WEBVTT NOTE 17. Virginia Battles Lord Dunmore 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.240 Volume 4, Chapter 17, Virginia Battles Lord Dunmore 2 00:00:06.240 --> 00:00:11.680 Virginia had only a few thousand Tories at most, but they were concentrated in a few 3 00:00:11.680 --> 00:00:18.400 strategic areas. Aided by Lord Dunmore, the highly energetic royal governor, they gave 4 00:00:18.400 --> 00:00:24.720 the American rebels a good deal of trouble. Apart from the Tory predominance on the eastern 5 00:00:24.720 --> 00:00:30.720 and Sure, the loyalist were concentrated among the Scottish merchants in Virginia's commercial 6 00:00:30.720 --> 00:00:38.640 city of Norfolk and on the extreme northwestern frontier around Pittsburgh. After the rejection 7 00:00:38.640 --> 00:00:46.640 by the Virginia Assembly of Lord North's conciliation scheme in June 1775, Dunmore 8 00:00:46.640 --> 00:00:52.860 fled with over a hundred British regulars to a British ship in the harbor of congenial 9 00:00:52.860 --> 00:00:54.960 Norfolk. 10 00:00:54.960 --> 00:00:59.960 Tourism was strong, though not predominant, on the American frontiers, undoubtedly in 11 00:00:59.960 --> 00:01:07.160 part because of a suspicion that the American governments might not be able or eager to 12 00:01:07.160 --> 00:01:12.160 supply armed forces to push back the Indians. 13 00:01:12.160 --> 00:01:18.360 Tourism on the Virginia frontier was concentrated around Pittsburgh, now in Pennsylvania, near 14 00:01:18.360 --> 00:01:23.040 Here where Fort Pitt had been dismantled three years before. 15 00:01:23.040 --> 00:01:31.840 Under Dunmore, Virginia during 1773 and 1774 had aggressively expanded its territory. 16 00:01:31.840 --> 00:01:37.600 Dunmore had seized control of the Pittsburgh region, arresting and expelling Pennsylvania 17 00:01:37.600 --> 00:01:43.640 officials and creating a new West Augusta County there for Virginia. 18 00:01:43.640 --> 00:01:51.800 Furthermore, in Dunmore's war, the governor had defied the proclamation line of 1763 and 19 00:01:51.800 --> 00:01:57.000 had driven the Shawnee Indians out of Kentucky. 20 00:01:57.000 --> 00:02:04.440 When the Revolutionary War began, John Connolly, a physician, Tory militia official, and faithful 21 00:02:04.440 --> 00:02:10.400 ally of Dunmore and Britain, conceived an audacious plan. 22 00:02:10.400 --> 00:02:18.160 Having Dunmore on his ship during August 1775, Connolly brought with him a pledge of loyalty 23 00:02:18.160 --> 00:02:25.760 to Dunmore and the Crown from several hundred inhabitants of West Augusta County, including 24 00:02:25.760 --> 00:02:32.920 the Indian traders Alexander McKee and Simon Gertie. More important, Dunmore and Connolly 25 00:02:32.920 --> 00:02:39.000 agreed to the latter's scheme, the Connolly Plot, in which Dunmore would raise a troop 26 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:21.840 In early October, a peace conference at Pittsburgh between Indians and the representatives of 27 00:03:21.840 --> 00:03:29.120 Virginia and Pennsylvania had resulted in an agreement that provided for Indian neutrality 28 00:03:29.120 --> 00:03:37.800 in exchange for an American pledge to maintain the proclamation line of 1763 as the limit 29 00:03:37.800 --> 00:03:45.720 of Western Settlement. This agreement defied the fact that the line had already been rendered 30 00:03:45.720 --> 00:03:52.800 de facto obsolete by the white victory of Dunmore's War over the Shawnees and by the 31 00:03:52.800 --> 00:03:58.700 subsequent beginning of the settlement of Kentucky. McKee and Connolly were agreeable 32 00:03:58.700 --> 00:04:05.440 to this arrangement as a short-term tactic until their proposed campaign could begin. 33 00:04:05.440 --> 00:04:13.840 It was an ambitious and, undeniably, unworkable scheme. But at any rate, it never had a chance, 34 00:04:13.840 --> 00:04:21.000 as Connolly and two aides were arrested shortly afterward by alert militia at Frederick, Maryland. 35 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:26.600 Connolly was brought before the Continental Congress for trial and promptly imprisoned. 36 00:04:26.600 --> 00:04:32.440 As for McKee, he was soon confined to Pittsburgh by the local Committee of Correspondence, 37 00:04:32.440 --> 00:04:45.080 The collapse of the Connolly Plot left Lord Dunmore with his forces based upon the sea. 38 00:04:45.080 --> 00:04:51.400 For the first time in the war, the British now found themselves a small armed force facing 39 00:04:51.400 --> 00:04:57.000 a large, unorganized, hostile population. 