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Here on land twixt swamp and sea lies a place steeped in Virginia history.
Where today a river harbors pleasure boats, in 1775, this site was riddled with armed Redcoats.
It’s the location of the Battle of Great Bridge, the first significant Revolutionary War battle fought on Virginia land — an underdog victory for Colonial militia over British forces.
The skirmish on Dec. 9, 1775, was more than a boost of confidence for the outgunned Patriots. The outcome forced the British to flee nearby Norfolk, at least temporarily. And it secured access to a network of inland waterways connecting Currituck and Albemarle sounds in North Carolina with Norfolk and Chesapeake Bay via the Elizabeth River, supplying Revolutionary-era citizens with food, livestock and supplies without transiting treacherous Atlantic Ocean waters.
The battle also began to turn the public tide against the Crown.
Today, alongside a draw-bridged crossing of Route 168 over the Albemarle & Chesapeake Canal sits the Great Bridge Battlefield & Waterways Historic Park, known locally as Battlefield Park. It hosts a museum operated by the Great Bridge Battlefield & Waterways History Foundation dedicated to preserving and promoting the history of the Battle of Great Bridge and the economic and cultural contributions made by the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canals and Great Dismal Swamp in the nation’s road to independence.
This land was far swampier and marshier in late 1775 than the strip malls and fast-food joints cramming four-lane Battlefield Boulevard would suggest today. Recognizing the importance of gaining land access in what was then some of Virginia’s most inhospitable places, both sides were determined to fight over a narrow bridge spanning murky, muddy water that provided road access to and from Norfolk.
In many ways, this singular bridge led to the end of British rule over its largest Colony in America.
“When you say Virginia and the revolution, you think of Yorktown, and that’s fair,” says Jon Stull, a volunteer docent at the museum. “That’s the omega. But the alpha is Great Bridge. It was a combination of Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill.”
The Battle of Great Bridge
The battle’s backstory begins in Williamsburg, Virginia’s Colonial capital.
Threatened by rebellion, Virginia’s Royal Governor, John Murray, the Earl of Dunmore, ordered the Royal Marines of the HMS Magdalen to seize the gunpowder stores of Williamsburg. Word of Dunmore’s decision quickly spread, prompting militia companies from surrounding counties to converge on Williamsburg.
Dunmore fled southeast to Norfolk and began raising an army. Among his recruits were escaped slaves to whom he promised freedom in exchange for military service. Dunmore tasked these men, known as the Ethiopian Regiment, with raiding Patriot militia camps. Dunmore was also reinforced by Tory militias and two companies from the 14th Regiment of Foot, some of the best soldiers in the world.
The primary approach to Norfolk from the south was over Great Bridge, spanning the South Branch of the Elizabeth River, just yards north of the present-day museum. The bridge at the time was surrounded on both sides by the Great Dismal Swamp (then far larger than it is today) and accessible only by narrow causeways. Dunmore ordered the construction of a stockade known as Fort Murray on the north side of the bridge.
Dunmore’s Emancipation Proclamation inflamed white Virginians
In a bid to quell the growing revolution, Virginia’s royal governor tried a new strategy. He issued an emancipation proclamation to free slaves if they joined the British. Many did, but the move outraged many white Virginians. Dunmore’s Black soldiers, the Ethiopian Regiment, saw action at Great Bridge.
See our previous story on Dunmore’s Emancipation Proclamation and listen to our podcast about the proclamation.
On Dec. 7, 1775, Patriot forces arrived on the bridge’s south side. By the night of the 8th, the Patriot force commanded by Col. William Woodford had grown to some 900 men from across Virginia. His Second Regiment included regulars from Albemarle, Amherst, Buckingham, Caroline, King George, Spotsylvania, Stafford, Charles City, Elizabeth City, James City, New Kent, Warwick, York, Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William, Brunswick, Dinwiddie, Prince George, Southampton, Surry, Sussex, Lancaster, Northumberland, Richmond, Westmoreland and Williamsburg.
The Culpeper Minutemen, whose banner carried the coiled rattlesnake and the words “Don’t Tread on Me — Liberty or Death,” also included men from Fauquier and Orange counties, many with “Liberty or Death” on their hunting shirts, according to a narrative of the battle written by Elizabeth Hanbury and Jim Hodges for the museum.
On the morning of Dec. 9, following 11 days of tension, skirmishes and sporadic cannon fire, the Tories wheeled two cannons into place and opened fire — for real this time — to break apart Colonial breastworks, wooden fortifications built with low walls. That was followed by a column of Redcoats — the Light Infantry and Grenadiers of the 14th Foot, led by Capt. Charles Fordice and Lt. John Batut.
Billy Flora, the hero of Great Bridge
One of the heroes on the Patriot side was Billy Flora, a sentry who held off the British advance across the bridge. Flora was a free Black man from Portsmouth, which illustrates how complicated racial matters were in the 1770s.
