During the American Revolution, vessels of the Old Dominion’s sea service confronted and captured enemy ships in the Tidewater region and lower Chesapeake Bay.
local committees of safety to begin outfitting and manning armed vessels for the protection of Patriot shipping and the general defense of the Chesapeake Bay and Virginia’s rivers and creeks.1 In Hampton, James Barron, an experienced merchant captain and the leader of an independent militia company, was tasked with outfitting three vessels of the nascent Virginia Navy.One was the Liberty, a converted pilot boat first appearing in the records of the Virginia Committee of Safety for 6 March 1776. She was a square-stern schooner of about 60 tons, armed with ten swivel guns and manned by a crew of 22 in addition to her captain, James Barron, and a lieutenant.2 Barron’s son, also named James, would become a commodore in the U.S. Navy. He described the Liberty as the “most fortunate vessel in the service, and the only one, in fact, that ran throughout the whole contest without being captured by the enemy. . . . She was engaged, first and last, in more than twenty sharp actions.”3
Early Prizes and Captured Intelligence
By June 1775, word of the first battles of the American Revolution had reached Virginia’s capital of Williamsburg. Fearing for the safety of his family in the rising tide of rebellious sentiment, the colony’s royal governor, Lord Dunmore, fled the capital, eventually setting up a “royal government in exile” on board the 24-gun post ship HMS Fowey. Dunmore, whose Loyalist forces later were based at Gwynn’s Island, roughly 30 miles northeast of Williamsburg, spent the next year raiding Patriot-affiliated plantations and towns, relying on the Fowey and other Royal Navy assets for firepower and transportation.
Although she would not directly be named in surviving records until March 1776, the Liberty was hard at work raiding Loyalist commerce by December 1775. The Virginia Gazette reported:
an express from Hampton, with the agreeable intelligence that capt. Barron, in a small pilot boat which he had fitted out, has taken and brought in there two vessels with SALT to the amount of 4600 bushels; that he had likewise taken a vessel going to the Eastern Shore for provisions for the ministerial gentry that have lately been expelled from Norfolk, which had on board 15 blacks commanded by capt. Collett; and, when the express left Hampton, was in pursuit of another craft, supposed to be a tender.”4
Vessels and cargo captured by Virginia Navy vessels were sold at auction, with the funds divided among the victorious crews. The year 1776 got off to a profitable start when, in January, Captain Richard Barron, brother of James, and the crew of his schooner captured a brig traveling from Ireland bound for Boston, loaded with foodstuffs and wine valued at 5,000 pounds sterling.5 It was a tidy sum, even when shared among two dozen men.
Virginia’s burgeoning naval power soon proved its ability to gather critical military intelligence in addition to protecting local waters and raiding enemy commerce. On 6 April, Captain James Barron arrived in Williamsburg after the Liberty had intercepted dispatches passing between Lord Dunmore and Governor Sir Robert Eden of Maryland. Among the correspondence was a letter from Lord George Germain, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, urging Dunmore and Eden to coordinate their efforts and informing them:
An armament consisting of seven regiments, with a fleet of frigates and small ships, is now in readiness to proceed to the southern colonies, in order to attempt the restoration of legal government in that part of America. It will proceed, in the first place, to North Carolina, and from thence either to South Carolina or Virginia, as circumstances of greater or less advantage shall point out.6
This is one of multiple leaks about the intended campaign, culminating in the British defeat at Sullivan’s Island, near Charleston, South Carolina. The commander of Continental forces at the 28 June 1776 battle, Major General Charles Lee, noted that the opposition had “certainly a droll way of proceeding; to communicate his full plan to the enemy is too novel to be credited.”7 While Dunmore and Eden were unable to take advantage of this first invasion attempt, more were on the horizon.