40 00:04:57.000 --> 00:05:03.440 Except for the initial shock at Concord, the British forces had encountered regular American 41 00:05:03.440 --> 00:05:10.240 armies, as at Boston, or fought in friendly or neutral territory in Canada. 42 00:05:10.240 --> 00:05:16.600 But now Lord Dunmore was facing the essence of counter-revolutionary warfare, since it 43 00:05:16.600 --> 00:05:23.720 is waged by relatively small though heavily armed forces of the government or its supporters 44 00:05:23.720 --> 00:05:30.680 Against the mass of the civilian population, counter-revolutionary warfare must needs be 45 00:05:30.680 --> 00:05:37.640 mobile, swift, and devoted to hit-and-run rating. Even so, it is a grave mistake made 46 00:05:37.640 --> 00:05:45.240 by many analysts and historians to confuse this kind of rating with true guerrilla warfare. 47 00:05:45.240 --> 00:05:50.420 Guerrilla warfare must rest on the active support of the bulk of the populace. The guerrilla 48 00:05:50.420 --> 00:05:56.460 The Federal Reserve is the armed spearhead of the revolutionary masses. Its fire is directed 49 00:05:56.460 --> 00:06:03.100 in pinpoint fashion against government troops and installations, and sometimes against their 50 00:06:03.100 --> 00:06:10.440 relatively few allies and sympathizers. Its aim is to dislodge the rulers from the backs 51 00:06:10.440 --> 00:06:17.440 of the people. Its long-run chances of victory are excellent. The counter-revolutionary rating 52 00:06:17.440 --> 00:06:25.100 is necessarily conducted in wild and haphazard fashion by an armed minority against the bulk 53 00:06:25.100 --> 00:06:31.240 of the people. Its aim is not simply to dislodge a ruling group, but to spread terror among 54 00:06:31.240 --> 00:06:38.460 the people, to injure, harass and disrupt the economy. Its long-run chances of victory 55 00:06:38.460 --> 00:06:46.160 are slight. The strategies proper to the two types of warfare reinforce these differences. 56 00:06:46.160 --> 00:06:52.040 The more scrupulously the guerrillas refrain from harming the civilian population, the 57 00:06:52.040 --> 00:06:59.040 more solemnly and securely the populace will support them. While the more vigorous the 58 00:06:59.040 --> 00:07:06.040 counter-revolutionary terror raids, the more bitterly hostile will the populace become. 59 00:07:06.040 --> 00:07:12.080 Short-term successes for guerrillas therefore promote victory in the long run. Short-term 60 00:07:12.080 --> 00:07:18.200 from gains for counter-revolutionary bans anger the people still further and ensure 61 00:07:18.200 --> 00:07:25.320 long-run defeat. It was this sort of harassing force that Lord Dunmore established on the 62 00:07:25.320 --> 00:07:33.160 Virginia coast. Dunmore began in June 1775 with one hundred regulars and a few ships 63 00:07:33.160 --> 00:07:39.460 anchored off Norfolk, where he was kept supplied by the preponderant late Tory town, dominated 64 00:07:39.460 --> 00:07:44.420 by Scott's Merchants and Their Factors and Clerks. 65 00:07:44.420 --> 00:07:49.980 When in early October, Dunmore was angered by rebel newspapers in Norfolk, he sent a 66 00:07:49.980 --> 00:07:56.500 detachment of soldiers ashore to seize the press and paper, as well as the persons of 67 00:07:56.500 --> 00:08:02.580 two of the printers. The local militia was called out to stop the outrage, but the apathetic 68 00:08:02.580 --> 00:08:09.220 militiamen failed to lift a finger to protect the printers. The mayor and alderman of Norfolk 69 00:08:09.220 --> 00:08:17.340 sent the governor a feeble pro forma protest. So mild indeed was Norfolk's indignation 70 00:08:17.340 --> 00:08:24.500 that shortly afterward a town meeting invited Dunmore to occupy the town. The Virginia rebels 71 00:08:24.500 --> 00:08:31.380 decided to take action against renegade Norfolk and soon 300 local militia of adjoining Norfolk 72 00:08:31.380 --> 00:08:45.860 Dunmore, adding some Negroes and Scottish clerks to his force, marched against the rebels. 73 00:08:45.860 --> 00:08:50.900 The Americans skillfully trapped him in an ambush, but they fled in panic at the sight 74 00:08:50.900 --> 00:08:52.780 of the British. 