John Moseley on Gwynn's Island - 24 May 1776 to 10 July 1776

Reports had come in to Lord Dunmore's fleet that Gwynn's Island in Chesapeake Bay , fifty miles to the north of the Piankatank River, had 'an excellent Harbor', 'plenty of fresh water', was easily defensible and in the hands of 'many Friends of Government.' After a two day voyage 'with more trouble and difficulty than ever ' Andrew Snape Hamond RN, Roebuck, 'had before experienced' the fleet arrived at Gwynn Island during the late afternoon and early evening of 24 May, anchoring in '4 fathoms.' In the dawn the next day an unwell John Moseley, Ethiopian Regiment, still suffering the effects of smallpox inoculation, woke to the noise and smell of about 'five hundred hogs, sheep and cattle' wafting across from the island. At daybreak, if he had been on deck, he would have seen 'a safe and commodious Harbour' abutting a small island 'three or four Miles in length and one in breadth', separated from the mainland by '½ a Mile' except for 'one place' only two hundred yards from the mainland across a channel fordable at low tide. His safety, and the safety of his comrades, was dependent upon 'the Guns from the Ships.'¹

The 'Shattered remains of the Ethiopian Regiment' were presumably put ashore as quickly as possible. Guards from a detachment of the red-coated Marines kept a watchful eye on them. Most of the blacks suffering from smallpox had progressed beyond the early symptoms to highly infectious scabs and pustules. Those who found it difficult to move, let alone walk, were left on the transports, where, every night three or four dead were thrown overboard each night. The lucky ones, like Moseley, who had been inoculated against the disease were marched, unarmed, with sailors and marines 'quite thro the Island.' None of Dunmore's and Hamond's '200 effective Men', sailors, marines, Loyalists or the Ethiopian Regiment saw a single rebel during the morning's reconnaissance. When they tested the wells 'most of [them] … yielded very very bad water.' Once back at the point closest to the mainland Dunmore set up a fort and camp for the whites, relying on the sailors and marines for labour. A separate camp, as far away as possible from the whites was set up for the blacks, men, women and children, with separate brush huts for the infectious and others for the near-well. Even garrison duty was beyond the smallpox-infected on that first day of occupation. By late afternoon Moseley was able to make out small bands of rebels gathering on the mainland across from Dunmore's entrenchments from where they took pot-shots at those setting up the camp and digging the entrenchments. They failed to do 'the least mischief.' From late afternoon of that first day 'six or eight fresh' runaways came every day. Dunmore enrolled them in the Ethiopian Regiment and quartered them in the blacks' smallpox-ridden camp. In the morning bodies drifted ashore to the island and along the mainland, the previous night's dead from Dunmore's fleet, sometimes as many as a dozen at a time. Dunmore's crews, out in boats in the early morning dragging the seine for fish presumably took care to trawl well away from the ships.²

At nine p.m. on 30 May the Otter brought in the expected brig from Antigua, laden with salt and ordnance, and 'a Spanish snow' bound for Philadelphia with '13 Thousand hard Dollars on board … brought from Havana.' Dunmore announced there would be a market the next day. Pigs, cattle and sheep were butchered, an everyday skill. Over everything hung the stench of blood and guts and the stomach-churning reek of smallpox. Moseley and others waited thirteen days to see if newcomers had been inoculated before the disease incubated into infectious sores, pustules and scabs. The daily dead on land, black and white, were buried in shallow graves.³

