British Defeated at Great Bridge: Virginia Turns Revolutionary

Patriot militia routed British regulars and Loyalist troops at Great Bridge near Norfolk, forcing the last royal governor to flee Virginia aboard a warship. The lopsided victory secured the largest and most populous colony for the revolutionary cause without a single American death in combat. The battle took place on December 9, 1775, at a fortified bridge across the southern branch of the Elizabeth River, south of Norfolk. Lord Dunmore, Virginia's royal governor, had been driven from Williamsburg and was operating from ships in Norfolk harbor, attempting to reassert British control over the colony with a small force of regulars, Loyalist volunteers, and formerly enslaved men freed by his November proclamation. Dunmore ordered Captain Charles Fordyce to lead a frontal assault across the causeway, a narrow wooden bridge flanked by swamps that channeled the attackers into a killing zone. The British grenadiers charged directly into concentrated musket fire from behind Patriot fortifications. Fordyce was killed within yards of the American lines, and the assault collapsed in minutes. British casualties were roughly sixty killed and wounded, while the Americans suffered precisely one man slightly injured. Dunmore abandoned Norfolk and retreated to his ships, eventually ordering the bombardment and burning of the town on January 1, 1776, an act of destruction that further alienated Virginians. The Battle of Great Bridge eliminated organized British military presence in Virginia for the next four years and gave the Continental Congress control over the colony that would provide more soldiers and materiel to the war effort than any other.