See our previous story on Flora and listen to our podcast about Flora.
As the British soldiers advanced up the bridge six men abreast, about as wide as the structure itself, they fired by platoons. As one platoon fired their muskets, the other would reload. As the British got closer, the revolutionaries unleashed a volley of musket balls. Both Batut and Fordice fell, the causeway scattered with the dead and dying.
The battle lasted less than an hour. British forces suffered between 62 and 102 killed, wounded or captured. Just one Patriot was wounded, none killed or captured. Soon after, Lord Dunmore fled Virginia — denied in his quest for Norfolk, which at the time — as now — was the largest seaport between New York and Charleston.
As a direct result of victory, four days after this crucial battle, the Virginia Convention adopted the first public declaration expressing a spirit of independence. With the British gone (though returning in 1779), Virginia was able to provide valuable resources to the Continental Army, including troops, military supplies and food to keep the revolutionary momentum going.
Accounts of the battle from nearly 250 years ago reflect a mix of pride and disbelief.
Col. Woodford wrote a letter published in the Virginia Gazette on Dec. 15: “This was a second Bunker’s Hill affair, in miniature; with this difference, that we kept our post, and had only one man wounded in the hand.”
John Pinkney, publisher of the second Virginia Gazette, wrote on Dec. 20, 1775: “Never were cannon better served, but yet, in the face of them and the musketry, which kept up a continual blaze, our men marched on with the utmost intrepidity … What is not to be paralleled in history, and will scarcely appear credible, except to such as acknowledge a providence over human affairs, this victory was gained at the expense of no more than a slight wound in a soldier’s hand.”
Why here?
One of the most frequent questions Stull, the docent, gets is: Why did a battle take place here, in the middle of a swamp and marsh, settled by just 200 people?
“Location, location and location,” he says. “Followed by commerce, commerce and commerce.”
He explains it like this: “Colonials looked at this area as 2,000 square miles of swamp and marshes. No one lived here and it wasn’t important. It was pretty primitive. At the time, anywhere south of the James River was considered a swamp. For Colonials, swamp equals bad. Sickness, spirits, superstitions. People just didn’t want to deal with it. But they did want to get through it.”
While indigenous tribes populated some of the swamp, the Great Dismal’s first white occupiers were indentured servants from the Jamestown plantations. Stull says they used natural causeways to navigate swamps and marsh.
“But as settlements started and White commerce started, they figured, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we had inland access between Virginia and North Carolina?’”
Efforts to tame the swamp for transportation began with surveys as early as 1688, identifying the Great Bridge as a site instrumental in connecting the Elizabeth River to the North Carolina sounds to New Bern and beyond.
Later, Colonialists and the British saw the potential of resources from the swamp — timber, tar and turpentine — needed to build wooden ships, Stull explains, ships that could be built at modern-day Norfolk.
By 1774, the Virginia House of Burgesses, recognizing the dangers of ocean travel — you know, pirates and storms and all — passed a bill to survey the swamps for connections to Albemarle Sound via the Elizabeth River.
“What makes this little, tiny corner of the Dominion map important is that it was a nexus between traffic coming in and out of Norfolk and demand in Carolina,” Stull says.
Hence, the battle over a strategic sliver of land. “This was about holding ground,” Stull says. “The pass at Great Bridge needed to be held by the victor because it was the source of resources and provisions.”
Beyond the bridge, the victory helped to sway attitudes. Stull says about a third of the population at the time favored aggressively confronting the Crown. A third wanted to work within the political system to oppose policies. And a third didn’t care either way — they just wanted to eke out a living.
But now, trade route secured, many Colonials started to favor the Patriots as British rule waned.
Preserving history
This sacred ground of the Battle of Great Bridge is protected today from suburban encroachment. In addition to existing land housing the museum and interpretive walk, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources last year announced a perpetual historic preservation easement for an additional slice of adjacent property, shielding it from subdivision and future development.
Known as the Mair Tract, the property lies entirely within the Great Bridge Battlefield, adjoining the Great Bridge Battlefield & Waterways Historic Park. The City of Chesapeake plans to incorporate this property into Battlefield Park.
“If this were in New England, this would be a national park by now,” Stull says.
Great Bridge Battlefield & Waterways History Foundation
The Great Bridge Battlefield & Waterways History Foundation in Chesapeake protects, preserves and promotes the history of the Battle of Great Bridge and the region’s Revolutionary War and canal history to educate the public about the importance of these events in the creation and growth of the United States.
The foundation operates a museum and interpretive nature trail filled with fascinating stories and exhibits, including an immersive video putting visitors in the middle of the bridge during battle. A re-creation of the battle is held the first weekend of December annually near the original site of the battle.
The museum is located at 1775 Historic Way, Chesapeake, VA 23320. Like Colonial times, its main entrance faces water, the A&C Canal. To learn more about the battle and to plan your visit, go to https://gbbattlefield.org.