The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Cardinal News has embarked on a project to tell the little-known stories of Virginia’s role in the march to independence. This project is supported, in part, by a grant from the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission. Find all our stories from this project on the Cardinal 250 page. You can sign up for our monthly newsletter:
At night, there were splashes in the water.
One, two, sometimes three at a time, repeated perhaps 100 times for each of the ships in the ragtag fleet anchored off the shore of a small Virginia island by the Chesapeake Bay.
They were bodies being tossed overboard.
In the summer of 1776, royal authority in Virginia was dying — literally.
In Philadelphia that July, the delegates to the Continental Congress declared independence. Those were lofty words, but they meant nothing if the Americans did not prevail against the most powerful military on the planet. In Virginia that July, the British military did not seem so powerful. Virginia’s last royal governor was making a last stand on Gwynn’s Island, where disease cut down his last remaining troops long before Patriot guns did. It was a grim scene that goes unmentioned in many of our history books, even though it involved some of the key figures in Virginia history — from Lord Dunmore to General Andrew Lewis to Martha Washington, briefly and indirectly. When it was all over, Dunmore’s hope of restoring British rule in Virginia was dead — and so were many of the enslaved laborers who had flocked to his banner in hopes that they might win their freedom.
This is the story of the Battle of Gwynn’s Island.
Washington wanted Dunmore dead or captured
Lord Dunmore — John Murray, without his noble title — had never wanted to be governor of Virginia. He much preferred being governor of New York, but London reassigned him to Virginia, then considered a more important Colony. By the time Dunmore arrived in Williamsburg in 1771, the news of his reluctance to move to Virginia was well-known. His reception began on a sour note. His prickly personality didn’t help matters.
His popularity only improved once — in the fall of 1774, when he led a military force across the mountains to drive Native Americans west of the Ohio River in what was dubbed Lord Dunmore’s War. Making war on the indigenous people was popular with Colonists. However, at the climactic battle — at Point Pleasant, in modern-day West Virginia — Dunmore was miles away. The frontier leader Andrew Lewis, from modern-day Roanoke County, led the victorious troops that day. It might have been Lord Dunmore’s War, but it was Andrew Lewis’ victory. Lewis and Dunmore would meet again on opposite sides at Gwynn’s Island, but we’re getting ahead of things.
In the spring of 1775, as tensions flared between Colonists and the British, Dunmore had the community’s supply of gunpowder spirited out of Williamsburg. Rather than quiet things, this only inflamed them. Patrick Henry led a march on Williamsburg that threatened to turn violent; Dunmore offered to pay for the gunpowder, and a conflict was averted. But not for long. Dunmore soon fled Williamsburg, never to return.
From that point on in June 1775, royal power in Virginia collapsed — except for wherever Dunmore was at the moment. Mostly, he was on a ship anchored in modern-day Portsmouth, at a place known then as Gosport. Dunmore knew he didn’t have enough manpower to regain Williamsburg but was determined to try anyway. In November 1775, he issued his Emancipation Proclamation, offering freedom to any slaves who agreed to fight for the British. More than a thousand did. He called them his Ethiopian Regiment; many wore shirts that proclaimed “Liberty to Slaves.” For many white Virginians who hadn’t taken sides, that tipped the balance: They couldn’t stomach the thought of slaves being freed and armed.
In December 1775, Dunmore’s biracial army clashed with a biracial army of Virginia Patriots, a remarkable sight that the world had rarely seen. At the Battle of Great Bridge in modern-day Chesapeake, the Virginians won. The hero of the day was Billy Flora, a free Black man who held off the British at one key point. First, the Virginians pushed Dunmore back to Norfolk; then they pushed him out of Norfolk, but at great cost. The year 1776 began with the city in flames — the only American city during the war to be burned. There’s still controversy over who was to blame for the conflagration.
