'Caroline Patriots Rest in Unmarked Graves,' Part Three
By Ed Simmons, Jr.
cpreporter@lcs.net
Just as the remains of Brigadier General William Woodford lie in a grave with no memorial stone, countless other Caroline patriots met similar fates, their graves nameless, unknown. That is most certainly the case of a young African-American boy whose brave actions led to Woodford's 2nd Virginia Regiment winning the Battle of Great Bridge. Caroline men made up the 4th Company of the regiment with William Taliaferro their captain. He would perish at Valley Forge three years later in 1778. Caroline men would make up the 9th Company as well. Marching the 2nd Virginia Regiment to Norfolk, Woodford was blocked by a British fort built at the end of the Great Bridge, a half-mile wooden bridge over the Dismal Swamp about 10 feet wide. Lord Dunmore commanded the British force, and had four, perhaps six cannons. The Virginians having none, Woodford wisely decided not to attack.
The Virginians dug in on the other side of the bridge and for a week the two sides watched each other, with the British cannon thudding at intervals, their cannonballs eventually killing two soldiers of the 2nd. Then the Virginians came up with a scheme. A slave boy, whose master was Major Marshall, slipped away from the Patriot army pretending to desert. Taken by British soldiers to Lord Dunmore, he told a tall tale of the Virginians having only 300 "Shirt-Tales," a mocking term the British used for American soldiers who wore hunting shirts instead of uniforms. In fact, however, Woodford had over 1,000 soldiers. The boy also told the British commander that Woodford's men had gotten their gunpowder soaked, and it was now useless. "A servant," wrote Woodford later, "has completely taken his Lordship in."
The gullible Lord Dunmore, led along by the brave slave boy, decided to attack at once before the entrenched Virginians could gain reinforcements and more gunpowder. Just before dawn on December 9, 1775, Dunmore's 500-man army attacked, led by a column of 60 elite British grenadiers commanded by Captain Fordyce. Hoping to take the entrenched Virginians by surprise, they dashed across the bridge with fixed bayonets. The Virginians, however, were not surprised. "None marched up but his Majesty's soldiers who behaved like Englishmen," wrote Woodford in his report afterwards to Edmund Pendleton, president of the Virginia Convention. Like Woodford, Edmund Pendleton was from Caroline.
But the British bravery Woodford saluted in his report would not win the day. The Virginians, waiting until Captain Fordyce's men were a bare 50 yards off, unleashed a punishing rifle fire that wrecked the British ranks. Somehow Captain Fordyce managed to advance within a few feet of the Virginians' breastworks, hat in hand, cheering his men on, when he was felled by 14 bullets. The British fell back, 102 men killed or wounded. That night they abandoned their fort, leaving the way open for the Patriot army to enter Norfolk. The day's battle was a complete American victory with just one Virginian wounded slightly in the hand. History does not remember the name of the brave slave boy whose nerve led Lord Dunmore into Woodford's trap. It is known however that after the battle Dunmore threatened to hang the boy. These were cruel times, and it is not known whether or not the threat was carried out.
Source: The Life of Brigadier General William Woodford of The American Revolution by Catesby Willis Stewart.
Next week: Part Four – Woodford buries the British dead.