Virginia's Road to Revolution

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VA SAR 250 Events, Liberating Virginia & Removing Dunmore, 1775–1776

By Dr. Patrick H. Hannum, March 2025

Introduction

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Virginia was the largest, most populous, and economically important of the thirteen colonies in 1775. The revolutionary cause depended upon the political and military support of Virginia’s revolutionary leaders. One major obstacle stood in the way of those who advocated for independence: Virginia’s Royal Governor, John Murray, Earl of Dunmore. Between April 1775 and July 1776, numerous events collectively contributed to the removal of Virginia’s Royal Governor from power to liberate Virginia from British colonial rule. His departure from Virginia resulted in full Patriot control of the colony in July 1776 as part of the new United States. The Virginia Society, Sons of the American Revolution (Virginia SAR) is working to commemorate six key events associated with removing Royal colonial authority from the colony and replacing it with a democratically elected Patriot sponsored government, the First Virginia Commonwealth.

These six events, with a brief summary of each, are listed below with the responsible local SAR Chapter and point of contact listed for more details. Also included for each event are some electronic journal articles for further reading and reference. Because these six actions link to Virginia Revolution 250 events, most SAR chapters are coordinating these commemoration activities in conjunction with local city and county Virginia Revolution 250 committees.

GunPower

Gunpowder Incident, Williamsburg: 3 May 2025,

Williamsburg Chapter, POC, John Lynch, President, [email protected].

Actions by Great Britain’s Parliament, culminating with a series of legislative actions commonly referred to as the “Intolerable Acts,” resulted in significant discontent to individuals in the colonies who increasingly viewed themselves as citizens, not subjects. Virginia’s Royal Governor, Lord Dunmore, disbanded the Virginia House of Burgesses in May 1774 when they formally protested the “Boston Port Bill” with a day of fasting. This resulted in a series of extra-legal legislative meetings known as the Virginia Conventions. During the Second Virginia Convention (March 1775), famous for Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death,” speech, that Patriot body authorized the formation of Independent Militia Companies by Virginia’s 62 counties. Sensing the growing rebellion, on April 21, 1775, Lord Dunmore removed Virginia’s store of gunpowder from the Williamsburg Powder Magazine. Lt. Henry Collins, commanding the schooner Magdalen and Capt. Edward Foy of the HMS Fowey, sent a landing party ashore to remove the powder that was transferred from the Magdalen to the Fowey for “safe keeping.” Alerted to this action, and later that day, local authorities confronted Dunmore and word of the removal quickly spread around Virginia. Negotiations with Dunmore ultimately resulted in payment for the gunpowder after Patrick Henry threatened use of force by members of the Hanover County Militia. All this drama multiplied after news of Lexington and Concord increased tensions in Virginia. In early June 1775, Dunmore, sensing his life was at risk, departed the governor’s palace in Williamsburg for the safety of British warships. Both sides built military capabilities in the summer of 1775 and armed conflict followed in the fall.

For more reading:

Hampton

Skirmish at Hampton, 25-26? October 2025:

Thomas Nelson Jr. Chapter, POC, Sam Tate, President, [email protected].

 A hurricane blew through Hampton Roads in early September 1775 causing considerable property damage. The HMS Fowey was grounded hard in Norfolk Harbor and Captain Matthew Squire of the Sloop of War Otter was on a mission to pillage for supplies in the Back River near Hampton in the tender Liberty when the storm blew through. During the storm, Liberty was grounded and the crew detained by local militia. Capt. Squire managed to escape but the tender was burned and military supplies confiscated. The Elizabeth City County Committee refused Squire’s demands to return the military supplies but released the crew. All this was a result of seizure of supplies during a series of coastal raids to obtain supplies for Lord Dunmore’s forces that led many enslaved Virginians to depart their plantations and join the Royal forces. This was a form of economic warfare endorsed by Dunmore because the economy was dependent on slave labor. A war of words followed and multiple rotations of Patriot forces protected Hampton. On the morning of October 26, 1775, Capt. Squire, aboard Otter, ordered his four tenders, shallow draft vessels, with landing parties to attack and burn the town of Hampton. Members of a task organized Patriot battalion, consisting of local minute companies of the Elizabeth City County & Gloucester District Minute Battalions and a company of the 2nd Virginia Regiment, defended Hampton that day and prevented the tenders from entering the inner harbor. Local leaders, fearing a renewed attack, called for reinforcements. Col. William Woodford led a detachment of the Culpeper Minute Battalion, that arrived early on October 27th, just in time to turn back the tenders entering the harbor with long range rifle fire, capturing one tender, killing two crewmen, wounding two others, and capturing six. This attack resulted in the first British or Loyalist combat casualties in Virginia.