Dunmore took to the water, but still did not leave. He was definitely the bull-headed sort. In New York, General George Washington fretted that Dunmore remained a threat to Virginia. “If,” Washington wrote, “that Man is not crushed before Spring, he will become the most formidable Enemy America has — his strength will Increase as a Snow ball by Rolling; and faster, if some expedient cannot be hit upon to convince the Slaves and Servants of the Impotencey of His designs… I do not think that forcing his Lordship on Ship board is sufficient; nothing less than depriving him of life or liberty will secure peace to Virginia.”
Washington was wrong. Dunmore’s strength did not increase, but neither did he leave Hampton Roads. Virginia had no navy to speak of, so had no way to chase Dunmore away. Spring began with a staredown. The Virginians started making fireships — small vessels that could be set on fire — in hopes they could trap Dunmore in the Elizabeth River. That did it. Dunmore made his move. He suddenly set sail with a fleet of 90-100 ships (which sounds large, but most were quite small). Virginians who watched him sail out of the harbor thought perhaps he was headed north — either to New York to try to help the British there, or perhaps Nova Scotia, a Colony that remained loyal to the crown.
Dunmore went north, all right, just not up the coast. Instead, he sailed up the Chesapeake Bay, looking for some patch of land. His men were sick with smallpox and typhus. Dunmore thought Gwynn’s Island — a small island where the Piankatank River emptied into the Chesapeake Bay — was the perfect place where he could unload his crowded, disease-ridden ships and let the men spread out so they could recover. A plantation owner there, John Randolph Grymes, was a steadfast Loyalist and promised lots of livestock and fresh water. Those promises turned out to be exaggerated, but Dunmore still considered Gwynn’s Island an improvement over Gosport. Gwynn’s Island (then in Gloucester County but today in Mathews County) was not big, about four miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide at its smallest. It also was barely an island; just 200 yards of water separated it from the shore. But it would do. “Most importantly,” writes the Journal of the American Revolution, “the island allowed Lord Dunmore to maintain the royal standard (and the illusion of royal authority in Virginia) while he awaited reinforcements and assistance from Great Britain.”
Some Virginia troops were stationed on the mainland along the Piankatank, keeping a lookout for the British. When they saw Dunmore’s fleet arrive at Gwynn’s Island on May 26, they sent a frantic alert to their commanders at Gloucester Courthouse. The ranking officer on duty was Capt. Thomas Posey, who led a group of men from Botetourt County. When he arrived at the mouth of the river, “I found a number of the militia assembled, which appear’d to be in the utmost consternation, some running one way, and some another, under no kind of control or regularity.”
Not long afterward, a higher-ranking officer — Col. William Daingerfield of Spotsylvania County — arrived with more men and took charge. He ordered the men to set up a defensive line along the river because surely Dunmore planned an attack. “The whole were put in motion, (though I must confess the militia were in very great motion before the orders were given),” Posey wryly noted in his diary. The orders to set up a defensive line within sight of the enemy spooked some of the militia members — especially when the British started shooting across the river at them. “As soon as we came near enough for the grape[shot], and cannon shot to whistle over our heads,” Posey wrote, “numbers of the militia put themselves in much quicker motion, and never stopped … to look behind them until they had made the best of their way home.”
Some of the Virginia regulars weren’t much better. “I can’t say that our regulars deserved any great degree of credit for after two or three getting a little blood drawn, they began to skulk and fall flat upon their faces,” Posey wrote. This was their first taste of war.
The Virginians at first did not understand how decimated Dunmore’s force was. They faced what they considered an imposing British force. Dunmore had, indeed, unloaded thousands of men but, in fact, only had 200 that he considered “effective.” The rest were too sick. Dunmore ordered the 200 able-bodied men to start building fortifications. He feared an attack from across the narrow river from what he feared was the superior force.
What happened next might be considered comical if matters weren’t so deadly — each side convinced the other was stronger, each unable or unwilling to attack. The two sides settled into a stalemate, marked only by occasional incursions by Dunmore’s men onto the mainland in search of food. The Virginians thought they had scored a great victory when one of Dunmore’s small ships ran aground; they seized the entire cargo — of liquor.
