Skirmish at Waters Creek

Last updated
Skirmish at Waters Creek
Part of the American Revolutionary War
VAMap-doton-NewportNews.PNG

The approximate location in the state of Virginia where the skirmish occurred.
DateMarch 8, 1781
Location 37°02′28″N76°29′12″W / 37.040997°N 76.486695°W / 37.040997; -76.486695
Result American victory
Belligerents
Flag of the United States (1777-1795).svg United States Union flag 1606 (Kings Colors).svg  Great Britain
Commanders and leaders
Francis Mallory  Thomas Dundas
Strength
c. 40 300–400
Casualties and losses
7 killed
4 captured
2 killed
2 wounded

The Skirmish at Waters Creek was a minor action fought on March 8, 1781, during the American Revolutionary War. It was fought near Waters Creek in Newport News, Virginia between a group of local Patriot militia and British Army troops. [1]

Contents

Background

A historical sign with information about the skirmish Waterscreek 001.jpg
A historical sign with information about the skirmish

The state of Virginia had not been the scene of significant military activity for most of the American Revolutionary War. This began to change with the arrival in October 1780 of 2,500 British Army troops under Brigadier General Alexander Leslie. These troops established a fortified position at Portsmouth, and began raiding the area for supplies. However, they were ordered to abandon the post by Lieutenant General Charles, Earl Cornwallis in November. In January 1781 another 1,600 troops, this time under the command of the traitor Benedict Arnold, arrived in Virginia. After making a lightning raid on the state capital, Richmond, Arnold and his men settled into winter quarters at Portsmouth. [2]

Arnold's presence at Portsmouth was monitored by local Patriot militia, which turned out to respond to raiding and supply expeditions that he sent out. Early on March 8, Arnold sent about 300 men on a raiding expedition to the Newport News area. They were led by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Dundas, leader of the regiment known as the Royal Edinburgh Volunteers, and included a company of men from John Graves Simcoe's Queen's Rangers. [3] [4]

When the militia were alerted to Dundas' expedition, Colonel Francis Mallory, a resident of Hampton, organized the opposition. Mallory had recently been released from a brief imprisonment on board a Royal Navy ship as part of a prisoner exchange, and had been warned against taking up arms again. Intelligence gained during this time led him to conclusions about the likely route of the expedition, so he tried to set up an ambush at a place called Tompkins' Bridge, crossing the creek between Hampton and York County. [5]

Skirmish

The militiamen divided their forces with the cavalry leading the charge from the front while the infantry fired from the flank. Colonel Mallory himself was killed in the attack, after being wounded by shot, saber and bayonet. [6] The militiamen were able to hold off the British forces, forcing them to retreat to Newport News point and eventually their boats. While retreating, Captain Brown was injured and left behind. [1]

Notes

  1. 1 2 Rouse, p. 11
  2. Randall, pp. 581-583
  3. Maxwell, p. 28
  4. Randall, p. 581
  5. Maxwell, pp. 25-26
  6. Quarstein, p. 23

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Capture of Fort Ticonderoga</span> Battle during the American Revolutionary War on May 10, 1775

The capture of Fort Ticonderoga occurred during the American Revolutionary War on May 10, 1775, when a small force of Green Mountain Boys led by Ethan Allen and Colonel Benedict Arnold surprised and captured the fort's small British garrison. The cannons and other armaments at Fort Ticonderoga were later transported to Boston by Colonel Henry Knox in the noble train of artillery and used to fortify Dorchester Heights and break the standoff at the siege of Boston.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benedict Arnold</span> American-born military officer (1740–1801)

Benedict Arnold was an American-born British military officer who served during the American Revolutionary War. He fought with distinction for the American Continental Army and rose to the rank of major general before defecting to the British in 1780. General George Washington had given him his fullest trust and had placed him in command of West Point in New York. Arnold was planning to surrender the fort to British forces, but the plot was discovered in September 1780, whereupon he fled to the British lines. In the later part of the war, Arnold was commissioned as a brigadier general in the British Army and placed in command of the American Legion. He led British forces in battle against the army which he had once commanded, and his name became synonymous with treason and betrayal in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Groton Heights</span> Battle of the American Revolutionary War 1781

