(gentle music) - William Flora, known as Billy Flora, was a free Black here in Virginia.

He was born in Portsmouth, from what we could tell in the records, - In Virginia, being a free Black actually means, legally, you're half free, half slave.

He could not testify against whites, he could not vote, but he had to pay taxes and he was required to serve in the local militia.

- [Cassandra] Those militias became part of the first Virginia regiment.

- He and several other free Black men were a part of those regiments that were at Great Bridge.

(dramatic drumbeats) - Tensions were rising between the British and the Americans, those who were calling themselves the Patriots.

Norfolk was that hub for all the shipping activity.

This waterway system was critical to creating a port that would represent all the goods flowing out of Virginia.

That land bridge, that Great Bridge area, connects the Norfolk County area to the rest of the continent.

And that's why the British, and Lord Dunmore in particular, wanted to capture Norfolk.

Just north of the Great Bridge, he established Fort Murray.

That was his beachhead.

And he wanted to protect this area to maintain British control.

- He feared that the Virginians were going to get reinforcement from North Carolina, and the only place that those troops could come, about 500 soldiers with weapons, would be across Great Bridge.

So on one side, you have the Patriots who are dug in.

You have the British on the other side inside their fort.

On the morning of December 9th, Governor Dunmore's troops decided that they were going to attack.

It was a morning where it was very foggy, so he thought that would be the perfect time to send his troops across the bridge and attack.

(suspenseful music) The sentries, like Billy Flora, they're the first line of defense.

There's some distance between them near the edge of the bridge, and about 650 men in the second Virginia regiment a half a mile behind them.

It's a small bridge, and the soldiers are coming across, about 120 men.

As the British are coming across, the sentries, they start to fire at the British.

Billy Flora stays at the edge of the bridge, and it's believed that he took a knee, so he'll be a smaller target, and start to fire.

And there's three different documented accounts that he fired at least eight shots.

(gun bangs) - A shot meant that he had to fire once and then reload.

He did that eight times.

(gun bangs) - One, to kind of make sure he can hopefully hit the British.

Two, to kind of signal behind him to Colonel Woodford, "This is the real act.

"Come, we need help, reinforcements now."

(gun bangs) - He then ran to alert the troops.

And there were some loose boards on the causeway.

He pulled them up so that they could not easily cross over without getting into the water.

- It also gave the Patriots enough time, those 650 men behind them, enough time to get into position and fire the volleys that would kill almost half of the British soldiers on that bridge.

Being that that bridge was so small, it was difficult.

They couldn't move left, couldn't move right.

So they were like targets with no place to go.

- They fought successfully against the British, repelled them, defeated them.

- After the Battle of Great Bridge, Governor Dunmore had to retreat to the Chesapeake.

He had a a flotilla of ships from where he would rule.

So this battle of Great Bridge was important at that point, that it sent him off land, started his flight, and eventually, by the next year, he left Virginia for good.

And the war would not return to Virginia until the siege of Yorktown, and Billy Flora would be here in another Virginia regiment, fighting again for the Patriots.

- That important battle set the tone for where Virginia would go, because after that, there was no going back.

William Flora's story should be part of the landscape of America's story.

It's those stories that we really need to tell.

- If you remove Billy Flora from Great Bridge, who knows what would've happened.

He was definitely an American hero.

- [Narrator] This has been "Revolution 250: Stories From The First Shore" To learn more about this and other events of the Revolutionary age of America, visit whro.org/usa250.