The smallpox weakened the remaining soldiers of the 14^th Regiment and struck down all the Loyalist troops. Moseley and his inoculated comrades, according to Captain Hamond, 'got thro the disorder with great success.' They were put to work digging latrines and building a fort at each end of the island, and digging the entrenchment even deeper opposite the Narrows, where now two thousand rebels were gathering. In the exchanges of fire between the rebels and the British, the rebels suffered casualties, intent on building a battery with which they could wipe Dunmore off the island. Hamond lamented a lack of small ordnance on the island, having distributed everything brought from Antigua to his tenders so they might cattle-raid and otherwise harry the Americans. The blacks had nowhere to flee but a party of fifty marines, undoubtedly terrified of contracting smallpox, deserted on a mainland wood-gathering expedition. John Sprowle, the owner of the Gosport shipyard buried with more ceremony than blacks, women and children in a grave 'neatly done up with turf.' Within days of disembarking, in early June on the King's Birthday, Hamond and Dunmore strove to keep up appearances. Hamond, as was the custom, ordered a full twenty-one gun salute from the men-of-war, to be matched where possible by their tenders and the armoured vessels in Dunmore's fleet.⁴

Barely had the surviving members of the Ethiopian Regiment, 300 according to one observer, recovered from the smallpox than they fell prey to a virulent fever, probably typhoid. Dunmore 'Separated the Sick from the well, by the breadth of the Island', and tried to keep them apart. Among those kept apart were '25 Negroes, men and women' on the Dunmore in the broad Millford Haven, and among these were probably Patty Moseley and John Moseley's mother. Moseley himself seems to have evaded the new fever. He was put to work beside his fit compatriots stripping the island of its remaining wood for fuel and building, and on the construction and improvement of the various forts and redoubts Dunmore was throwing up at either end and in the middle of the island in the face of constant ineffective musket fire from the rebels on the shore. Moseley's tedium was relieved only by the deaths and burials of those about him. Near the end of June more troops arrived. The Otter brought a prize full of 'Rum from the Barbados', a suitable topic for hope, gossip and merriment. On the 29^th, the blacks were distracted as the William transport ran aground on Windmill Bar at seven in the morning and took the whole day to get off. That they could, from time to time watch its progress instead of working was proof enough they were no longer slaves. About the same time Governor Eden, a refugee from Annapolis in Maryland, arrived in the Fowey with his retinue, along with 'several Small Vessels laden with cattle' and more Loyalist volunteers.⁵

In early July the rebels on the mainland revealed five empty artillery casements to the British toiling across from them. Moseley perhaps observed a British party rowing to the mainland. The rebels demanded Dunmore vacate Gwynn's Island. His answer was to have large parties of men working day and night for several days, including many from the flotilla off-shore, strengthening the island's fortifications, at the end of which Hamond ordered his marines back aboard the Roebuck. By the eighth the Americans had brought from Williamsburg two 18-pounders, two 12-pounders, five 9-pounders, and three 6-pounders, which they kept hidden from the British. They still did not have enough boats canoes or rafts ready for an amphibious assault. In the midst of all this activity conditions on the island only worsened. Its defenders were now entirely reliant on water casks provided by the Royal Navy since the island wells had run dry. The ill continued to die, and were hastily buried in shallow mass graves, or, as was the case with some of the Ethiopian Regiment, not buried at all. Others lay in their huts too sick to move, prostrate and delirious with fever, or in agony with smallpox. Some crawled or dragged themselves down to the water's edge for cooling relief.⁶

The Dunmore, Lord Dunmore's flagship, had moved closest to the rebel encampment, taking the Otter's station so the latter could retreat and heal and scrape her bottom. Her aim was to prevent the rebels from landing on the island, despite Dunmore judging his gun crews, mostly black, as 'raw and weak.' On board, as we have previously noted, were probably John Moseley's mother and eleven year old Patty Moseley. At eight in the morning of 9 July the rebels ashore suddenly revealed their hidden artillery battery which they had worked on through the night preparing an attack. At a range of '4 or 500 yards' the Americans opened fire on the Dunmore, holeling her hull and doing 'considerable damage.' The Moseley women and other ex-slaves below deck, except for those manning the guns, were probably aware of little else than the screams of their fellows, the acrid smoke, the deafening roar of cannon and lethal splinters of wood let fly by every hit. The boatswain was cut in two by a cannon-ball. Dunmore himself, evidently below deck supervising his inexperienced gunners, was 'wounded in the legs.' His finest china was 'smashed about his ears.' On the island John Moseley was caught in the crossfire of two rebel cannon with the rest of his comrades and 'set ...to Scampering.' All was 'Amazement and Confusion beyond Description' on both sea and land. The Dunmore and most of the fleet were quickly towed out of the enemy's range, for 'there was not a breath of Air Stirring', though 'what little Tide there was drifted [them] from the Shore'. The pounding of Gwynn's Island appears to have gone on all day. Fearful the Americans might land on the island and well aware they were 'too weak to resist any considerable force,' Hamond and Dunmore ordered an evacuation of their stronghold but because of the strength of the American batteries dared not effect it in daylight without risk of considerable casualties and damage to their fleet.⁷

