The roots of Norfolk's destruction ran back to the spring of 1775, when Lord Dunmore -- John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore and royal governor of Virginia -- watched his authority collapse in real time. Patriot-controlled legislators were recruiting militia. British marines, under Dunmore's orders, removed gunpowder from the colonial storehouse in Williamsburg, triggering outrage and a militia uprising. By June, Dunmore feared for his life enough to evacuate his family to a Royal Navy ship. He drifted to Norfolk, where the merchant class leaned Loyalist and the presence of British warships kept the peace. From the harbor, Dunmore cobbled together a small military force: two companies of the 14th Regiment of Foot, a unit of Loyalist volunteers he christened the Queen's Own Loyal Virginia Regiment, and -- most provocatively -- the Ethiopian Regiment, made up of enslaved people who had escaped Patriot-owned plantations in exchange for a promise of freedom. On November 30, 1775, Dunmore declared he would soon "reduce this colony to a proper sense of their duty."

Dunmore's confidence proved short-lived. Patriot militia under Colonel William Woodford of the 2nd Virginia Regiment, reinforced by North Carolina regulars under Colonel Robert Howe, swelled to about 1,200 troops and marched into Norfolk on December 14. Dunmore and his entire force withdrew to the warships in the harbor, taking most of the remaining Loyalist civilians with them. The port town was now held by Patriots but menaced by a British fleet anchored just offshore. On December 20, the situation escalated when additional Royal Navy vessels arrived with fresh supplies and munitions. Dunmore arranged four warships -- the Dunmore, the Liverpool, the Otter, and a fourth vessel -- in a threatening line along Norfolk's waterfront. People began fleeing with whatever they could carry. On Christmas Eve, Captain Henry Bellew of the Liverpool sent an ultimatum into town: he preferred to purchase provisions rather than take them by force. On December 30, Bellew demanded that the Patriots stop parading guards along the waterfront, calling it offensive, and suggested it would "not be imprudent" for women and children to leave.

The bombardment began on January 1, 1776. British guns raked the waterfront while landing parties came ashore to set fire to specific buildings -- warehouses and properties associated with the Patriot cause. Howe's and Woodford's troops fought the landing parties back to their boats. But then something shifted. Rather than extinguish the flames left by the British, the Patriot forces began setting fires of their own, targeting Loyalist-owned property throughout the town. What the British had started as a targeted military action, the Patriots transformed into wholesale destruction. The fires burned for three days. When the smoke cleared, most of Norfolk lay in ruins -- and the bulk of the damage had been inflicted not by the Crown but by the Continental forces supposedly defending the place. In early February, the Patriots completed the demolition deliberately, razing whatever structures still stood to deny the British any possible use of the port.

Colonel Howe reported that "the whole town will I doubt not be consum'd in a day or two." He was right. Patriot forces withdrew from the ruins and took up positions in surrounding towns. In March, General Charles Lee arrived to take command of the Continental Army's Southern Department and organized the militia to drive Dunmore from a camp he had established near Portsmouth. By August 1776, Dunmore abandoned Virginia for good. The destruction of Norfolk, paradoxically, had served both sides' purposes: the British lost their last Virginia stronghold, and the Patriots eliminated a city whose Loyalist sympathies made it a strategic liability. After the war, the federal government purchased fortified land in Norfolk and established Fort Norfolk, reinforcing it alongside the existing Fort Nelson to guard the Elizabeth River against future naval assault. Today, a marker at St. Paul's Boulevard and City Hall Avenue in downtown Norfolk commemorates the bombardment -- though it takes a closer reading of history to understand that the real conflagration came from within.