For more reading:

 Kemps Landing

 Skirmish at Kemp’s Landing, November 15, 2025: Norfolk Chapter, POC Dr. Patrick H. Hannum, Secretary, [email protected]).

Over the summer and fall of 1775, in an effort to retain royal governance in Virginia, Lord Dunmore utilized his limited military capabilities to disrupt the collection of military supplies and keep the population in Tidewater Virginia from fully aligning with the Patriot government. On November 14, 1775 he embarked over 100 soldiers and Loyalist volunteers and headed to Great Bridge in Norfolk County to break up militia reportedly assembling there. Finding no Patriot forces, on the morning of November 15th, he ordered construction of a log stockade at the north end of the causeway and proceeded to Kemp’s Landing where a detachment of the Princess Anne District Minute Bn., only partially armed, were formed. In a poorly executed ambush, Patriot forces were dispersed, suffering numerous casualties. About a dozen Patriots were captured, killed, or wounded including Pvt. John Ackiss who became one of Virginia’s first named Patriots to die defending the colony. Dunmore captured Cols. Anthony Lawson and Joesph Hutchings, Hutchings eventually died as a POW, with Lawson transferred as a POW to St. Augustine, FL. Dunmore used this victory to release his Proclamation declaring martial law and offering freedom to enslaved and indentured servants willing to fight for him to retain Virginia’s royal colonial government. Word of Dunmore’s proclamation quickly spread resulting in hundreds of enslaved joining his ranks to form the Ethiopian Regiment. The Proclamation also caused many Virginians to join the Patriot cause. A few weeks later, Dunmore suffered a major defeat.

For more reading:

Great Bridge 

 Battle of Great Bridge, December 6, 2025, Great Bridge Chapter: POC, Donald Fergusson, President, [email protected].

The commemoration of the Battle of Great Bridge is held annually on the first Saturday in December in coordination with the City of Chesapeake. The battle actually took place on December 9, 1775. A task organized Patriot regiment of over 700 men led by Col. William Woodford, consisting of six companies of the 2nd Virginia and five companies of the Culpeper Minute Battalion, joined by North Carolina volunteers and small elements of the Princess Anne District Minute Battalion, assembled on the south end of the Great Bridge causeway in early December. On December 9, 1775, the Patriot force numbered between 800 and 900 men. Skirmishes took place until the morning of December 9, 1775 when a British assault force led by Capt. Charles Fordyce with 120 men of the 14th Regiment of Foot, with support from Loyalists, attempted to assault the fortified Patriot defenses on the south end of the bridge. The causeway and bridge were narrow and surrounded by swamps, placing the British regulars in a kill zone facing frontal and flanking fire. Alerted to the attack by Patriot sentry William “Billy” Flora, a free black man serving in the Princess Anne District Minute Bn., hundreds of Patriots manned the defenses and peppered the attackers with rifle and musket fire. The attack faltered only a few yards from the Patriot defenses. Fifty percent of the assault force was killed, wounded or captured, including 60 regulars and possibly 30 or 40 Loyalists in a pitched 30-minute battle. Stunned, the British troops evacuated the area that evening and fell back to safety aboard ships of the British fleet assembled in Norfolk Harbor. Woodford’s Patriot forces, reinforced by the 2nd North Carolina Regiment under Col. Robert Howe, occupied the City of Norfolk, their original intended destination, on December 14th. The Patriots suffered minimal casualties at Great Bridge over two weeks of contact, while the casualties resulting from the failed British assault broke the will of the British and Loyalist forces.

For more reading:

Norfolk Burning

 

       Burning of Norfolk: January 10, 2026, 

Norfolk Chapter, POC, Past President, Robert Bruce, [email protected].

