In December 1775, a 25-minute shootout on a narrow causeway through the Great Dismal Swamp ended British royal authority in Virginia. British losses ran from over 60 to perhaps 100 killed or wounded, while the only reported colonial casualty was a single injured thumb. This episode explains how Lord Dunmore, governing from a Royal Navy ship off Norfolk, set the stage for one of the most lopsided battles of the Revolution.

We cover the Williamsburg gunpowder seizure, Dunmore’s proclamation of martial law and his offer of freedom to enslaved people who joined him, the building of Fort Murray, and Colonel William Woodford’s entrenched waiting game. Then we follow the doomed grenadier charge after a forgotten order left the planned diversion missing, the role of the Culpeper Minutemen’s rifles, and the burning of Norfolk.

• Why Dunmore’s proclamation was a military calculation that alarmed Virginia planters
• How the causeway turned a numerical advantage into a deadly bottleneck
• Bad intelligence about rebel numbers and the missing Ethiopian Regiment diversion
• Why militiamen held fire until the British were within 50 yards
• How the fight secured the largest, wealthiest colony for the rebel cause