Colonel William Woodford, reporting on the 2d Virginia Regiment's Service at the Battle of Great Bridge, 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.
In August 1777, Washington marched his army to counter the British landing at Head of Elk, Maryland, with the objective of Philadelphia.
A detachment of the 2d Virginia Regiment fought as part of Maxwell's Light Corps, a provisional formation made up of drafts of 100 men from each brigade, under Lt.
Greene's Division of Virginians had held off the British advance at the closing of the Battle of Brandywine, allowing the rest of the army to withdraw in good order.
Colonel Spotswood resigned after the Battle of Germantown to return to Virginia to take care of the family as he mistakenly thought his brother had been killed (he had in fact been wounded and captured).
A return written by Inspector General Steuben indicates that the regiment only had 180 rank and file, which could form two divisions.
Colonel Febiger would be one of these "supernumerary" officers and was assigned to command one of the composite battalions of light infantry in this attack.
A month later, Captain Catlett and 50 men of the regiment would be under "Light Horse Harry" Lee at Paulus Hook (present day Jersey City) and was credited with covering the retreat from capturing this post.
Colonel Gustavus Brown Wallace, Major Charles Pelham, Captains Alexander Parker and Benjamin Taliaferro can be placed with this detachment.
Colonel Banastre Tarleton of the British Legion caught up to Buford at Waxhaws, asked for his surrender, and when it was not given, cut the 3rd Virginia Detachment to pieces.
Captain Alexander Parker escaped what Americans later termed a "massacre" and made it back to Virginia.
Some stragglers would make it back to Chesterfield Courthouse, south of Richmond, where Colonel Christian Febiger was now in charge of the recruiting effort to raise new Virginia Continental regiments.
Gaskins' Battalion would be assigned to a Continental detachment under General Lafayette during the Virginia Campaign in 1781, and later the Main Army under Washington at Yorktown, but were consistently held in reserve and never saw actual fighting.
Some men also were part of a company of Virginia Continentals who survived Charleston and the Waxhaws which fought at the Battle of Cowpens in January 1781.