In the early hours of the morning while it was still dark the British began their evacuation. Moseley and the rest of the surviving blacks were put to work alongside Royal Navy crews quietly taking down tents, loading guns and stowing baggage in waiting muffle-oared boats. The work was not done before daylight, when the Americans in an armed schooner and an armed sloop drove several naval tenders ashore on the island. Their sailors set the tenders on fire but only one of them was completely destroyed. By now the Americans had enough boats, canoes and rafts to invade the island. The landing of the feared 'Shirt-men' started a panic among the British. In the rush to depart Dunmore's people left behind one six-ponder cannon which they hurriedly spiked and 'a considerable Quantity of Baggage.' Not wanting to leave the rebels much of use they burnt down the brush-huts with the fever-ridden dying blacks still in them, departing the island under a cover of thick, greasy smoke, the stench of roasting flesh and the shrieks of burning men in their ears. Much of the Governor's 'worm-eaten' fleet, some 'without sails & Rigging sufficient to Navigate them' had to be towed by Royal Navy boats out of range of the American cannonballs, and by late afternoon was finally huddled under the protection of the well-peppered Fowey and Roebuck.⁸

1Journal of HM Sloop Otter, Captain Matthew Squire in Morgan (ed.) NDAR, Vol. 5, p. 259; Narrative of Captain Andrew Snape Hamond in ibid.,p. 321; Journal of HMS Roebuck, Captain Andrew Snape Hamond [Sunday 26^th May 1776] in ibid., p. 278; cited in Selby, The Revolution in Virginia, p. 105; Deposition of John Emmes, a Delaware pilot, 21.6.1776, in Morgan (ed.) NDAR, Vol. 5, p.668; Captain Andrew Snape Hamond to Commodore Sir Peter Parker, Roebuck at Gwin's Island in Virginia, the 10^th June, 1776 in ibid., p.460; Selby, The Revolution in Virginia, p. 105.

2Elizabeth A. Fenn, Pox Americana. The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82,New York, pp. 58, 18-20; Bernard Ireland, Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail. War at Sea, 1756-1815, London, 2000, p. 208; Narrative of Captain Andrew Snape Hamond, [27^th May, 1776] in Morgan, (ed.) NDAR, Vol. 5, p. 322; Deposition of John Ennes, a Delaware Pilot, 212.6.1776, in ibid., p. 668;Pybus, Epic Journeys of Freedom, p. 18;.Journal of HMS Roebuck,Captain Andrew Snape Hamond in NDAR, Vol. 5, p. 278;Lord Dunmore to Lord George Germaine, Ship Dunmore in Gwin Island Harbour, Virginia, 26^th June, 1776 in ibid., pp. 756 ff.