The Battle of Groton Heights was a battle of the American Revolutionary War fought on September 6, 1781 between a small Connecticut militia force led by Lieutenant Colonel William Ledyard and the more numerous British forces led by Brigadier General Benedict Arnold and Lieutenant Colonel Edmund Eyre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mount Hope Bay raids</span> Series of military raids by British troops during the American Revolutionary War

The Mount Hope Bay raids were a series of military raids conducted by British troops during the American Revolutionary War against communities on the shores of Mount Hope Bay on May 25 and 31, 1778. The towns of Bristol and Warren, Rhode Island were significantly damaged, and Freetown, Massachusetts was also attacked, although its militia resisted British attacks more successfully. The British destroyed military defenses in the area, including supplies that had been cached by the Continental Army in anticipation of an assault on British-occupied Newport, Rhode Island. Homes as well as municipal and religious buildings were also destroyed in the raids.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Big Bethel</span> 1861 American Civil War battle in Virginia

The Battle of Big Bethel was one of the earliest, if not the first, land battle of the American Civil War. It took place on the Virginia Peninsula, near Newport News, on June 10, 1861.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Green Spring</span> Battle of the American Revolutionary War

The Battle of Green Spring took place near Green Spring Plantation in James City County, Virginia during the American Revolutionary War. On July 6, 1781 United States Brigadier General "Mad" Anthony Wayne, leading the advance forces of the Marquis de Lafayette, was ambushed near the plantation by the British army of Earl Charles Cornwallis in the last major land battle of the Virginia campaign prior to the Siege of Yorktown.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yorktown campaign</span> 1781 military campaign of the American Revolutionary War

The Yorktown campaign, also known as the Virginia campaign, was a series of military maneuvers and battles during the American Revolutionary War that culminated in the siege of Yorktown in October 1781. The result of the campaign was the surrender of the British Army force of General Charles Earl Cornwallis, an event that led directly to the beginning of serious peace negotiations and the eventual end of the war. The campaign was marked by disagreements, indecision, and miscommunication on the part of British leaders, and by a remarkable set of cooperative decisions, at times in violation of orders, by the French and Americans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War</span>

The southern theater of the American Revolutionary War was the central theater of military operations in the second half of the American Revolutionary War, 1778–1781. It encompassed engagements primarily in Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Tactics consisted of both strategic battles and guerrilla warfare.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siege of Yorktown order of battle</span>

The siege of Yorktown was the culminating act of the Yorktown campaign, a series of military operations occupying much of 1781 during the American Revolutionary War. The siege was a decisive Franco-American victory: after the surrender of British Lt. Gen. Charles, Earl Cornwallis on October 17, the government of Lord North fell, and its replacement entered into peace negotiations that resulted in British recognition of American independence with the 1783 Treaty of Paris.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Washington in the American Revolution</span> Overview of George Washingtons position in the American Revolution

George Washington commanded the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). After serving as President of the United States, he briefly was in charge of a new army in 1798.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Blandford</span> Battle of the American Revolutionary War

The Battle of Blandford, also called the Battle of Petersburg, took place near Petersburg, Virginia on 25 April 1781, late in the American War of Independence. Roughly 2,300 British regulars under the command of Brigadier General William Phillips defeated about 1,000 militia under Major General Baron von Steuben.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American colonial marines</span> Early Marine force of the American revolutionary forces

American colonial marines were various naval infantry units which served during the Revolutionary War on the Patriot side. After the conflict broke out in 1775, nine of the rebelling Thirteen Colonies established state navies to carry out naval operations. Accordingly, several marine units were raised to serve as an infantry component aboard the ships of these navies. The marines, along with the navies they served in, were intended initially as a stopgap measure to provide the Patriots with naval capabilities before the Continental Navy reached a significant level of strength. After its establishment, state navies, and the marines serving in them, participated in several operations alongside the Continental Navy and its marines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Military career of Benedict Arnold, 1775–1776</span> Early Revolutionary War career of Benedict Arnold

