A two-day skirmish 250 years ago between a British naval force and colonial militiamen in Hampton and Williamsburg led to what historians have come to mark when the Revolutionary War came to Virginia.
During the weekend of Oct. 26-28, 1775, no one saw that significance as the British and colonials skirmished at various spots in New England with arguments for independence at the Continental Congress still months away.
While the British and colonial encounters in Massachusetts seemed a world away, Virginia’s colonial military in October grew, according to Charles A. Mills in his new volume, “Virginia in the American Revolution,” and the late William & Mary professor John E. Selby in his iconic book, “The Revolution in Virginia, 1775-1783.”
The Third Virginia Convention in July 1775 had created the Committee of Safety; Patrick Henry had been named to lead the statewide militia earlier in the Second Virginia Convention even though his military credentials were scarce.
John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore and the royal governor of Virginia. (Scottish National Gallery)
On the British side, John Murray, the 4th Earl of Dunmore and governor of the colony, had left Williamsburg, then Virginia’s capital, for the safe confines of a British warship in the waters surrounding Norfolk.
In August, the colony’s military commander-in-chief Henry, head of the 1st Virginia Regiment, established “a camp behind” William & Mary — in an area where Kaplan Arena is now located — and where Lafayette established his camp six years later. The camp was created for minutemen, usually in companies, to come and train for two weeks and then go home. They would be ready for battle if and when it came, Selby wrote.
“Throughout October recruits marched into town until by the end of the month close to two thousand men were bivouacked around the city,” Mills described.
Earlier that September, a hurricane had hit Hampton Roads and most of the British fleet escaped damage, except for two vessels. One sank and the other, The Liberty, “a small British tender off Hampton went aground and locals looted the ship and burned it to the waterline,” Mills said in a phone interview earlier this week.
Through the ensuing weeks Dunmore recruited his own supporters and felt like “the British were strong enough to make raids along the Virginia coast,” Mills said. Shelby wrote that raids began Oct. 12.
As directed by Dunmore, Capt. Matthew Squire, wanting to retaliate for losing his vessel to the Hampton locals, placed a small squadron in the Hampton River “intending to burn the town to the ground” in one such raid, Mills said. “No one knows who fired the first shot. Capt. George Nickols of the Second Virginia Regiment” may have been the culprit, Dunmore wrote. Colonials said it was the British.
Portrait of William Woodford. (Caroline County Courthouse)
Nevertheless, “the skirmish went on for two days,” Mills said, with Col. William Woodford bringing a company of riflemen from Williamsburg’s camp, Selby wrote in his definitive account. This was the revolution’s first action outside the Northeast. Woodford soon was placed in charge of Virginia’s military throughout Tidewater as commanding officer of the 2nd Virginia Regiment.
“In close sea-to-shore engagements the accuracy of the riflemen repeatedly proved more than a match for the British by preventing the sailors from remaining on desk long enough to fire their guns,” Selby penned. Two British seamen were killed and several wounded; there were no Virginian casualties.
Dunmore was ready for more substantive action.
On Nov. 7 he issued a proclamation declaring martial law “to the end that Peace and good Order may the sooner be restored.” In the same document, Dunmore promised freedom to all enslaved people and indentured servants belonging to patriots willing to fight for the British.
What developed was “Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment.” The term’s use was intentional, according to historians. Ethiopian was a rare term of respect accorded to Africans by Europeans and referred to the East African Christian kingdom.
Edmund Pendleton, president of Virginia’s Committee of Safety, later wrote to Richard Henry Lee: “Letters mention that slaves flocked to (Dunmore) in abundance, but I hope it is magnified.”
Ultimately, the Ethiopian Regiment’s first major action came in Virginia’s first land battle of the war, the Battle of Great Bridge, a strategic crossing along the land route from Williamsburg to Norfolk during the first week of December 1775, according to Mills and Selby.
Wilford Kale, kalehouse@aol.com
https://www.dailypress.com/2025/10/25/250-years-ago-the-revolutionary-war-came-to-virginia/