From the Virginian side, Dunmore appeared to be quite active. He had signed up the Goodrich family, which owned ships and had seven sons, five of them old enough to sail. “This is a Spirited, Active, industrious Family, and it has cost me much trouble and pain (knowing the Service they would be of to which ever Party they joined) to secure them in His Majesty’s Service,” Dunmore wrote to his superiors. “Four of them are perfectly well acquainted with every River, Creek or Branch within this Bay. I have now five of their Vessels employed constantly running up the Rivers, where they have orders to Seize, burn or destroy every thing that is Water Born, that they can get at; they often Land and take off what Provisions they can get, which keeps the Rebels in constant motion, and I generally send a few of the 14th Regiment with them, they Land only when they are not likely to meet with opposition, and have orders to retire on Board so soon as they see any force coming against them.”
What the Virginians didn’t know was how desperate things were on Gwynn’s Island. Sickness swept through his ranks. “The fever,” Dunmore wrote, “has proved a very Malignant one and has carried off an incredible Number of our People,” particularly members of the Ethiopian Regiment. For many, their freedom was short-lived — and ended in an agonizing death. That’s when the nighttime splashes began. “There was not a ship in the fleet that did not throw one, two, or three or more dead overboard every night,” Dunmore wrote.
It was only when those bodies began to wash ashore that the Virginians began to suspect not all was well on Gwynn’s Island.
Lewis once fought with Dunmore; now he fought against him
George Washington had wanted to make Andrew Lewis a brigadier general and call him to the field with the Continental Army. Congress, mindful of sectional politics, decided that there should only be one general from each state. Washington didn’t count as Virginia’s general, but there could only be one other: That post went to Charles Lee, who was deemed more experienced but proved to be a poor commander whose service ended with a court-martial and three guilty verdicts. Eventually Congress got around to making Lewis a brigadier general, as well. His assignment: Organize Virginia’s defenses.
That assignment became more than simply recruiting once Dunmore set up on Gwynn’s Island. Now Lewis had a chance to face his old commander in the field. The Virginians along the Piankatank may have been content to keep Dunmore penned up, but Lewis wanted him gone. That meant one thing: He needed cannons. Lewis started hauling as many as he could find to the scene, perhaps six to ten in all (accounts vary). On the evening of July 8, 1776 — four days after the Declaration of Independence had been adopted — Lewis himself arrived at the Patriot camp to take charge. He could not believe his good fortune: Dunmore’s own ship was directly within range.
When the morning of July 9 broke, those cannons on Cricket Hill were pointed directly at Dunmore’s flagship, his camp and three other vessels. The first blast smashed into the royal governor’s ship, breaking his china and lodging splinters in his leg. Then the other cannons fired, as well. Dunmore knew he was outmatched.
“We were so near one of their Batteries,” Dunmore wrote, “that they Struck the Ship every Shott. I got our raw and weak Crew to fire a few Shott at them, but I soon perceived that our Six Pounders made no impression on their Batteries, our Boatswain being killed and several of the People Wounded, I found it impracticable to make them stand any longer to their Guns, we were therefore obliged to cut our Cable, tho’ there was not a breath of Air Stirring, but the little Tide there was drifted us from the Shore.”
For nearly two hours, the Virginians bombarded Dunmore’s camp and the British had little to answer with. Some of Dunmore’s ships withdrew, out of range. Others were intentionally scuttled and set aflame. The Virginians were carrying the day, although not without cost.
Operating artillery was not something many Virginians knew how to do; they were more skilled as frontier fighters hiding behind trees. To remedy that, the Continental Congress had sent Virginia a French volunteer by the name of Louis d’O’hickey Arundel. He was one of a small but important number of European military adventurers who sought action with the American revolutionaries. In the spring of 1776, he arrived in Williamsburg and was put in charge of Virginia’s nascent artillery force. It was Arundel who, on the evening of July 8, proudly presented his batteries to Lewis. Now he got a chance to put his work into action — and the guns delivered.
