Overcome dire peril crossing Virginia (7)
I believe the answer is:
prevail
'overcome' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'dire peril crossing virginia' is the wordplay.
'dire' indicates an anagram.
'crossing' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'virginia' becomes 'va' (US state abbreviation).
'peril' is an anagram of 'preil'.
'preil' going around 'va' is 'PREVAIL'.
(Other definitions for prevail that I've seen before include "Be current" , "Be widespread; prove superior" , "Win through" , "Exist generally" , "come out on top" .)