Patriot forces, numbering about 1300 men, occupied Norfolk and began changing the guard in open view of British warships and loyalist vessels; this evolved into obscene gesturing and then pot shots at embarked personnel. Col. Robert Howe, now the senior Patriot commander, refused permission for landing parties to obtain fresh water and food for the two thousand or more embarked personnel, mainly Loyalist civilians. Reinforced by the HMS Liverpool (44 guns), the fleet responded to the Patriots with a cannonade on the afternoon of January 1, 1776. Following the cannonade of the Norfolk waterfront, landing parties attempted to forage for supplies but were quickly repulsed. Frustrated Patriots took matter into their own hands and systematically, after being fueled by large quantities of alcohol left in the city, began to torch the entire town. After several days, and likely after the effects of the alcohol subsided, much of Norfolk lay in ashes. The Patriot narrative that continues to this day placed the blame on Dunmore. However, an investigation by the Patriot government conducted in 1777 determined that the Patriot forces destroyed over ninety percent of the town. With the secret approval of the Virgina Committee of Safety, the remains of Norfolk and the Gosport Shipyard at Portsmouth were also torched. In mid-February Patriots established their headquarters in Suffolk, well out of reach of the British Navy. Norfolk was in ashes. Destroyed was the eighth largest city in North America and the only large port city between New York and Charleston.  Its destruction complicated British naval operations in the Chesapeake Bay and facilitated Patriot control of Tidewater citizens.

For more reading:

Gwynns

Battle of Cricket Hill & Gwynn’s Island July 2026:

POC, Richard Henry Lee Chapter, Michael Rhodes, Past President, [email protected].

The Battle of Cricket Hill or Gwynn’s Island took place on 9-10 July 1776. After the burning of Norfolk, Virginia’s Royal Governor, Lord Dunmore, established a small base at Tucker’s Point to allow his troops and Loyalist followers some reprieve front the cramped and unhealthy conditions on some 100 sailing vessels assembled in Norfolk Harbor. This location is today, Hospital Point, the home of the Portsmouth Naval Hospital in Portsmouth, Virginia. Royal Navy guns protected his flotilla and followers ashore. Patriots kept constant pressure on Dunmore and began to mount cannons to trap his vessels inside the harbor. Suffering from smallpox and other diseases, in late May 1776, Dunmore relocated his flotilla to Gwynn’s Island at the mouth of the Piankatank River, in modern Mathews County, Virginia, on the Chesapeake Bay. At one point Gwynn’s Island is only 200 yards from the mainland, requiring a large warship to provide overwatch. Patriots constructed an artillery battery and opened fire on July 9, 1776, driving Dunmore’s forces away from the crossing site, back aboard ship and off the island. Patriots occupied the island on July 10, to find hundreds of shallow graves and dead and dying souls. Dunmore attempted to land in Maryland, was repulsed, and his flotilla departed Virginia waters early in August 1776, never to return. Dunmore and royal governance were gone from Virginia.

For more reading:

Conclusion 

Lord Dunmore was resourceful but under resourced and outmanned in his effort to retain Royal authority in Virginia in 1775-76. A small but capable Royal Navy detachment helped Dunmore control the waters in Tidewater Virginia but British military resources went to other colonies and Dunmore was left to find creative solutions to deal with the Virginia’s growing military capabilities. He initially relied on support from Tidewater Loyalists and when they did not respond in adequate numbers, he offered freedom to enslaved and indentured servants. The thought of arming slaves further alienated many Virginians who were on the fence concerning independence. This provided the Patriot government the manpower and messaging advantage resulting in Dunmore’s military defeat and his departure in early August 1776, never to return to Virginia. With the internal military threat to Virginia eliminated, leaders were free to provide supplies and soldiers to Washington’s army and on Virginia’s western border. For example, twenty percent of the force that crossed the Delaware with Washington to attack Trenton were Virginians. Had Dunmore not been driven from Virginia, and leaders required to retain forces in the state for internal protection, the Revolution would have looked very different.

Creditable references on this period and recommended for further research and reading:
  • Mark M. Boatner III, Encyclopedia of the American Revolution, (Mechanicsville: Stackpole Books, 1994).
  • John E. Selby, The Revolution in Virginia, 1775-1783, (Williamsburg: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1988).
  • Andrew Lawler, A Perfect Frenzy, A Royal Governor, His Black Allies, and the Crisis That Spurred the American Revolution, (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2025).
  • William J. Van Schreeven, Robert L Scribner, Brent Tarter, eds., Revolutionary Virginia, 7 vols., (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1973 to 1983).
  • Woody Holton, Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999).
  • Tony Williams, Hurricane of Independence: The Untold Story of the Deadly Storm at the Deciding Moment of the American Revolution (Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, Inc., 2008).