75 00:08:52.780 --> 00:08:58.620 Greatly emboldened by his victory, Dunmore proclaimed martial law on November 7 and set 76 00:08:58.620 --> 00:09:05.180 up the King's Standard for the Colony. In a few days, 300 citizens took an oath of 77 00:09:05.180 --> 00:09:12.680 allegiance to the Crown at Kempsville, as did 500 more at Norfolk. Soon 3,000 took the 78 00:09:12.680 --> 00:09:19.980 oath in Princess Anne, Norfolk, Anne, Nansamand, Counties. The inhabitants of Princess Anne, 79 00:09:19.980 --> 00:09:26.620 pledging themselves to support Dunmore, end the Crown to the last drop of their blood. 80 00:09:26.620 --> 00:09:32.840 On November 17, with imagination and daring lacking in his fellow British commanders, 81 00:09:32.840 --> 00:09:40.840 Lord Dunmore decided to exacerbate the contradictions in American society by offering freedom to 82 00:09:40.840 --> 00:09:48.160 any Negro slaves who would join his armed forces, thereby permanently enraging the conservative 83 00:09:48.160 --> 00:09:53.760 slave-holding Virginia Planters, who would probably not have supported the British in 84 00:09:53.760 --> 00:09:55.560 any case. 85 00:09:55.560 --> 00:10:01.380 Soon he was able to organize two regiments of Tory militia, the Queen's Own Loyal Virginia 86 00:10:01.380 --> 00:10:07.920 Regiment and the Ethiopian Regiment composed of runaway slaves. 87 00:10:07.920 --> 00:10:13.800 The Conservative Committee of Safety leading the rebel cause at Williamsburg was now finally 88 00:10:13.800 --> 00:10:20.720 forced to act, sending two regiments of militia against Norfolk with the aid of a regiment 89 00:10:20.720 --> 00:10:22.980 of North Carolina militia. 90 00:10:22.980 --> 00:10:31.140 The rebels, over 900 men, led by Colonel William Woodford, faced Dunmore's 500 at Great Bridge 91 00:10:31.140 --> 00:10:40.160 near Norfolk on December 11, 1775. Dunmore, in the foolish European manner exemplified 92 00:10:40.160 --> 00:10:48.660 by Howe at Bunker Hill, chose to make a direct, massed frontal assault on the entrenched rebel 93 00:10:48.660 --> 00:10:55.660 Physicians, Rebel Musket and Rifle Fire thoroughly smashed the British as they came forward, 94 00:10:56.020 --> 00:11:03.020 and the British suffered sixty casualties while only one rebel was wounded. Dunmore, 95 00:11:03.340 --> 00:11:10.340 decisively defeated, fell back to his ships and Norfolk was recaptured by the rebel forces. 96 00:11:10.620 --> 00:11:16.380 The Virginia Army, on occupying the Norfolk area, recommended that the entire population 97 00:11:16.380 --> 00:11:22.940 of the region be forcibly removed to the interior, to prevent any trade or intercourse with Dunmore's 98 00:11:22.940 --> 00:11:28.820 ships. While this recommendation was never really put into effect, a reign of terror 99 00:11:28.820 --> 00:11:35.660 was launched against the Tories in the area. Their homes destroyed and plantations seized, 100 00:11:35.660 --> 00:11:41.540 the bulk of them fled the colony. Some went to Scotland, others to England and the West 101 00:11:41.540 --> 00:11:48.540 Indies. Many joined the British Army in Boston. The Tories were angered at being so callously 102 00:11:48.660 --> 00:11:54.160 abandoned by Lord Dunmore, who paid little attention to them, and treated even those 103 00:11:54.160 --> 00:12:00.780 who fled to his ship with scant consideration. The case of the Sproul family is a particularly 104 00:12:00.780 --> 00:12:06.860 poignant one. One of the wealthiest men in Virginia, and for several decades president 105 00:12:06.860 --> 00:12:13.860 of the Court of Virginia Merchants, the ardently Tory Andrew Sproul fled to Dunmore's ship 106 00:12:14.420 --> 00:12:21.080 as the rebels entered Norfolk. The revolutionaries destroyed his urban properties and confiscated 107 00:12:21.080 --> 00:12:28.080 his plantation. This was too much for old Sproul, who died soon after. His wife Catherine, 108 00:12:29.060 --> 00:12:34.760 also on Dunmore's ship, obtained permission from Dunmore to visit her son, imprisoned 109 00:12:34.760 --> 00:12:40.000 as a Tory in a North Carolina jail. When she landed, the Williamsburg Committee of 110 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:46.720 Safety refused to allow her the visit and sent her back, but now Dunmore cruelly refused 111 00:12:46.720 --> 00:12:53.000 to let her board the vessel. Booted back and forth between the two sides and not allowed 112 00:12:53.000 --> 00:13:00.160 a resting place, she was finally able to obtain passage to Scotland. She was placed on a modest 113 00:13:00.160 --> 00:13:06.440 British Pension List, but was arbitrarily cut off by Lord Dunmore while her Virginia 114 00:13:06.440 --> 00:13:12.480 plantations were sequestered and sold by the Virginia government. 