Arundel was ambitious — and inventive. He rigged up a makeshift mortar made of wood that had been hollowed out. The Americans were skeptical and warned Arundel against firing the improvised weapon. He was the professional, though, and they weren’t. He fired the weapon. It exploded, and nearly blew his head off. He was the only casualty that day on the Virginian side. John Page, a future Virginia governor who was present, wrote of Arundel: “His zeal for the service cost him his life. His loss is irreparable.”
The grim scene on Gwynn’s Island
The Virginia guns fell silent. The cannons needed to cool, and there seemed little left to shoot at. On each side of the water, Dunmore and Lewis plotted their next moves. Lewis began collecting canoes and other small boats; he intended to make an amphibious assault the next morning. At dawn on June 10, the Virginia guns opened fire again on three small British ships that lingered off Gwynn’s Island. As soon as the British crew members saw a swarm of Virginians in canoes crossing the water, the sailors abandoned ship and raced toward the ships on the bayside of the island.
When the Virginians landed on Gwynn’s Island, they found Dunmore gone — escaped in the night. The Virginians swept over the island but found the last members of the British force evacuating on the far side: “Crossed into the Island but no fighting ensued except a few shot,” Posey wrote in his diary. “By one o’clock the whole of the enemy had evacuated and embarked.”
What the Virginians found left behind was a carnage made by disease, not guns: “I never saw more distress in my life, than what I found among some of the poor deluded Negroes which they could not take time, or did not choose to carry off with them, they being sick,” Posey wrote. “Those that I saw, some were dying, and many calling out for help; and throughout the whole Island we found them strew’d about, many of them torn to pieces by wild beasts — great numbers of the bodies having never been buried.”
Other bodies were covered by just a few shovelfuls of dirt, some in common graves.
Posey estimated about 650 people had died on Gwynn’s Island, maybe 500 of them former slaves. However, among the dead was a prominent Loyalist, Andrew Sprowle, who had been in charge of the shipyard in Gosport where Dunmore had taken refuge. Virginians scoffed at the sight of Sprowle’s body, deriding him as “the late lord of Gosport.”
Dunmore goes on a desperate search for water
Dunmore and his survivors bobbed around in the Chesapeake Bay. They were desperately short of fresh water. They sailed north and tried to land on St. George’s Island, Maryland, but the local militia turned them away. Next they sailed up the Potomac River. Local militia feared that Dunmore intended to make for Mount Vernon and capture Martha Washington. She had long been rumored to be a target for kidnapping and didn’t budge. Instead, they raided into Stafford County, burned the plantation of William Brent, a member of the House of Burgesses, loaded their water casks and left.
Dunmore and his tiny fleet went out to sea. Some of the ships split off and went to Florida, taking with them some of the escaped slaves who had survived the ordeal. Dunmore himself went to New York, and eventually back to England.
America achieved its independence at Yorktown, but Virginia rid itself of British rule on Gwynn’s Island.
Epilogue
Despite losing Virginia, the British continued to pay Dunmore his gubernatorial salary until the war’s official end in 1783 when the Treaty of Paris was signed. Then, Dunmore was well-regarded enough in London that he was appointed governor of the Bahamas, a position he held for 12 years. Visitors to the Bahamas today might notice Fort Fincastle — named after his son’s noble title, the Viscount Fincastle, just as the Botetourt County town of Fincastle is.
Dunmore always regretted the disease that overtook his men. “Had it not been for this horrid disorder,” he later wrote, “I am Satisfied I should have had two thousand Blacks, with whom I should have no doubt of penetrating into the heart of the Colony.”
As for the enslaved workers who rallied to his banner and the promise of liberty — after the war, 900 of them were resettled in Nova Scotia, where today there is a museum in their honor.
For Lewis, Gwynn’s Island was his last battle. The next year, he resigned his commission due to ill health. He did not live to see Americans triumph at Yorktown.
