{"id":20864,"date":"2025-12-13T08:40:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T13:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/?p=20864"},"modified":"2025-12-15T08:41:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T13:41:18","slug":"column-a-great-calamity-for-norfolk-and-virginia-250-years-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/column-a-great-calamity-for-norfolk-and-virginia-250-years-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Column: A great calamity for Norfolk, and Virginia, 250 years on"},"content":{"rendered":"

Column: A great calamity for Norfolk, and Virginia, 250 years on<\/h1>\n

By Andrew Lawler<\/strong>
\nDecember 13, 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read the article here (paywall)<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Some 250 years ago on Dec. 9, a column of troops in red coats marched across the Great Bridge in Chesapeake, the bayonets on their muskets gleaming in the dawn light. They expected the untested Americans entrenched on the opposite shore to flee in terror. Instead, the patriots mowed down the British soldiers, killing and wounding more than 70 and forcing their hasty retreat.<\/p>\n

The 10-minute bloody clash, known as the \u201cBunker Hill of the South,\u201d marked a key victory for American patriots. The defeat of forces under Virginia\u2019s royal governor, Lord Dunmore, proved a welcome boost for patriot morale. What is usually left out of the textbooks \u2014 and was absent from Ken Burns\u2019 recent series \u201cThe American Revolution\u201d \u2014 is the disaster that followed.<\/p>\n

After the battle, Dunmore\u2019s troops, including hundreds of Black men freed by the royal governor to fight for the crown, retreated to Norfolk, Virginia\u2019s sole city and the thriving home to 6,500 residents. As they boarded four Royal Navy ships, thousands of fearful civilians scrambled onto any vessel they could find to cluster under the warships\u2019 guns. They had reason to worry. In Philadelphia, Richard Henry Lee was eager to hear of \u201cthe demolition of that infamous nest of Tories,\u201d while Thomas Jefferson had urged Norfolk\u2019s annihilation.<\/p>\n

By mid-December, the patriots had occupied the port, and snipers used warehouses along the river to fire at the flotilla. On Jan. 1, 1776, after warning civilians ashore, the royal governor ordered a cannon barrage as cover for British and Black troops, who landed, burned the snipers\u2019 posts, then returned to their ships.<\/p>\n

In the chaos, patriot officers urged their men to plunder and burn the town. When one Norfolk resident tried to stop troops from destroying a patriot\u2019s home, he was warned that they would \u201cknock him down with a tomahawk.\u201d Another resident carried an elderly man to safety as soldiers looted and burned his home. Patriots extorted \u201ctwo dollars from a certain Mr. Baker,\u201d in exchange for agreeing \u201cto delay burning his house, until he could remove his wife and children out of it.\u201d Officers then oversaw destruction of distilleries, rope walks, flour mills and the Gosport shipyard.<\/p>\n

Dunmore was blamed for the conflagration, and the news led many wavering Americans to join the patriot cause, stoking support for independence from Britain.<\/p>\n

In February, the patriot army abandoned Norfolk, torching any building that remained \u2014 including what is now called St. Paul\u2019s Church \u2014 by order of Virginia\u2019s new patriot government. Not one of the 1,333 structures was left intact. No other American city has suffered such complete devastation; a subsequent report found that patriot troops were responsible for 96% of the damage. Their commander wrote with satisfaction that the town\u2019s ruin was \u201cgreatly beneficial to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet if the goal was to deny use of the port to the British, it had little effect. Dunmore and his fleet remained in the harbor until May and departed only after a smallpox epidemic wreaked havoc. Meanwhile, thousands of men, women and children, were left homeless and destitute during a harsh winter.<\/p>\n

Following the war, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Charleston, New York and Boston helped power their states to new prosperity, while Norfolk was slow to recover and the once-wealthy Old Dominion turned into an economic backwater. \u201cVirginia is fast becoming the Barbary of the union and in danger of falling into the ranks of our own Negroes,\u201d bemoaned Jefferson in 1820.<\/p>\n

At least one patriot who was part of the force that burned Norfolk later regretted its loss. \u201cThus, was destroyed the most populous and flourishing town in Virginia,\u201d wrote U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall. \u201cIts destruction was one of those ill-judged measures, of which the consequences are felt long after the motives are forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n

This month, as we prepare to celebrate the nation\u2019s 250th birthday year, take a moment to commemorate the victory at Great Bridge \u2014 and to mourn the terrible price paid to win our independence.<\/p>\n

Andrew Lawler of Asheville, N.C., is the Norfolk-born author of \u201cA Perfect Frenzy: A Royal Governor, His Black Allies, and the Crisis that Spurred the American Revolution.\u201d Visit andrewlawler.com for more.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some 250 years ago on Dec. 9, a column of troops in red coats marched across the Great Bridge in Chesapeake, the bayonets on their muskets gleaming in the dawn light. They expected the untested Americans entrenched on the opposite shore to flee in terror. Instead, the patriots mowed down the British soldiers, killing and wounding more than 70 and forcing their hasty retreat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20865,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-virginian-pilot"],"yoast_head":"\nThese archaeological findings unlocked the stories of our ancestors \u2022 Andrew Lawler<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Two centuries of excavations have given voice to a past that previously lay mostly hidden. 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