Wayward Highlanders
Off Nova Scotia in the early hours of 29 May, Captain Nicholas Biddle of the Continental brig Andrew Doria captured two British transports, the Oxford and Crawford, carrying 217 Highlanders of the 42d Regiment of Foot.8 Biddle transferred the officers and navigators from the transports to his ship and the soldiers, as well as wives and children, on board the Crawford, to the Oxford. He then placed small prize crews on board the transports, and the three vessels headed westward. But on 11 June, the appearance of sails off Martha’s Vineyard led Biddle to order his ships to scatter. As soon as the Andrew Doria disappeared over the horizon, the Highlanders seized the opportunity to retake the Oxford. Despite not having a friendly navigator on board, the soldiers decided to steer for Virginia and offer their services to Lord Dunmore.
Surprisingly, the Oxford safely reached the Virginia Capes, the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay, and sailed into Hampton Roads just before nightfall on 21 June. A pair of pilot schooners soon approached the ship, and when the Highlanders took them to be British, they sent a boat to inquire after Lord Dunmore. Continental Marine Lieutenant John Trevett (one of two officers Biddle had placed in command of the prize crew) later reported that the schooners “informed us the Fowey, ship of war, lay 40 miles up James river, and they must immediately get under way[;] after giving 3 cheers they weighed anchor and stood up the River with a light air of wind.”9
The schooners were the Liberty and Patriot, commanded by James and Richard Barron, respectively. Lieutenant Trevett somehow was able to communicate the Oxford’s situation to the Barrons, who seized the transport shortly after midnight. The prisoners were taken to Jamestown and invited to join the Patriot cause (records indicate few, if any, of the Highlanders accepted this offer), the Oxford’s sails and other equipment were distributed to other Virginia Navy vessels, and the Andrew Doria’s prize crew were returned to Philadelphia.
The capture added to what had become a bad summer for Dunmore. Patriot forces surrounded Gwynn’s Island, as smallpox ravaged the erstwhile royal governor’s troops. By early August, he left Virginia, joining British forces near New York.
Aside from occasional visits from Royal Navy ships such as HMS Roebuck and Phoenix—44-gun warships that were more than a match for anything Virginia had afloat—the state enjoyed two years of relative calm following Dunmore’s departure. During this reprieve, the Virginia Navy outfitted several vessels for privateer expeditions, cruising the West Indies with dubious results.
The Chesapeake Bay and associated waterways remained a critical route for transporting reinforcements and supplies from the southern states to the main Continental Army forces in the north, and the Virginia Navy strove to keep this way clear. Galleys and small armed vessels were stationed near the mouths of Virginia’s largest rivers: the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James. The Liberty and Patriot were assigned to patrol near the Virginia Capes, serving as escorts to the brigs Raleigh and Liberty (at least three Virginia vessels carried this name). No matter their location, all vessels were charged with “taking care to annoy the Enemy [and] protect & defend the trading vessels.”10
The Liberty would have the opportunity to profoundly annoy the British on an early spring day in 1779.
Battle with the Fortunatus
Like its Continental Army and Navy counterparts, the Virginia Navy faced repeated manpower difficulties. As the war wore on, rising inflation and a general scarcity of specie made paying sailors problematic at best; more lucrative arrangements in the form of prize shares offered by privateer captains exacerbated the issue. While contending with recruiting and retention made it impossible to keep every vessel on station permanently, the officers and men of the Virginia Navy still managed to rise to the occasion in times of imminent danger.
The Fortunatus, a tender of the British frigate Emerald, was a 120-ton, New England–built schooner mounting ten 6-pounder cannon. Manned by 50 men from the frigate under the command of a Lieutenant Dickey, she was blown into Hampton Roads during a heavy gale one night in the early spring of 1779. As the Fortunatus was preparing to put to sea again the next morning, Richard Barron sighted her from his home along the James River. Barron raced into nearby Hampton, informed his brother James, and sounded a general alarm. A crew of 16, including the Barron brothers, was raised, and the Liberty soon sortied in pursuit of the British vessel.
The Liberty caught up with her quarry within four or five miles of Cape Henry, and “a most sanguinary conflict (at least on the part of the English) ensued.”11 Despite her crew being outnumbered three-to-one and vastly outgunned, the Liberty held the enemy at a marked advantage; while the Fortunatus was firing 6-pound solid shot from each cannon, each of the Liberty’s 2-pounder swivels was spraying 32 musket balls on every discharge.
