Battle of Great Bridge - Battle

Battle

Dunmore's best intelligence had informed him that Whig forces numbered about 400. On the night and morning of December 8 and 9 Captain Samuel Leslie led the reinforcements down to Fort Murray, arriving around 3:00 am. Upon his arrival he learned that the Ethiopian detachment intended for the diversion was not in the fort. They had been dispatched on a routine deployment to another nearby crossing, and Dunmore had failed to send orders ensuring their availability for the operation. Leslie decided to proceed with the attack anyway. After resting his troops until a little before dawn, he sent men out to replace the bridge planking. Once this was finished, Captain Charles Fordyce led a company of 60 grenadiers across the bridge. They briefly skirmished with Whig sentries, raising the alarm in the camp beyond the entrenchments. Fordyce's men were then joined by a company of navy gunners who had been brought along to operate the field artillery for the attack, while the Tory companies arrayed themselves on the Norfolk side of the bridge.

The Whig leadership in the camp at first thought the early skirmishing was a typical morning salute, and paid it little heed. Shortly after reveille, the severity of the alarm became apparent. While the camp mobilized, a Whig company numbering about sixty prepared for the British advance behind the earthworks. They carefully withheld fire until the grenadiers, advancing with bayonets fixed, were within 50 yards (46 m), and then unleashed a torrent of fire on the British column. Fordyce, leading the column, went down in a hail of musket fire just steps from the earthworks along with many of the men in the front ranks. The British advance dissolved as the Whig musket fire continued; about half of Fordyce's force was killed, and many were injured. The navy gunners provided covering fire as they retreated back across the bridge, but their small cannons made no impression on the earthworks.

Figure yourself a strong breastwork built across a causeway, on which six men only could advance abreast; a large swamp almost surrounded them, at the back of which were two small breastworks to flank us in our attack on their intrenchments. Under these disadvantages it was impossible to succeed.

Colonel Woodford had by this time organized the forces in the Whig camp, and they marched out to face the British. After an inconsequential exchange of musket fire at long range, Woodford sent the riflemen of the Culpeper Minutemen off to the left. From this position the riflemen, whose weapons had a much longer range than muskets, began to fire on the British position on the far side of the bridge. The navy gunners, with the only weapons the British had available to contest the riflemen at that range, were now out of position, and were also being threatened by the large Whig force approaching the earthworks. They spiked their guns and retreated across the bridge, and Captain Leslie ordered his men to retreat into Fort Murray. In some 25 minutes, Dunmore's attempt to stop the Patriot buildup near Norfolk had been emphatically turned back.