115 00:13:12.480 --> 00:13:18.120 On New Year's Day, Dunmore received well over a hundred regulars and much arms from 116 00:13:18.120 --> 00:13:24.960 Boston and St. Augustine. Emboldened by the reinforcements, he promptly shelled Norfolk, 117 00:13:24.960 --> 00:13:31.440 Deliberately firing warehouses on the docks used for cover by the rebel forces. 118 00:13:31.440 --> 00:13:36.320 The revolutionaries used this incident as a convenient cover for brutally putting a 119 00:13:36.320 --> 00:13:40.520 large portion of Tory Norfolk to the torch. 120 00:13:40.520 --> 00:13:47.320 It is estimated that Dunmore's naval fire that day destroyed 50 houses valued at over 121 00:13:47.320 --> 00:13:55.920 Over 3,600 pounds sterling, but that the rebels deliberately destroyed nearly 900 houses valued 122 00:13:55.920 --> 00:14:00.840 at over 110,000 pounds sterling. 123 00:14:00.840 --> 00:14:05.680 In February, the ruling Virginia Convention made it official. 124 00:14:05.680 --> 00:14:13.160 At its order, the rest of Norfolk, over 400 houses, was deliberately and savagely burned 125 00:14:13.160 --> 00:14:20.160 to prevent Dunmore from ever again using it as a base. Thus did these moderate revolutionaries 126 00:14:20.720 --> 00:14:27.720 in a consensus America pass a harsh collective sentence upon the people of Norfolk. Yet, 127 00:14:28.880 --> 00:14:34.340 in the propaganda war, the rebels were able to lay the blame for the burning of the city 128 00:14:34.340 --> 00:14:41.340 upon Dunmore, who the previous October had desperately but unsuccessfully tried to burn 129 00:14:41.340 --> 00:14:47.460 burn the coastal town of Hampton as punishment for the people's burning of a grounded British 130 00:14:47.460 --> 00:14:54.860 warship. Outside of Norfolk, the Virginia rebels tended to be more lenient, and in December 131 00:14:54.860 --> 00:15:02.860 1775, the Virginia Assembly offered pardon from arrest and confiscation if the Tories 132 00:15:02.860 --> 00:15:09.500 would take an oath of allegiance to the new Virginia government. However, enforcement 133 00:15:09.500 --> 00:15:17.180 often differed in accordance with race. Thus in May 1776, thirteen whites and twelve negroes 134 00:15:17.180 --> 00:15:23.300 were arrested for Tory activity and sent to Williamsburg for trial. The Virginia Convention 135 00:15:23.300 --> 00:15:29.900 tried the cases in June. The negroes were sent to forced labor in Virginia's lead mines, 136 00:15:29.900 --> 00:15:34.940 while the whites were either freed or given parole. 137 00:15:34.940 --> 00:15:41.840 Ousted from his Norfolk base and failing to rouse the West, Dunmore intensified his plunder 138 00:15:41.840 --> 00:15:48.840 in terror raids up and down Chesapeake Bay and along the Virginia coast. He ardently 139 00:15:48.840 --> 00:15:56.340 intercepted shipping, seized tobacco, and burned plantations, and many Negroes seized 140 00:15:56.340 --> 00:16:02.960 the opportunity to supply the British and to join Dunmore's forces, naturally enraging 141 00:16:02.960 --> 00:16:09.840 and still further, even the most conservative planters. All in all, nearly 2,000 Negroes 142 00:16:09.840 --> 00:16:15.840 ran away to join his fleet even though only the Negro soldiers and not their families 143 00:16:15.840 --> 00:16:22.580 had been offered freedom. The slave exodus from coastal Warwick and Northampton counties 144 00:16:22.580 --> 00:16:29.880 was particularly heavy, but a severe smallpox epidemic decimated their ranks and ruined their 145 00:16:29.880 --> 00:16:37.800 Potential Effectiveness. His troops thus ravaged and his supplies running low, Dunmore decided 146 00:16:37.800 --> 00:16:44.660 in the summer of 1776 to give up and join the British fleet in the north. Several hundred 147 00:16:44.660 --> 00:16:51.800 of the healthiest remaining Negroes were taken north with the fleet, but Dunmore perfidiously 148 00:16:51.800 --> 00:16:56.800 shipped many others into slavery in Florida and the West Indies.