After two hours of action, fire from the Fortunatus had slackened so markedly that James Barron hailed her to request that she surrender, noting that the Liberty’s crew miraculously had not one dead or wounded among them. With no recourse open to him, Lieutenant Dickey struck his colors. When an officer from the Liberty came aboard the Fortunatus, he was shocked to discover that Dickey and four other men were the only hands still capable of serving a gun. The rest of the Fortunatus’ 50-man crew had been either killed or wounded in waves of improvised grapeshot fired by the Liberty.
The results of the action were encouraging to the few sailors the Virginia Navy regularly could muster, and the crew of the Liberty was spoken of highly. Considered too inefficient for the service of the commonwealth, the captured Fortunatus was sold at auction. Lieutenant Dickey was taken to Portsmouth, where he was held on parole and treated with kindness and hospitality by the local populace. He would remain a captive until 10 May, when a British squadron under the command of Commodore Sir George Collier invaded Virginia and captured Portsmouth and the neighboring Fort Nelson. Dickey is believed to have requested that the British spare the town in return for the kind treatment he had received.12
Commodore Collier’s raid did tremendous damage to Virginia’s Tidewater region: Portsmouth was occupied, the shipyard at Gosport was destroyed, the town of Suffolk was burned, any naval stores and other supplies that could not be carried off were burned, and approximately 137 vessels of various size were captured or destroyed.13 In the face of the overwhelming might of the Royal Navy, the small vessels in the service of Virginia were forced to flee, taking shelter in shallow creeks and rivers where the larger enemy warships could not follow. After Collier’s departure on or around 24 May, Loyalist vessels and privateers continued to wreak havoc in Virginia.
War’s Final Years
The next year, 1780, brought a great deal of change: Thomas Jefferson replaced Patrick Henry as governor, the commonwealth’s capital was moved to Richmond, James Barron served on the Virginia Board of War, and on 3 July, he was appointed “commodore of the armed Vessels of this Commonwealth & commissioned accordingly.”14 Among the new commodore’s first tasks was to apprehend the officers and crews of the galleys Diligence and Accomack who had deserted their vessels off the Chesapeake Bay’s Eastern Shore, allowing them to be plundered of their guns and furniture. But Commodore Barron was unable to take any action, as Loyalist privateers, operating out of several Maryland Eastern Shore towns and the Tory base at Tangier Island, 55 miles northeast of Williamsburg, put a stranglehold on all Patriot traffic on the bay.
The biggest difficulty in combating the privateers was raising (and paying) enough sailors to face them. With the support of Governor Jefferson, pay for Virginia seamen increased from two shillings to $10 per day, though it was still paid in quickly depreciating paper currency. While this was an improvement, it did not entice nearly the number of men Commodore Barron had hoped for.
Nonetheless, in August 1780, Barron cruised as far up the bay as Tangier Island in the Virginia brig Jefferson, with the ever-dependable schooners Liberty and Patriot as escorts. Of the manning difficulties, Jefferson wrote, “the Commodore assures me that with such a crew the brig is in danger of being taken by very inferior vessels.”15 Remarkably, Barron’s cruise was a success; the small squadron managed to take five prizes, just as many as they could safely man and return to port. This accomplishment led to a joint mission between the Virginia and Maryland navies, in which their vessels rid the bay of Loyalist craft until mid-October.
On 20 October 1780, a fleet of warships and transports carrying more than 2,000 troops under the command of British Brigadier General Alexander Leslie arrived in Virginia. As before, Virginia Navy vessels were forced to scatter. Once again, enemy forces occupied Portsmouth and key facilities in Hampton Roads. Leslie’s troops foraged and confiscated supplies with a minimum of destruction. As suddenly as it arrived, the British force departed Virginia on 15 November, moving south to support Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis after the Tory defeat at the Battle of King’s Mountain.
