Bermuda, East Florida, Nova Scotia, and St. John’s (now Prince Edward Island). South Carolina had scrapped a munitions-gathering excursion to the Bahamas, but the Continental Navy went there for gunpowder and cannon in early 1776. King George and Parliament could fairly judge in August 1775 that Britain faced a full-scale thirteen-province rebellion showing unmistakable momentum toward independence. The autumn months became a turning point for many Americans, although conservatives in the middle colonies—New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland—still cherished hopes of reconciliation.
By year’s end, a few square miles of Boston represented the soleremaining seat of British occupation, authority, and might—and this applied to the length and breadth of the thirteen colonies. 19 The rapid spread of insurrection in the plantation colonies during the spring and summer of 1775 came as a particular shock to British officials, given their supposedly high ratios of Loyalists. Nevertheless, by late summer, the coast from Chesapeake Bay to Georgia’s Sea Islands had become the second theater of armed disaffection. Besides provincial gunpowder magazines, Patriots that summer seized a series of military installations—Fort Charlotte on the Savannah River, Fort Johnston in North Carolina, and Fort Johnson on Charleston Harbor.
In Virginia, most populous of the provinces, the royal governor, John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, shaken by a politically harrowing April and May in the capital of Williamsburg, bolted on June 8 to Yorktown and the protective safety of HMS
Fowey.
Hostilities commenced in August when HMS
Otter,
a naval sloop within Dunmore’s command, began raiding plantations. Then in October, a small flotilla led by
Otter
tried to burn the town and port of Hampton but was driven off by Virginia riflemen. November saw Dunmore and British forces occupy the port of Norfolk. However, they withdrew to ships in mid-December after Patriot troops defeated a combined force of British regulars, local Loyalists, and armed black ex-slaves at Great Bridge, fifteen miles to the south. On New Year’s Day, Dunmore’s small fleet began a bombardment of Norfolk, which caught fire and burned. Patriots, who regarded the seaport as a nest of Loyalists, completed the burning and destruction.
North Carolina’s Josiah Martin became the second southern royal governor to run on July 16, 1775, fleeing to the sloop of war
Cruizer
just hours after Patriots captured and burned Fort Johnston near the entrance to the Cape Fear River and Wilmington, the province’s principal town. On board
Cruizer,
Martin kept in contact with inland settlements of Loyalist Scottish Highlanders and Piedmont dissidents he had politically befriended. Despite months of planning, the planned Loyalist rising fizzled out in February when a combined force en route to the coast was defeated in battle at Moore’s Creek Bridge.
Lord William Campbell, South Carolina’s new governor, had just arrived from Britain in June 1775. But on September 15, after Patriot militia followed up their July capture of outlying Fort Charlotte by seizing Fort Johnson, the principal Charleston Harbor installation, Lord William fled. He took refuge in HMS
Tamar,
a “worm-eaten” navy sloop patrolling offthe coast. Open hostilities commenced in the autumn, when the South Carolina naval vessel
Defence,
sinking hulks to block the Hog Island Channel near Charleston, exchanged cannon fire with the British sloops
Tamar
and
Cherokee.
20
Officials in London had expected better from Georgia. But in mid-1775, the local Patriots took substantial control of government through an extralegal Provincial Congress and Council of Safety. This closely reiterated similar transfers of authority in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina—and by January top officials were in custody. Disdaining house arrest, Governor Sir James Wright fled in February 1776 to HMS
Scarborough.
Focusing on
By year’s end, a few square miles of Boston represented the soleremaining seat of British occupation, authority, and might—and this applied to the length and breadth of the thirteen colonies. 19 The rapid spread of insurrection in the plantation colonies during the spring and summer of 1775 came as a particular shock to British officials, given their supposedly high ratios of Loyalists. Nevertheless, by late summer, the coast from Chesapeake Bay to Georgia’s Sea Islands had become the second theater of armed disaffection. Besides provincial gunpowder magazines, Patriots that summer seized a series of military installations—Fort Charlotte on the Savannah River, Fort Johnston in North Carolina, and Fort Johnson on Charleston Harbor.
In Virginia, most populous of the provinces, the royal governor, John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, shaken by a politically harrowing April and May in the capital of Williamsburg, bolted on June 8 to Yorktown and the protective safety of HMS
Fowey.
Hostilities commenced in August when HMS
Otter,
a naval sloop within Dunmore’s command, began raiding plantations. Then in October, a small flotilla led by
Otter
tried to burn the town and port of Hampton but was driven off by Virginia riflemen. November saw Dunmore and British forces occupy the port of Norfolk. However, they withdrew to ships in mid-December after Patriot troops defeated a combined force of British regulars, local Loyalists, and armed black ex-slaves at Great Bridge, fifteen miles to the south. On New Year’s Day, Dunmore’s small fleet began a bombardment of Norfolk, which caught fire and burned. Patriots, who regarded the seaport as a nest of Loyalists, completed the burning and destruction.
North Carolina’s Josiah Martin became the second southern royal governor to run on July 16, 1775, fleeing to the sloop of war
Cruizer
just hours after Patriots captured and burned Fort Johnston near the entrance to the Cape Fear River and Wilmington, the province’s principal town. On board
Cruizer,
Martin kept in contact with inland settlements of Loyalist Scottish Highlanders and Piedmont dissidents he had politically befriended. Despite months of planning, the planned Loyalist rising fizzled out in February when a combined force en route to the coast was defeated in battle at Moore’s Creek Bridge.
Lord William Campbell, South Carolina’s new governor, had just arrived from Britain in June 1775. But on September 15, after Patriot militia followed up their July capture of outlying Fort Charlotte by seizing Fort Johnson, the principal Charleston Harbor installation, Lord William fled. He took refuge in HMS
Tamar,
a “worm-eaten” navy sloop patrolling offthe coast. Open hostilities commenced in the autumn, when the South Carolina naval vessel
Defence,
sinking hulks to block the Hog Island Channel near Charleston, exchanged cannon fire with the British sloops
Tamar
and
Cherokee.
20
Officials in London had expected better from Georgia. But in mid-1775, the local Patriots took substantial control of government through an extralegal Provincial Congress and Council of Safety. This closely reiterated similar transfers of authority in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina—and by January top officials were in custody. Disdaining house arrest, Governor Sir James Wright fled in February 1776 to HMS
Scarborough.
Focusing on
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