hanover County lawyer Patrick Henry, who is said to have declared: “Give me liberty or give me death!” Whether he really said those words may be in dispute, but there is no dispute that he warned that war with Britain is not a theoretical possibility — it is, in fact, already happening — and that Virginia must prepare for it.

“Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace — but there is no peace,” Henry warned. “The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms!”

Henry’s words were prophetic. The news from the north has brought that very sound. British troops have now fired upon Massachusetts militiamen at Lexington and Concord — and those militiamen have fired back. By all accounts, more British soldiers now lie dead than Massachusetts men — at least 73 Redcoats and at least 49 Massachusetts farmers, merchants and tradesmen. This is a fearful toll that we may someday look at as small in number but large in significance. 

In the aftermath, Virginia has come very close to its own Lexington and Concord with an armed confrontation in Williamsburg that — for now at least — has been resolved without bloodshed.

Both events stem from similar actions. In Massachusetts, British troops wanted to seize Colonial military supplies supposedly being stored in the town of Concord. (Some say those supplies were buried in farmland in such a way that the British saw what appeared to be recently plowed and planted fields.) In Virginia, the British really did seize military supplies but were forced to return them.

Let’s recount the stunning events that have left upended royal authority in Virginia, for the time being at least.

We must remember that our governor, Lord Dunmore, is a royal appointee, and he has always made clear that his sympathies lie more with the crown than with the crown’s subjects in Virginia. His popularity went up after last year’s frontier war with the Shawnee, now known as Lord Dunmore’s War, but popularity is a fleeting thing. It’s true that he’s never taken any action to shut down the various meetings that Virginia leaders have held to plot strategy with the British, but he’s always regarded them as hostile acts, nonetheless. We’re told that after Henry’s “give me liberty or give me death” speech — and that gathering’s decision to call for Virginia to arm itself in case of war — the governor began to wonder whether he should put the gunpowder in Williamsburg out of reach.

Dunmore’s hesitation might someday be seen as fatal to the royal cause. Not until two days after the bloody events in Massachusetts did the governor decide to act — although it’s unlikely that Dunmore was aware of what had transpired in the north. The HMS Magdalen was anchored in the James River. About 3 a.m., Royal Marines from that ship marched into Williamsburg and proceeded to remove the gunpowder from the storehouse known as The Magazine. In a letter to authorities in London, Dunmore justified his actions by saying the Colonists were bent on “raising a body of armed men in all of the counties” to challenge the government, so he wanted to put the gunpowder out of reach before the Colonists could seize it for themselves. 

Dunmore thought he could do this quietly and present the people with a fait accompli. He failed. The townspeople of Williamsburg heard the Marines and immediately raised an alarm. The local militia mustered, and riders dashed out into the countryside to warn others, much like the Massachusetts silversmith Paul Revere is said to have done. Those local militia marched to the Governor’s Palace, and before long, Governor Dunmore found himself surrounded by armed, and angry, subjects. He was said to be so alarmed that he issued muskets to his servants, although it’s uncertain where their loyalties might truly lie. Dunmore later wrote to London that the Virginians were determined “to seize upon, or massacre me, and every person found giving me assistance if I refused to deliver the Powder immediately into their custody.”

We cannot verify whether that is true, or a product of the governor’s fevered imagination, but it is true that feelings were running hot. Some believe that the crowd was ready to storm the palace had it not been for the intervention of Peyton Randolph, speaker of the House of Burgesses — the same House of Burgesses with whom the governor has often clashed. Negotiations commenced. The city council of Williamsburg demanded the powder returned — on the grounds that it was Colonial property, not royal property.

Not all of the concern over the powder was over legal ownership; it was also over slavery. There is scarcely a white Colonist in that part of Virginia who does not know someone who has been killed in a slave uprising, large or small. Just this month, the Virginia Gazette has reported uprisings in Chesterfield County, Norfolk and Prince Edward County. They are fairly regular occurrences. There is no small amount of fear in some quarters about the presence of that institution of slavery; that’s one reason why the House of Burgesses in 1772 voted to stop the importation of enslaved labor — only to be overruled by London, which sees great profit in such human trade. Without access to gunpowder, some Colonists feared that Dunmore was leaving them vulnerable to a wider slave uprising. 

That’s when the governor claimed he was really trying to protect the Colonists from a rumored uprising of slaves, lest they grab the powder. Dunmore was probably just making this up, based on what he told his superiors in London: “I thought proper in the defenseless state in which I find myself, to endeavor to soothe them, and answered verbally to the effect, that I had removed the powder lest the Negroes might have seized upon it, to a place of security, from whence, when I saw occasion I would at any time, deliver it to the people.”

The warning of a slave uprising quieted the crowd — for a day. The next day the crowd reassembled outside the Governor’s Palace, bolstered by recruits from the countryside. The mood hardened on both sides. Dunmore lashed out and sent word to the House of Burgesses that if he or any British official were harmed that he would “declare Freedom to the Slaves, and reduce the City of Williamsburg to Ashes.” Nothing could be calculated to outrage white Colonists more. In fact, it pushed Albemarle County into action; that county has resolved to call out its militia “to demand satisfaction of Dunmore for the powder, and his threatening to fix his standard and call over the negroes.” The powder alone was not enough for Albemarle, nor was the news of war in Massachusetts, but Dunmore’s threat to free and arm slaves made the difference.

At this point, Dunmore has lost his standing in the eyes of most Virginians. He is now no longer the governor of Virginia, he is governor of an occupying power. As I write these words, the powder remains on the Magdalen, the governor remains in the palace, but across Virginia, counties are debating whether to mobilize their militias and send them to Williamsburg to storm the palace and seize the governor, if they cannot seize the powder. Dumore has told one Williamsburg council member that he had “once fought for the Virginians,” but “By God, I would let them see that I could fight against them.”

He may soon get his wish. God help us all. 

Sources consulted: Encyclopedia Virginia, All Things Liberty, American Battlefield Trust, “Virginia: The New Dominion” by Virginius Dabney and “Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves & The Making of the American Revolution in Virginia,” by Woody Holton.