Before the British navy bombarded and burned Norfolk, Virginia, a rumor went around that the town had already been destroyed. A messenger riding from Norfolk to Williamsburg reported that while he was on his way, he heard cannon firing, and Virginia Colonel Thomas Elliott wrote from Hampton that the firing was heard until 9 p.m. (on December 28). But what was it really? Celebrating the Christmas season with cannons. A newspaper in Williamsburg got the real story from a man who had just come from Norfolk: “it was only a Christmas frolick between lord Dunmore and the captains of the navy, upon visiting each other on board their ships.”
I guess if you have some cannons at your disposal, plenty of gunpowder, and nothing else to do, you might as well put them to good use for livening up the party!
“The detested town of Norfolk is no more!” wrote a British midshipman on January 9, 1776. Almost a month earlier, British troops and Loyalist Americans had been forced to evacuate the town of Norfolk, Virginia, and had taken refuge on board the ships of the Royal Navy, where they were relatively safe from the rebel forces who had occupied the town.
John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, was the royal governor of Virginia, and tried hard to stop the rebellion. He was in one of the ships that bombarded Norfolk.
But the rebels, led by Colonels Robert Howe and William Woodford, wouldn’t let the British come on shore to get water or food. Life was certainly not comfortable on board the ships, especially with all of those extra passengers. It’s easy to see why some of the British detested the town.
This standoff continued until January 1. The same British midshipman wrote:
About four o’clock in the afternoon the signal was given from the Liverpool, when a dreadful cannonading began from the three ships, which lasted till it was too hot for the rebels to stand on their wharves. Our boats now landed, and set fire to the town in several places. It burned fiercely all night, and the next day; nor are the flames yet extinguished; but no more of Norfolk remains than about twelve houses, which have escaped the flames.
Only a handful of men were wounded on either side, and only one of the British was killed. There were still people living in the town when the bombardment started, and the Americans thought that a couple of women and children might have been killed.
But even though few people were injured, a lot of people lost their homes, businesses, and belongings. “Does it not call for vengeance from God and man?” asked Colonel Woodford. It seems to me that destroying people’s homes is a very good way of getting them to hate you, and there were probably some people from Norfolk who hadn’t been very enthusiastic about the war before, but who became red-hot rebels after watching their town burn to the ground.
