National (VA) – Great Bridge

The commemoration of the Battle of Great Bridge is held annually on the first Saturday in December in coordination with the City of Chesapeake and this year we are excited to celebrate the 250th Anniversary!

The Battle of Great Bridge 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 Bn., joined by North Carolina volunteers and small elements of the Princess Anne District Minute Bn., assembled on the south end of the Great Bridge causeway in early December to challenge British control over this key terrain that enabled movement into the Virginia interior and south to North Carolina. 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 Loyalist forces including Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopean Regiment, 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 sentries including William “Billy” Flora, a free black man serving in the Princess Anne District Minute Bn., hundreds of Patriots manned the defenses and when the British were within 50 yards, they commenced sustained rifle and musket fire against the tightly packed grenadiers leading the assault. The attack faltered only a few yards from the Patriot defenses with British Capt. Charles Fordyce being killed and over half of their force killed, wounded or captured, including 60 regulars and possibly 30 or 40 Loyalists in the pitched thirty 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. Col. 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 only a single minor casualty at Great Bridge during the two weeks of contact with the British, while the casualties resulting from the failed assault broke the will of the British and Loyalist forces.

For more reading:
– Patrick H. Hannum, “The Battle of Great Bridge: Preserving the Site. Honoring the Soldiers,” November 27, 2017, Journal of the American Revolution (JAR)
– “Great Bridge Museum Opens Amid Pandemic,” November 18, 2020, JAR
– “Eleven Patriot Company Commanders at Great Bridge,” December 9, 1775, November 22, 2022 JAR
– Norman Fuss, “Billy Flora at the Battle of Great Bridge,” October 14, 2014, JAR
– Patrick H. Hannum & Frederick R. Kienle, “George Washington’s Leadership Guidance to William Woodford, Did he Listen?” April 12, 2022, JAR
– Jeremy Horne, “William Flora Historical Marker,” Encyclopedia Virginia, William Flora Historical Marker – Encyclopedia Virginia.

-DCF