The military career of Benedict Arnold in 1775 and 1776 covers many of the military actions that occurred in the northernmost Thirteen Colonies early in the American Revolutionary War. Arnold began the war as a captain in Connecticut's militia, a position to which he was elected in March 1775. Following the outbreak of hostilities at Lexington and Concord the following month, his company marched northeast to assist in the siege of Boston that followed. Arnold proposed to the Massachusetts Committee of Safety an action to seize Fort Ticonderoga in New York, which he knew was poorly defended. They issued a colonel's commission to him on May 3, 1775, and he immediately rode off to the west, where he arrived at Castleton in the disputed New Hampshire Grants in time to participate with Ethan Allen and his men in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga. He followed up that action with a bold raid on Fort Saint-Jean on the Richelieu River north of Lake Champlain. He then resigned his Massachusetts commission after a command dispute with the head of a detachment of Connecticut militia troops that arrived in June to reinforce Ticonderoga.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Military career of Benedict Arnold, 1777–1779</span> Overview of Benedict Arnolds career during the peak of the Revolutionary War

The military career of Benedict Arnold from 1777 to 1779 was marked by two important events in his career. In July 1777, Arnold was assigned to the Continental Army's Northern Department, where he played pivotal roles in bringing about the failure of British Brigadier Barry St. Leger's siege of Fort Stanwix and the American success in the battles of Saratoga, which fundamentally altered the course of the war.

Brigadier-General Andrew Williamson was a Scottish-born trader, planter, and military officer. Serving in the South Carolina Militia, rising to be commissioned as brigadier general in the Continental Army in the American War of Independence. He led numerous campaigns against Loyalists and Cherokee, who in 1776 had launched an attack against frontier settlements across a front from Tennessee to central South Carolina. Williamson was particularly effective in suppressing the Cherokee, killing an unknown number of Cherokees and destroying 31 of their towns. As a result of his Indian campaign, the Cherokee ceded more than a million acres in the Carolinas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grey's raid</span> 1778 military engagement during the American Revolutionary War

Grey's raid was a series of raids carried out in Massachusetts by British forces under the command of Major-General Charles Grey in September 1778 during the American Revolutionary War. Grey, leading 4,000 troops, raided the towns of New Bedford and Fairhaven along with Martha's Vineyard as part of the northern theater of the American Revolutionary War after Saratoga. The raids were one of the first in a series of attacks executed by the British against American coastal communities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Military career of Benedict Arnold, 1781</span> British Army career of Benedict Arnold in 1781

The military career of Benedict Arnold in 1781 consisted of service in the British Army. Arnold had changed sides in September 1780, after his plot was exposed to surrender the key Continental Army outpost at West Point. He spent the rest of 1780 recruiting Loyalists for a new regiment called the American Legion. Arnold was then sent to Virginia with 1,600 men in late December by General Sir Henry Clinton, with instructions to raid Richmond and then establish a strong fortification at Portsmouth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia in the American Revolution</span>

The history of Virginia in the American Revolution begins with the role the Colony of Virginia played in early dissent against the British government and culminates with the defeat of General Cornwallis by the allied forces at the Siege of Yorktown in 1781, an event that signaled the effective military end to the conflict. Numerous Virginians played key roles in the Revolution, including George Washington, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raid on Richmond</span> Battle of the American Revolutionary War

The Raid onRichmond was a series of British military actions against the capital of Virginia, Richmond, and the surrounding area, during the American Revolutionary War. Led by American defector Benedict Arnold, the Richmond campaign is considered one of his greatest successes while serving under the British Army. It shocked patriot leaders and is considered one of his most notorious actions by modern Americans.

References