The reprieve was short-lived. Another British force of warships and 1,600 soldiers under Brigadier General Benedict Arnold invaded Virginia in January 1781. The traitorous Arnold charged straight to Richmond, burning key installations and driving Jefferson’s administration from the capital. While few vessels of the Virginia Navy remained active, the Liberty served well, especially as a dispatch boat following the arrival of Continental forces under the Marquis de Lafayette.
In the early hours of 7 March, while preparing to support the expected arrival of a French naval squadron, the Liberty ran aground on a mud bank. Several armed enemy boats soon sighted her, captured the nine-man crew, and made off with the schooner’s sails and stores. Despite this ignominious episode, the Liberty was refloated and returned to service several days later. The British continued to ravage Virginia well into the spring. On 27 April, seven Virginia vessels (manned at barely 10 percent of their normal complement) were destroyed by Arnold’s forces at Osbourne’s Wharf on the James River. The Liberty was now one of the last craft in the Virginia Navy.
Virginia’s situation continued to worsen. Cornwallis and his army entered Virginia in May 1781, and as the British troops advanced nearly unopposed, steps had to be taken to preserve Virginia’s few remaining resources. The Liberty “was therefore stripped of her masts, and sunk in a deep hole” in the Nansemond River, a tributary of the James. Once Cornwallis’ troops were besieged at Yorktown, the schooner was raised and used to transport provisions for General George Washington’s army.16 She still was serving in this capacity on 19 October 1781 when Cornwallis’ army surrendered. Meanwhile, across the York River near Gloucester was the derelict HMS Fowey, initial refuge of Lord Dunmore during the early days of the war, aground in shoal water, her decks awash and abandoned.17 Each vessel reflected the fortunes of her respective nation on that mid-autumn day.
The Liberty continued to serve Virginia, performing the function of a revenue cutter until the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1788. She then was sold and ended her career as a freight carrier in the West Indies. The establishment of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service in 1790 and the 1794 Act to Provide a Naval Armament gave the infant nation a permanent military presence on the oceans. Just like the Continental Navy, the small naval forces of the various states, as epitomized by the exploits of the schooner Liberty during the American Revolution, helped the United States take its first steps toward becoming a world-renowned naval power.
1. Charles B. Cross, A Navy for Virginia: A Colony’s Fleet in the Revolution. (Yorktown: The Virginia Independence Bicentennial Commission, 1981), 9.
2. Cross, A Navy for Virginia, 19.
3. William Maxwell, The Virginia Historical Register, vol. 1 (Richmond, VA: Macfarlane and Ferguson, 1848), 76.
4. “Extracts of letters from col. Woodford, to the Hon. Edmund Pendleton, esq; President of the Convention,” Virginia Gazette, 22 December 1775.
5. “Williamsburg, Jan. 13,” Virginia Gazette, 13 January 1776.
6. “Williamsburg, April 12,” Virginia Gazette, 12 April 1776.
7. David Lee Russell, Victory on Sullivan’s Island: the British Cape Fear/Charles Town Expedition of 1776 (Conshohocken, PA: Infinity Publishing, 2002), 98.
8. Tim McGrath, Give Me a Fast Ship: The Continental Navy and America’s Revolution at Sea. (London: The Penguin Group, 2014), 76.
9. Cross, A Navy for Virginia, 29.
10. Cross, 39.
11. The Virginia Historical Register, vol. 1, 77.
12. James Tormey, The Virginia Navy in the Revolution: Hampton’s Commodore James Barron and His Fleet (Mt. Pleasant, SC: The History Press, 2016), 92.
13. Tormey, The Virginia Navy, 137.
14. Cross, A Navy for Virginia, 60.
15. Cross, 61.
16. The Virginia Historical Register, vol. 1, 79.
17. Cross, A Navy for Virginia, 78.
Mr. Romero has been a historical interpreter for Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia since 2011 and has interpreted as an 18th-century seaman since 2016. He hopes to pursue a master’s degree in military history with a concentration on the American Revolution.