nine remaining ships in the Virginia State Navy were destroyed by Benedict Arnold at Osbourne's Landing on April 27, 1781
Source: Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library, Sketch of the action at Osburns, April 27th. 1781 (by Colonel John Simcoe, 1787)
As the American Revolution developed into a shooting war in 1775, the colony of Virginia had a militia which could morph into independent companies and then an army. However, it had no navy. Creating one would be the act of an independent nation.
George Washington started to create a navy in September 1775. It was created as a component of his Continental Army, even though a water-based force had not been authorized by the Continental Congress.
He did not intend the eight ships that he authorized to challenge the warships of the British Royal Navy, the most powerful one in the world. He did expect to interrupt the delivery of supplies to the British army bottled up in Boston. In addition, his own troops needed the food, clothing, guns and gunpowder captured from British transports and supply ships.
The Continental Congress made the decision to create a national navy on October 13, 1775. Initially, eight merchant ships in Philadelphia were purchased and converted into warships. In December, the Continental Congress decided to build 13 frigates.
The first mission of the new national operation was supposed to be an attack on Governor Dunmore's fleet in the Elizabeth River. The orders were finalized on January 2, 1776 before the Continental Congress learned of the burning of Norfolk the previous day:1
However, the first commander of the Continental Navy chose to go to the Bahamas and capture Nassau, which was lightly defended. In the first amphibious operation of the navy, marines and sailors captured the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of the colony as well as gunpowder and weapons. A second ship of the US Navy did capture a British sloop in the Atlantic Ocean off near the Chesapeake Bay in April 1776.
A timid captain sailed a Continental Navy ship to the York River in 1777. He encountered a British warship there, but declined to engage in a fight and sailed away.2
Most of the 13 rebelling colonies in North America created their own navies, and some authorized privateers as well. In Virginia, the Committee of Safety started the process of creating the Virginia Navy in December 1775. James Barron was given the responsibility of outfitting ships and put 10 swivel guns on a former pilot boat named the Liberty. That ship survived multiple engagements and was still afloat at the end of the American Revolution.
The Liberty started its career by capturing ships of loyalists. The officers and men on the Virginia Navy ships were awarded the value of the ships and cargo they captured, creating an incentive for them to be aggressive.3
In May 1776, a Continental Navy ship captured a British transport, the Oxford. It was loaded with Scottish soldiers (Highlanders) in the 42d Regiment of Foot. As the captured ship was being sailed by a small prize crew to a Massachusetts port, the Highlanders regained control. They chose to sail to the Chesapeake Bay, hoping to join Governor Dunmore's fleet.
After reaching Hampton Roads, two schooners sailed out to the Oxford. The prize crew, now held captive by the Highlanders, managed to communicate their situation to the Virginians in the schooners. Later that evening the schooners returned and captured the transport in a successful Virginia Navy operation.4
In 1777 the Virginia Committee of Safety ordered a shipyard to be constructed on the Chickahominy River and appointed James Maxwell to be Superintendent. Maxwell could build ships and rig them, but struggled to find sailors. In early 1781, he had only 78 men of the 590 men needed to fully man seven completed ships. Four of them had just 10 men each, and two additional ships had no crew at all.5
For most of the American Revolution, the small ships of the Virginia Navy were focused on protecting trading vessels from loyalist privateers and British warships, capturing merchant vessels of the loyalists, and harassing the British. When Sir George Collier and Brigadier Edward Mathew arrived in the Chesapeake Bay and captured Portsmouth in May, 1779, the Virginia Navy could offer no resistance for the two weeks that the British chose to stay.6
Recruiting for the Continental Navy and the Virginia Navy was difficult. The official sailors were guaranteed pay, but privateers offered greater opportunity for wealth if they managed to capture a ship. At least 72 free blacks and enslaved men were in the Virginia Navy. Those were served as substitutes for their white masters were given their freedom at the end of the war.
Cesar Tarrant, enslaved by Carter Tarrant, was one of four enslaved men who served as a skilled pilot. He was not emancipated at the end of the war, but after his master died the General Assembly purchased him and set him free in 1789.7
British General William Phillips brought another force to Portsmouth in 1781. In mid-April, he sailed up the James River with 2,000 men, including loyalists serving in the Queen's Rangers. Colonel Robert Abercromby (Ambercombie) led a flotilla of shallow-bottomed boats up the Chickahominy River.
The British destroyed the shipyard and two large vessels under construction there, including twenty-gun brig "Thetis." The fire of the burning materials could be seen for miles. The bottom of the Chickahominy River is state-owned land and the archeological remains of the ships there are protected resources; a permit from the Virginia Marine Resources Commission is required to disturb them.8
Many of the Virgina Navy ships moved upstream on the James River while General Phillips raided Williamsburg, then crossed the James River to City Point and captured Petersburg. The British split their forces when marching north from Petersburg towards Richmond. Phillips went to Chesterfield Court House and destroyed military barracks there. Benedict Arnold led a group which included the loyalists in the Queen's Rangers to Osborne's Landing upstream of City Point, near Dominion Energy's power plant site and Henricus Historical Park.
Arnold offered the commander of the nine Virginia State Navy ships there, plus a dozen merchant ships loaded with tobacco, a deal. If they surrendered without a fight, he would take only half of the valuable cargoes. The response was clear:9
The ships lacked the personnel to sail away or to provide an effective defense, but the Virginians chose to fight. After rejecting Arnold's offer, the Virginia Navy opened fire:10
British artillery shredded rigging, and Arnold's men quickly captured and destroyed the nine ships of the state navy. The captured merchant ships became booty for the British officers, after being sold with their cargoes as prizes. Benedict Arnold won a naval battle at Osbourne's Landing without having a single ship under his command.11
The last exploit of a ship in the Virginia Navy occurred in the summer of 1781. Captain John Cox, who had been in charge of one of the vessels destroyed by Benedict Arnold's force at Osbourne's Landing, went to the Eastern Shore and took charge of a merchant ship. He sailed the Game Cock to Bermuda and seized the gunpowder, bringing it back to Williamsburg soon after General Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown.
It was the second time a Virginia ship had seized gunpowder stored on Bermuda. In August 1775, Bermudians who supported the colonists conspired to break into the storehouse on the island. They carried about 100 barrels of gunpowder to the Lady Catharine, which had sailed from Virginia for the raid. The Lady Catharine then sailed to Philadelphia.12