report by Lew de Seife
The battle of Spencer’s Ordinary was observed Monday June 26th at Freedom Park. Williamsburg and Thomas Nelson Jr chapters of the Sons of the American Revolution presented wreaths at the battle site marker. Chris Bonin recapped the action.
The Battle of Spencer's Ordinary was an inconclusive skirmish that took place on 26 June 1781, late in the American Revolutionary War. Hessian troops, and British Rangers under Lieutenant Colonel John Graves Simcoe and American forces under Colonel Richard Butler, light detachments from the armies of General Lord Cornwallis and the Marquis de Lafayette respectively, clashed near a tavern (the "ordinary") at a road intersection of what are now Longhill and Centerville roads.
Lafayette had been shadowing Cornwallis as he moved his army toward Williamsburg from central Virginia. Aware that Simcoe had become separated from Cornwallis, he sent Butler out in an attempt to cut Simcoe off. Both sides, concerned that the other might be reinforced by its main army, eventually broke off the battle.