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| Guest Blogger: Barbara Blythe |
Today we welcome special guest, Barbara Blythe who is celebrating her new historical romance release, Far Grander Than Paradise. Welcome, Barbara!
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For the past two years, I’ve volunteered at the Great Bridge Battlefield and Waterways History Museum as a docent, and I discover something new about this battle nearly every time I step inside the building. I have discovered what many considered untrained, undisciplined though zealous patriots, inferior to highly trained and seasoned British soldiers, surprised everyone. Not in a skirmish or minor ambush, but in an orchestrated attack.
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| Map of Great Bridge and Fort Murray |
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| British Fort |
By early December 1775, the British had taken up residence in the hastily constructed fort, having grown in number to approximately 600 men. Dunmore, certain his force would have little trouble subduing the patriots, underestimated the number assembled by the opposing force—nearly 900 in total. He also underestimated the marksmanship and superior rifles the patriots had brought to the battle, of note the Culpepper Minutemen, waving their battle flag proclaiming “Don’t Tread on Me” which bore the image of a snake.
Lord Dunmore
When December 9, 1775 dawned, Lord Dunmore commanded his troops to advance, the 14th Regiment the first line to march toward the Patriots. As they reached the wooden bridge, sentries from the patriot side confronted them, among their number a freed black man, William Flora, from Portsmouth, Virginia, who’d volunteered to fight with the patriots. He and his companions pulled boards from the bridge to restrict the soldiers’ progress. Eventually only Flora remained, firing numerous shots at the advancing British force. But once across the bridge, the British encountered a problem far worse than a sentry shooting at them. The narrow strip that connected the bridge to the village, a causeway, was narrow and limited the progress of the British as they collapsed to six men across to fit within the fourteen feet of width provided by the causeway. Surrounded on all sides by swampy wet lands—marsh, reeds, muck, and mire—the 14th Regiment faced a deadly assault from the riflemen protected by breastworks across the southern end of the causeway.
The battle lasted thirty minutes. The British retreated to the fort and by that evening had marched back to Norfolk. It was a Patriot victory no one expected.
Why was this win a major turning point in the pursuit of freedom from England? News of the victory spread throughout the colonies and across the Atlantic. Throughout the colonies the realization that obtaining independence from Great Britain was more than a dream. And that dream became reality, but not without extreme sacrifice. We should all value the efforts of those 900 men who gathered along the Great Road and the Great Bridge 250 years ago.
