CHAPTER LXXXV.
1775.
Dunmore's War—Captain Squires—Woodford sent against Dunmore—Woodford and Henry—Affairs at Great Bridge—Battle of Great Bridge—Howe assumes Command—Indignity offered Henry—Committee of Safety—Pendleton—Howe occupies Norfolk.
Dunmore in the meanwhile had rallied a band of tories, runaway negroes, and British soldiers, and collected a naval force, and was carrying on a petty warfare. Captain Squires, of his majesty's sloop Otter, during the summer cruised in the James and York, plundering the inhabitants and carrying off slaves. Early in September a tender laden with stores, being driven ashore near Hampton, Squires (who happened to be in her) and most of the crew escaped. The sloop was burnt by the inhabitants. Squires in retaliation threatening Hampton, Major Innes, with a hundred men, was sent down from Williamsburg to defend it. Squires in the latter part of October appeared near Hampton with several vessels, and threatened to land and burn the town. It was defended by a company of regulars under Captain George Nicholas, a company of minute-men, and some militia. Upon Squires attempting to land a skirmish ensued, and the enemy was driven off with some loss. Squires' party returning on the next day, burnt down a house belonging to a Mr. Cooper. Intelligence of this affair having reached Williamsburg, a company of riflemen was sent to Hampton, and Colonel Woodford was despatched to take command there. Upon their arrival on the next morning, Squires began to fire upon the town, but was again compelled to retire. These petty hostilities were the subject of humorous remark in the Virginia Gazette.[632:A]
Dunmore, on the 7th of November, 1775, proclaimed martial-law, summoned all persons capable of bearing arms to his standard, on penalty of being proclaimed traitors, and offered freedom to all servants and slaves who should join him. He had now the ascendency in the country around Norfolk, which abounded in tories. The committee of safety despatched Woodford with his regiment and two hundred minute-men, amounting in all to eight hundred men, with orders to cross the James River at Sandy Point and go in pursuit of Dunmore. Colonel Henry had been desirous to be employed in this service, and, it was said, solicited it, but the committee of safety refused, and amid such exciting events he found himself, eager as he was for action, and ardent and impetuous as was his nature, still compelled to sit down inactive in Williamsburg, where he had been quartered since September. At length after the lapse of nearly another month of tedious inaction, during which he received no regular communications from Colonel Woodford, Colonel Henry wrote to him thus: "Not hearing of any despatch from you for a long time, I can no longer forbear sending to know your situation and what has occurred?" Woodford on the next day replied from the Great Bridge, near Norfolk, and said: "When joined I shall always esteem myself immediately under your command, and will obey accordingly, but when sent to command a separate and distinct corps, under the immediate instructions of the committee of safety, whenever that body, or the honorable convention is sitting, I look upon it as my indispensable duty to address my intelligence to them as the supreme power in this colony." Thus Colonel Henry's chagrin at not being permitted to march himself against Dunmore was aggravated by Colonel Woodford's declining, while detached, to acknowledge his superiority in command. Woodford, upon approaching Dunmore, found that he had entrenched himself on the north side of the Elizabeth River, at the Great Bridge, about twenty miles from Norfolk. Judge Marshall says that it was necessary for the Provincials to cross it in order to reach Norfolk, but Thomas Ludwell Lee, writing at the time, says that there were other ways by which to pass to Norfolk. "Our army has been for some time arrested in its march to Norfolk by a redoubt, or stockade, or hog-pen, as they call it here, by way of derision, at the end of this bridge. Though, by the way, this hog-pen seems filled with a parcel of wild boars, which we appear not overfond to meddle with." Some of the more eager patriots were apprehensive that Woodford would be amused at that post until Dunmore should finish his fortifications at Norfolk, where he was now entrenching and mounting cannon, some hundreds of negroes being employed in the work. Added to this the advanced season of the year and the hourly expectation of the enemy's receiving a re-enforcement from St. Augustine, as was known by intercepted intelligence, made a bold movement necessary, "while we walk too cautiously in the road of prudence."
Dunmore's power on land was confined to the counties of Norfolk and Princess Anne; his recent course had united the colony with few exceptions against him, and if the ministry had ransacked the whole world for the person of all others the best fitted to ruin their cause, they could not have found a fitter agent than Lord Dunmore. He had just now proclaimed liberty to the slaves, and declared martial-law.
It was believed that one frigate could capture the whole of his fleet, and other vessels laden with the floating property of tories, of enormous value. John Page wished earnestly for a few armed vessels to keep possession of the rivers, the arteries of commerce, at the least the upper parts of them. While five thousand men could not defend so exposed a coast against the depredations of Dunmore's fleet, yet five hundred in armed vessels could easily take the fleet. But a majority of the committee of safety and of the convention, held it in vain for Virginia then to attempt any thing by water.[634:A]
Dunmore had erected a small fort on an oasis surrounded by a morass, not far from the Dismal Swamp, accessible on either side only by a long causeway. Woodford encamped within cannon-shot of this post, in mud and mire, in a village at the southern end of the causeway, across which he threw up a breast-work, but being destitute of artillery he did not attack the fort. After a few days Dunmore, hearing by a servant lad, who had deserted from Woodford's camp, that his force did not exceed three hundred men, mustered his whole strength and despatched them in the night to the fort, with orders to force the breast-works early next morning, or die in the attempt. On the 9th of December, 1775, a little before sunrise, Captain Fordyce, at the head of sixty grenadiers, who six abreast led the column, advanced along the causeway. Colonel Bullet first discovered the enemy, and the alarm being given in Woodford's camp, a small guard at the breast-works began the fire, others hastened from their tents, and regardless of order, kept up a fire on the head of the column. Fordyce, though received so warmly in front, and flanked by a party posted on a rising ground to his right, rallied his men, and marched up within twenty yards of the breast-work, when he fell pierced with bullets. His followers now retreated, and at this juncture Colonel Woodford arrived, and directed a pursuit of the enemy, who were galled by a handful of riflemen under Colonel Stephen, but found protection under cover of the guns of the fort. Woodford declined attempting to storm the works, although strongly urged to it by the bold and ardent Bullet and the enthusiastic wishes of the troops.
In the battle of the Great Bridge every grenadier was killed, and the enemy's killed and wounded amounted to about one hundred. Four officers were killed, one wounded and made prisoner. The affair has been styled "a Bunker Hill in miniature:" but there the loss was very heavy on both sides; whereas here Woodford's troops suffered no loss.