The Day is Our Own!

Amid burning structures and cannon fire on the south island, British Captain Charles Fordyce led his officers and grenadiers of the 14th Regiment of Foot onto a narrow causeway bordered by quick mire and two small streams. Realizing that the smoke concealed the British movement, Colonel Thomas Bullett alerted Lieutenant Edward Travis, who was posted behind a breastwork with a company of men from Southampton District and a number of militia. Positioned to deliver a devastating crossfire on troops crossing the causeway, the patriots exchanged volleys with the advancing grenadiers, then under Travis's orders withheld further fire until the British were trapped on the causeway 50 yards from the breastwork. Fordyce, struck in the knee, rallied his troops with the cry, “The day is our own!” before falling within fifteen feet of the breastwork, mortally wounded by 14 bullets. As more grenadiers fell, a retreat was sounded, and after nightfall the British force withdrew to ships in Norfolk harbor. The patriots recovered fifteen enemy bodies from the causeway and marsh, while seventeen other grenadiers were wounded or captured, and the retreating grenadiers carried off an unknown number of dead and wounded. The losses were so severe that the 14th Regiment of Foot returned to England to recruit replacements.

Chesapeake, Virginia · United States