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. 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 November 1775. You can sign up for our monthly newsletter here:
For the third time in less than two months, Virginians have gone to war against our royal governor — each battle bigger than the one before it.
It is difficult to say who is winning, but we can definitely say who is not: Lord Dunmore, who we might need to start calling our former royal governor, because at present, he controls only the port city of Norfolk and some surrounding areas. His writ certainly no longer runs in the capital of Williamsburg or anywhere else in the Virginia Colony he presided over so grandly just months ago.
The war that has broken out in Massachusetts spread to Virginia in October with a battle at Hampton. Some might call it a skirmish, but I suspect if someone is shooting at you, you consider it a battle. Then last month came the Patriot debacle at Kemp’s Landing, as Virginia forces and the governor-on-the-run jockeyed for position around Norfolk — specifically that time in Princess Anne County. (Modern editor’s note: Today, this is Virginia Beach.)
In the latest conflict of arms, Dunmore tried to dislodge a Patriot force led by Col. William Woodford of Caroline County that was encamped near a key water crossing at Great Bridge in Norfolk County. (Modern editor’s note: Today, this is Chesapeake.) The governor failed, and spectacularly so. In less than an hour, somewhere between 62 and 102 British soldiers were shot dead (accounts vary), while the only Patriot casualty was a minor wound. “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,” Woodford declared.
Among the British dead was one of Dunmore’s own captains, Charles Fordice (or perhaps Fordyce), who was tragically symbolic of the governor’s bravado. Wounded once, Fordice rose to order a charge and exclaimed: “The day is ours!” He was found dead with 14 bullet wounds.
The battle at Great Bridge is remarkable because it featured men of multiple races on both sides. Dunmore, who has issued an Emancipation Proclamation to any enslaved laborer who joins his cause, fielded his Ethiopian Regiment that came to battle in shirts that declare: “Liberty to Slaves.” Meanwhile, two Black men — one enslaved, one free — figure heroically on the Patriot side. A man enslaved to Thomas Marshall of Culpeper County, known to us only as William, slipped into Dunmore’s camp and declared himself a deserter. He then spun a tale that enraptured Dunmore: He told the British that Great Bridge was only lightly defended, and that the morale of the Virginia militia was low. William also reported that North Carolina militia units were on the way to reinforce the bridge, so if Dunmore intended to attack, he should attack now.
This was precisely what Dunmore wanted to hear, which is what made William’s fiction so believable. The bridge was not lightly defended, and the Virginians’ morale was not low. Furthermore, the North Carolina militia had already arrived. William’s intentionally false report lured Dunmore into a trap.
That’s where Billy Flora, a free Black man from Portsmouth, came into play. He was a sentry who bravely took position on the bridge and, for a decisive amount of time, held off an entire British platoon.
Virginians are in both of these men’s debt.
Dunmore was reduced to holding Norfolk, and now, late word comes to us that the governor has been forced to flee that city, as well. Dunmore’s rule over even an inch of Virginia appears to have come to an end. For now, at least. He lurks above a British naval vessel, part of a small fleet in the harbor that shows no signs of departing. We give away no military secrets if we opine that it seems clear he will try to come ashore, most likely forcibly. No doubt other battles still lie ahead.
Then what?
That is harder to say. We are hurtling into unknown territory. Officially, Virginia remains loyal to King George III; our leaders protest that our argument is only with a Parliament that seeks to impose taxes and rules upon us in violation of the English Bill of Rights, which says Englishmen can only be taxed by their own elected representatives. Legally speaking, we still consider ourselves Englishmen, just on a different side of the water, and insist upon our rights. If we must be taxed, those taxes must come from our own House of Burgesses. Parliament in London insists otherwise and seems to have the king in its grasp. He refuses to even hear our pleas. This has led to a strange state of affairs: While our argument is ostensibly with Parliament, our fight, in practical terms, is with the king’s own military.
The king has sent Lord Dunmore to govern us, but we, by arms, have driven him to the coast, where he clings to only scraps of power. He no longer governs, so who is our governor? The Committee for Safety in Williamsburg has taken charge, but that is more an expediency than an actual executive.
Surely at some point, we will need an actual governor. We seem to be careening toward, well, it’s hard to say. The Virginia Convention, what passes for our legislature since Dunmore sent away the House of Burgesses, has voted that Virginians stand ready to defend themselves “against every species of despotism.” Does that include — we dare not think so far ahead.
While dramatic events have been unfolding in the eastern waterways of Virginia, equally astonishing news comes to us from the north. Some have long held out hope that other British Colonies might join the 13 that so far have banded together to resist Parliamentary overreach.
The prospect that Nova Scotia will join our cause is dwindling. Raids by American privateers have seized or destroyed British ships, but have done little to persuade the Nova Scotians that our cause should be their cause. The influence of the British navy anchored at Halifax seems too great. Now the royal governor of Nova Scotia has cracked down on liberty-minded residents, forcing many of them to flee that Colony. Some Nova Scotians have joined the Continental Army, but they’ve had to leave Nova Scotia to do it.
However, the odds that French-speaking Quebec will join us have risen. Since Britain won that Colony from the French in 1763 at the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War, London has denied Quebecers the right to elect their own representatives. Our Continental Congress has invited Quebec to join with us, and this fall sent two armies north to liberate that Colony from the grip of British tyranny, one led by Gen. Richard Montgomery moving up by Lake Champlain, the other by Gen. Benedict Arnold moving through the northern woods of Maine. (Of note: Arnold’s forces include hardy frontier riflemen led by Daniel Morgan of Winchester, so we Virginians have some claim to this expedition).
Those two armies have now joined forces and now definitely state that the British have fled from Montreal. The fleet there has surrendered, and the British governor, Guy Carleton, has fled northward to Quebec City, disguised as a commoner. Just as in Virginia, the royal governor in Quebec is now on the run!
Winter has set in deep in those climes, but the American commanders are so optimistic that they have resolved to pursue Carleton and put an end to British rule in Quebec. Montgomery sends reports that brim with good news. At Trois-Rivières, he met with the prominent businessman Christophe Pélissier, who professes great admiration for the American cause. Montgomery was eager to hold a convention to elect Quebec’s delegates to the Continental Congress, but Pélissier persuaded him to wait until Quebec City had been liberated.
Montgomery and Arnold have now begun a siege on the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec City. There is some concern because many of the American soldiers are said to have left the army when their enlistments expired. However, the tide of war seems so clearly in our favor that victory in Quebec seems but a matter of time. Our rudimentary forces have the Redcoats on the run. Surely, Parliament must soon be forced to capitulate and recognize our just demands.
(Modern editor’s note: This turned out to be quite wrong, but we’ll deal with that in a future edition.)
Sources consulted: Battlefields.org, theRevolutionary War Journal, “Virginia: The New Dominion” by Virginius Dabney