The Battle of Great Bridge was fought December 9, 1775, in the area of Great Bridge, Virginia, early in the American Revolutionary War. The refusal by colonial Virginia militia forces led to the departure of Royal Governor Lord Dunmore and any remaining vestiges of British power over the Colony of Virginia during the early days of the conflict. Following increasing political and military tensions in early 1775, both Dunmore and colonial rebel leaders recruited troops and engaged in a struggle for available military supplies. The struggle eventually focused on Norfolk, where Dunmore had taken refuge aboard a Royal Navy vessel. Dunmore's forces had fortified one side of a critical river crossing south of Norfolk at Great Bridge, while rebel forces had occupied the other side. In an attempt to break up the rebel gathering, Dunmore ordered an attack across the bridge, which was decisively repulsed. Colonel William Woodford, the Virginia militia commander at the battle, described it as "a second Bunker's Hill affair". The primary approach to Norfolk was over Great Bridge, which spanned the Elizabeth River. The bridge was surrounded on both sides by the Great Dismal Swamp and was accessible only by narrow causeways on both the north and south sides.

Both the Patriots and the British recognized the bridge’s importance. Dunmore ordered the construction of a stockade known as Fort Murray on the north side of the bridge. On December 7, 1775, Patriot forces arrived on the bridge’s south side. For the next several days, the Tories and Patriots skirmished amongst the region's bogs and swamps. By the night of the 8th, the Patriot force commanded by Colonel William Woodford had grown to roughly 900 men. Dunmore decided to drive Woodford back. On the night and morning of December 8 and 9, British Capt. Samuel Leslie led reinforcements down to Fort Murray, arriving around 3:00 am. Upon his arrival, he learned that the detachment intended for the diversion was not in the fort. He decided to proceed with the attack anyway. After resting his troops until a little before dawn, Capt. Leslie sent men out to replace the bridge planking. Once this was finished, Capt. Charles Fordyce led a British company across the bridge. They briefly skirmished with American militia sentries, raising the alarm in the American camp beyond the entrenchments. Fordyce's men were then joined by a company of navy gunners who had been brought along to operate the field artillery for the attack, while the Tory companies arrayed themselves on the Norfolk side of the bridge.

Following a truce to permit the British to remove their dead and wounded, the Tory forces snuck out in the night to return to Norfolk. Captain Fordyce was buried with full military honors by the rebels near the site of the battle. Casualty estimates ranged from Dunmore's official report of 62 killed or wounded to an escaped patriot's report that the British losses totaled 102, excluding militia casualties. The only claimed rebel casualty was one man with a slight wound to the thumb. Colonel William Woodford, reporting on the 2nd Virginia Regiment's service at the battle, wrote in a letter published in Purdie's Virginia Gazette, December 15, 1775: "This was a second Bunker's Hill affair, in miniature; with this difference, that we kept our post, and had only one man wounded in the hand." The Virginia militia forces were then reinforced by the arrival of troops from North Carolina under Colonel Robert Howe. By the time General George Washington had written the Continental Congress from New England, Woodford was able to report to Edmund Pendleton, president of the Convention at Williamsburg, that he and Colonel Robert Howe were in complete command in Norfolk. After a series of escalations over the rebel's refusal to allow provisions to be delivered to the overcrowded vessels, Dunmore and Commodore Henry Pellow decided to bombard Norfolk.