Bacon's Rebellion, 1676

by Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker

Of this they had abundant evidence, for as they trudged along the people brought out "fruits and victuals," shouted encouragement, and denounced the governor. There was a brief stop in New Kent while recruits came in, before they set off for James City County. There the youthful leader delivered another address to his men: "If ever you have fought well and bravely, you must do so now.... They call us rebels and traitors, but we will see whether their courage is as great as their pretended loyalty. Come on, my hearts of gold, he who dies in the field of battle dies in the bed of honor."

When Bacon arrived before Jamestown the place seemed impregnable. The narrow isthmus which was the only approach to the town was defended by three heavy guns, the ships in the river were ready to give support, the Back Creek and a series of marshes protected the north shore. But Bacon was not discouraged. All night long his men labored to throw up a makeshift fortress of "trees, bush and earth" facing the isthmus, as a protection should Berkeley's force sally out. When the governor saw what was going on he ordered the ships and shallops to move up to fire on the crude structure, while his soldiers let loose with repeated volleys. Thereupon Bacon sent out parties of horse through the adjacent plantations to bring in the wives of some of the governor's supporters, Elizabeth Page, Angelica Bray, Anna Ballard, Frances Thorpe and even Elizabeth Bacon, wife of his cousin, Nathaniel Bacon, Senior. The terrified ladies were placed upon the ramparts, where they would be in great peril should the firing be resumed, and kept there until Bacon had completed the work and mounted his guns.

It was on September 15, that Berkeley's troops sallied out, formed in front of Bacon's fort, and rushed forward, horse and foot "pressing very close upon one another's shoulders." They made an excellent target, so that when the rebels opened on them, those in front threw down their arms and fled. Had Bacon pressed close on their heels he might have taken the place, and with it Berkeley, and all his men. But he held back and the opportunity was lost.

The governor was furious, and reviled his officers in "passionate terms." But it should have been obvious to him that he could not trust men who fought under compulsion, many of them in sympathy with Bacon. "The common soldiers mutinied, and the officers did not do their whole duty to suppress them," he wrote afterwards. The officers urged on him the necessity of abandoning the town. "One night having rode from guard to guard and from quarter to quarter all day long to encourage the men, I went to bed," Berkeley said. "I was no sooner lain down but there came three or four of the chief officers and told me I must presently rise and go to the ships for the soldiers were all mutinying ... and that 200 or 300 men were landed at the back of us." But when he put on his clothes, mounted his horse, and rode to the spot they had indicated, he found the report false.

The next day the officers again urged the evacuation of the place. But the governor demurred, "desiring them with all passionate earnestness to keep the town ... I told them I could neither answer this to the King nor to any man that ever was a soldier, unless they gave under their hands the necessity of my dishonorable quitting the place." This they immediately did and then hurried him away to the fleet. That night guns were spiked, arms and stores were taken on board the vessels, and the soldiers were embarked. Then silently the little fleet slipped down the river.

The next morning Bacon's men occupied the town. But now he was uncertain as to what he should do with it. News had come that Giles Brent, a former supporter of Bacon who had gone over to the governor, had raised an army in the northern counties and was marching south to attack him. Brent, who was half Indian, was a sacrilegious man who was said to have drunk the devil's health, at the same time firing his pistol "to give the devil a gun." His advance put Bacon in a quandary. If he remained in Jamestown, he would be trapped between Brent on land and Berkeley's fleet by water. If he deserted the town, Berkeley would return and occupy it. In the end, he, Lawrence, Drummond, and the others decided to burn the town.

A few minutes later the village was a mass of flames. Lawrence applied the torch to his own house, Drummond to his, and Bacon to the church. They "burnt five houses of mine," reported Berkeley, "and twenty of other gentlemen." It was a desperate deed of determined men, a deed which foreshadowed the burning of Norfolk by patriots in the American Revolution a century later to prevent the British from using it as a base of operations.

Turning his back on the ruins of Jamestown, Bacon led his men first to Green Spring, then to the site of Yorktown, and crossing the York River made his headquarters at the residence of Colonel Augustine Warner, in Gloucester. But when word came that Brent's forces were approaching, he wheeled his veterans into line, the "drums thundered out the march," and away they went to meet him. But there was no battle. Brent's men, many of them probably indentured workers who had been forced into service, had no wish to risk their lives for the governor. So, when they heard that Bacon's force was on the march, they refused to fight, deserted their officers, and returned home.

Now that once more Bacon was in possession of all Virginia except the Eastern Shore, his chief concern was the redcoats, whose arrival was reported to be close at hand. Would the people support him in opposing them? So he summoned the Gloucester trained bands and asked them to take an oath to stand by him, fight the English troops, and if they found that they could not defend themselves, their lives, and liberties, to desert the colony.

At this the Gloucester men balked. To fight the King's troops was to defy the might of England. So they asked to be permitted to remain neutral. Deeply disappointed, Bacon reproved them as the worst of sinners who were willing to be saved by others but would not do their part. Then he dismissed them. When he was told that the Reverend James Wadding had tried to dissuade the people from subscribing, he had him arrested. "It is your place to preach in church, not in camps," he said.