Battle of Great Bridge - Aftermath

Aftermath

Following a truce to permit the British to remove their dead and wounded, the Tory forces snuck out in the night to return to Norfolk. Captain Fordyce was buried with full military honors by the Whigs near the site of the battle. Casualty estimates ranged from Dunmore's official report of 62 killed or wounded to an escaped patriot's report that the British losses totaled 102, excluding militia casualties. The only claimed Whig casualty was one man with a slight wound to the thumb.

The Whigs were then reinforced by the arrival of troops from North Carolina under Colonel Robert Howe. Dunmore blamed Leslie for his decision to attack without the accompanying diversion, although the outcome of the battle may not have been different even with the diversion, given the disparity in force sizes. In the following days, Dunmore and his Tory supporters took refuge on ships of the Royal Navy, and Norfolk was occupied by the victorious Whig forces. The danger Dunmore posed to the rebel cause, however, had not been eliminated. General George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and a Virginian who knew Dunmore well, wrote a letter to Charles Lee in late December, warning of continued danger despite Dunmore's flight to the navy. He told Lee that "if that Man is not crushed before Spring, he will become the most formidable Enemy America has", and that "nothing less than depriving him of life or liberty will secure peace to Virginia."

After a series of escalations over the Whig refusal to allow provisions to be delivered to the overcrowded vessels, Dunmore and Commodore Henry Pellow decided to bombard the town. On January 1, 1776, Norfolk was destroyed in action begun by Royal Navy ships and their landing parties, but completed by Whig troops that continued to loot and burn the former Tory stronghold.

Lord Dunmore occupied Portsmouth in February 1776, and used it as a base for raiding operations until late March, when General Charles Lee successfully forced him back to the fleet. After further raiding operations in the Chesapeake, Dunmore and the British fleet left for New York City in August 1776. Dunmore never returned to Virginia.

A highway marker was placed by the state of Virginia in 1934 near the battle site. In response to construction threats to the battlefield, local citizens organized in 1999 to preserve the area.