A two-day skirmish 250 years ago between a British naval force and colonial militiamen in Hampton and Williamsburg led to what historians have come to mark when the Revolutionary War came to Virginia.

During the weekend of Oct. 26-28, 1775, no one saw that significance as the British and colonials skirmished at various spots in New England with arguments for independence at the Continental Congress still months away.

While the British and colonial encounters in Massachusetts seemed a world away, Virginia’s colonial military in October grew, according to Charles A. Mills in his new volume, “Virginia in the American Revolution,” and the late William & Mary professor John E. Selby in his iconic book, “The Revolution in Virginia, 1775-1783.”

The Third Virginia Convention in July 1775 had cr

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