3Appendix B. Diary of Miguel Antonio Eduardo [30.5.1776] in Morgan (ed.) NDAR, Vol. 5, p. 1342; Narrative of Captain Andrew Snape Hamond [31^st May, 1776] in ibid., p. 322; Journal of HMS Roebuck, Captain Andrew Snape Hamond [Friday 31^st May, 1776] in ibid., p.322; Lord Dunmore to Governor Sir Ralph Payne, On Board the Ship Dunmore in Eliza. River Virginia, 6^th April 1776 in Clark (ed.) NDAR, Vol. 4, pp. 731-732; Captain Andrew Snape Hamond to Captain George Montagu, HMS Fowey,in Morgan (ed) NDAR, Vol. 5, pp. 342-343; Captain Andrew Snape Hamond to Captain Henry Bellew RN, Gwins Island Chesaqpeake Bay in Virginia, 30^th May 1776, in ibid.,p. 312; Fenn, Pox Americana, p. 18; Pybus, Epic Journeys of Freedom, p. 18; Benjamin Quarles, 'Lord Dunmore as Liberator' in William and Mary Quarterly, [henceforth WMQ] Third Series Vol 15, No 4. (October 1958) p. 504; Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution, Chapel Hill, 1996, f/n. 29, p. 30.

4Narrative of Captain Andrew Snape Hamond in Morgan (ed) NDAR, Vol. 5, p.840; Edward Pendleton to Thomas Jefferson, Wmburg, June 1, 1776 in ibid., p. 342; Captain Andrew Snape Hamond Rn to Governor Patrick Tonyn, [East Florida] in ibid., p. 442; Captain Andrew Snape Hamond to Captain George Montagu HNS Fowey in ibid., pp. 342-343; Extract of a Letter from an Officer in St. Mary's County, Maryland, dated the ninth ult. [June 1776] in ibid.,p. 441; Dixon and Hunter's Virginia Gazette, Saturday, June 8, 1776, in ibid., p. 451; Purdie's Virginia Gazette, Friday, July 17^th, 1776 in ibid., pp. 149-150; Captain Andrew Snape Hamond to Captain George Montagu, Fowey, Roebuck off Gwin Island in Virginia 3d June 1776 in ibid., p. 365.

5Diary of Miguel Antonio Eduardo [23.6.1776] in Morgan (ed.) NDAR, Vol. 5, p. 1344; Lord Dunmore to Lord George Germaine, Ship Dunmore in Gwin Island Harbour, Virginia, 26^th June, 1776 in ibid., pp. 756 ff; Fenn, Pox Americana, p. 59; Extract from E. Johnson to Lt. Col. Alexander Summerville, Calvert County, [Maryland], June 22d 1776 in Morgan, (ed.) NDAR,Vol. 5, p. 685; Journal of HMS Roebuck, Captain Andrew Snape Hamond, [25.6.1776] in ibid.,pp. 742-3; Ibid., p. 820; Narrative of Captain Andrew Snape Hamond in ibid., pp. 841 and 1080.

6Diary of Miguel Antonio Eduardo [5/7.71776] in Morgan (ed.) NDAR, Vol. 5, pp. 1345-1346;Selby, The Revolution in Virginia, p. 135; Purdie's Virginia Gazette,Friday, July 17^th, 1776 in Morgan, (ed.)NDAR, Vol. 5, pp. 149-150; Extract of a letter from Williamsburg, Virginia, July 13, 1776 in ibid., p.1068.

7Narrative of Captain Andrew Snape Hamond, [HMS Roebuck,July 8^th to July 14^th, 1776] in Morgan, (ed.) NDAR, Vol. 5, pp.1078-1079; Lord Dunmore to Lord George Germaine, Ship Dunmore, in Potomac River, Virginia, 21^st July, 1776, in ibid., p. 1312; Brigadier-General Andrew Lewis to Richard Henry Lee, Williamsburg, July 15, 1776 in ibid., pp. 1094-1095; Purdie's Virginia Gazette, Friday, July 17^th , 1776 in ibid., pp. 1149-50;

8Narrative of Captain Andrew Snape Hamond, [HMS Roebuck,July 8^th to July 14^th, 1776] in Morgan, (ed.) NDAR, Vol. 5, pp.1078-1079;Brigadier-General Andrew Lewis to Richard Henry Lee, Williamsburg, July 15, 1776 in ibid., pp. 1094-1095; Selby, The American Revolution in Virginia, p. 135; Diary of Eduardo Miguel Antonio, [10.7.1776], in Morgan, (ed.) NDAR, Vol. 5, p. 1346.