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.
John Marshall, afterwards chief justice, was in this expedition.[635:A]
Richard Kidder Meade, father of Bishop Meade, was also present at the
affair of the Great Bridge. This was the first scene of revolutionary
bloodshed in Virginia. On the night following this action the royalists
evacuated the fort, and Dunmore took refuge on board of his fleet.
Colonel Howe, with five or six hundred North Carolina troops, now joined
Woodford, and assumed command at the Great Bridge, with the consent of
Woodford, who yielded to the seniority of his commission. Colonel Henry
now saw the colonel of the second Virginia regiment, who had refused to
acknowledge his command, submitting himself to an officer of no higher
rank, and of another colony. He found himself, although invested with
the title of commander-in-chief, yet virtually superseded and reduced to
the mere shadow of a name. To nullify his superiority of command the
committee had only to detach his subordinate officers.
On the thirteenth of December a member of the convention wrote to
Colonel Woodford: "I have talked with Colonel Henry about this matter;
he thinks he has been ill-treated, and insists the officers under his
command shall submit to his orders:" and again, "A commander or general,
I suppose, will be sent us by the congress, as it is expected our troops
will be upon continental pay." Mr. Pendleton, chairman of the committee,
in a letter dated December the twenty-fourth, and addressed to Colonel
Woodford, said: "The field-officers to each regiment will be named here
and recommended to congress; in case our army is taken into continental
pay, they will send commissions. A general officer will be chosen
there, I doubt not, and sent us; with that matter I hope we shall
not intermeddle, lest it should be thought propriety requires our
calling, or rather recommending, our present officer to that station."
It appears that Colonel Henry had not owed his military appointment
to those members of the committee of safety who conducted the
correspondence.[636:A] Mr. Pendleton looked upon the appointment of
Henry as an "unlucky step." Pendleton and Woodford were both of the
County of Caroline.
Late in December, Colonel Henry insisting upon a determination of the
question thus raised between him and Colonel Woodford, the committee
passed the following resolution:--
"_Resolved_, Unanimously, that Colonel Woodford, although
acting upon a separate and detached command, ought to
correspond with Colonel Henry, and make returns to him at
proper times of the state and condition of the forces under
his command, and also that he is subject to his orders when
the convention or the committee of safety is not sitting; but
that while either of these bodies is sitting he is to receive
his orders from one of them."
This decision virtually annulled the power of Henry as
commander-in-chief. The clause of the ordinance of convention which
authorized the committee to direct military movements is the
following:--
"_And whereas_ it may be necessary for the public security
that the forces to be raised by virtue of this ordinance
should, as occasion may require, be marched to different parts
of the colony, and that the officers should be subject to a
proper control,--
"_Be it ordained by the authority aforesaid_, That the
officers and soldiers under such command shall, in all things
not otherwise particularly provided for by this ordinance and
the articles established for their regulation, be under the
control and subject to the order of the general committee of
safety."[637:A]
It could hardly be said of Woodford and his men that they were marched
to a different part of the colony; he and Colonel Henry were still in
the same quarter of Virginia, and not far apart. For so numerous a body
as the convention, or even the committee of safety, to assume all the
functions of the commander-in-chief, was incompatible with the unity,
secrecy, and promptitude demanded in the conduct of war. If not, of what
advantage was the appointment of a commander-in-chief at all? If the
committee, by such a construction of their powers, could virtually annul
the authority of the commander-in-chief, he, whose powers were at the
least as ample as theirs, might, by a like construction, have repudiated
their authority. The conduct of the committee toward Colonel Henry was
strongly censured by the people as well as the troops, and they imputed
it to personal envy.[637:B] Those, however, who approved of the
committee's course, attributed it to a want of confidence in Colonel
Henry, as deficient in military experience.[638:A] Other mortifications
were in store for the man of the people.
Shortly after the battle of the Great Bridge the Provincials, under
Howe, took possession of Norfolk, encamped there in the "Town Camp."
FOOTNOTES:
[632:A] John Banister proposing to turn his saw-mill at Petersburg into
a powder-mill, the convention ordered saltpetre and sulphur to be sent
there for him. Richard Bland advised that saltpetre should be made at
Appomattox warehouses, (Petersburg,) fearing that supineness possessed
all ranks, and offering to contribute toward that useful work.
[634:A] Lee Papers, S. Lit. Messr., 1858, p. 254.
[635:A] An account of his visit to Yorktown shortly after the battle,
and his courtship, by John Eston Cooke, is to be found in Historical
Magazine for June, 1859.
[636:A] Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry, 171.
[637:A] Journal of the Convention of 1775.
[637:B] Wirt's Henry, 178.
[638:A] And perhaps as unduly familiar with the men under his command.
As an instance of this it is said that he was seen among them with his
coat off--a grave charge indeed!