Did the Patriots Burn Norfolk?
Norfolk’s destruction in 1776 was not just wartime chaos. It was part of a larger Revolutionary strategy.
In a recent article for The Bulwark, journalist Andrew Lawler examines one of the lesser-known episodes of the American Revolution: the destruction of Norfolk, Virginia, in early 1776. Long attributed to British forces under Lord Dunmore, Lawler argues that the city’s devastation was, in fact, largely carried out by American revolutionaries and that this detail has been obscured or downplayed in the prevailing historical narrative.
Norfolk, the largest town in Virginia at the time, was a strategic port and a Loyalist stronghold with economic and symbolic significance. On January 1, 1776, Lord Dunmore’s British ships began shelling the city. However, according to Lawler, while the bombardment was real, the bulk of the destruction came later and it came from Americans.
Drawing on a 1777 report from a secret committee of the Virginia legislature, Lawler cites its finding that as much as 96 percent of the town was burned not by British forces, but by Patriot-aligned Virginia militia. He notes that the initial fire damaged perhaps a third of the town, but the Patriots, hoping to deny the British use of Norfolk as a base, systematically torched the rest over the course of several days.
One of the more striking pieces of evidence highlighted is a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Page in December 1775, before the shelling began. In it, Jefferson quotes the Latin phrase “Delenda est Norfolk,” echoing Cato’s call for the destruction of Carthage. Jefferson added, “it is indeed the Nest which has been the source of all our misfortunes.” The phrase suggests that Patriot leadership may have already seen Norfolk’s destruction as inevitable or even necessary.
Lawler also points to efforts at narrative control. While newspapers and public accounts at the time emphasized British culpability, he notes that Virginia leaders quietly acknowledged the militia’s role in private documents. According to the secret report, many of the homes destroyed were owned not by Tories, but by neutral or even Patriot-aligned residents.
He writes that the destruction of Norfolk was not an accident of war, nor a uniquely British outrage. Rather, it was a calculated scorched-earth decision that served a military and political purpose during a volatile early phase of the war. Yet the Continental Congress would go on to cite such burnings in the Declaration of Independence as evidence of British tyranny.
Lawler does not frame this as a scandal or betrayal, but rather as an example of the messiness of war and memory. “The story of Norfolk,” he writes, “reminds us that even revolutions built on ideals can be founded on uncomfortable truths.”
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