A British Trophy From the 1813 Raid on Hampton-- Part 2

The Rutherford Rifle is stamped with the number of the 115th Virginia Militia Regiment which was made up of men from Elizabeth City, York and Warwick counties.  There are also the initials ECC for "Elizabeth City County."

Captain Richard servant and his company were the first to respond to the alarm and had to fight 1,200 British who had landed at what is now Wythe and began advancing  on the rear of the American battery at Cedar Point.Servant's men fired on the British from the woods and temporarily slowed them, but were forced to withdraw because of superior numbers.

A rifle from Servant's men was picked up as a war trophy by British Lt.Col. Charles Napier and remained in his family for 150 years before it was returned to the United States and acquired by the Hampton History Museum in 2004 through a fund-raising campaign.

--Brock-Perry