Virginia's Billy Flora, An African American of Uncommon Courage at the Battle of Great Birdge

The year is 1775, and the place is Great Bridge VA, a choke point in the Elizabeth River south of Norfolk. Lord Dunmore, the disgraced British governor is on the run from Williamsburg, and decides to hole up in a small stockade near Great Bridge.

Coming at Dunmore from all directions are Patriot militia, led by the Culpeper Minute Men and Captain William Woodford. The Patriots start building a fortification. Black men, some still enslaved and some free, including William “Billy” Flora, an African American who was born free in Portsmouth.

After a few days of skirmishing in the area’s bogs and swamps, Woodford recruited one of the black militia to slip over to Dunmore’s camp and convince the British governor that the colonials are low in spirit and their fortifications weak. Dunmore never questioned the false information since he judged the man who gave it to be pro-British because of his skin color.

Hence Dunmore sent his men charging across Great Bridge only to be met by devastating fire from colonial muskets and rifles. The fight was furious, but brief.

Billy Flora, a bridge guard, emerged as one of the most gallant fighters. In the words of Captain Thomas Nash, a fellow Patriot and eyewitness who was wounded in the fight:

“Flora, a colored man, was the last sentinel that came into the breast work … he did not leave his post until he had fired several rounds. Billy had to cross a plank to get to the breast work and had fairly passed over it when he was seen to turn back, and deliberately take up the plank after him, amidst a shower of musket balls.”

The other sentinels had taken cover earlier, but not Flora. He stood his ground. The Battle of Great Bridge and its aftermath in Norfolk, was a British defeat that sent Dunmore hightailing it to his ship and out of Virginia. This freed the colony of any organized British presence for five years—five important years that Washington used to move men and supplies without enemy interference. It denied the British use of Norfolk, a large and strategic shipyard, and was said to have been a turning point.

Billy continued to serve throughout the war in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Virginia. Few men showed such loyalty to the American cause. Fewer still reaped praise from their old commander as a “soldier held in high esteem.”

Once independence had been won, Flora returned to the livery business he had started before the war. He became a husband, father, and property owner. In 1806 Virginia granted him one hundred acres in gratitude for his service.

The Virginia Society Sons of the American Revolution established The Billy Flora Color Guard Medal awarded to members who participate in a defined set of events in Virginia commemorating the American Revolution. Every December at the commemoration of the Battle of Great Bridge at what is now Chesapeake, Virginia, Billy Flora is honored as a Revolutionary Soldier who performed heroically in the American Victory.

The Sgt Maj John Champe Chapter, Virginia Society Sons of the American Revolution serves Loudoun County and is proud to commemorate Billy Flora. For more information about the Sgt Maj John Champe Chapter visit our website at: https://johnchampe-sar.org