Ascertaining that some British officers had accepted an invitation from Mr. Thomas Young to dine with him at Belfast on the 4th of June, 1779, Captain Spencer, commanding an American privateer, determined to surprise and capture the party. For this purpose, proceeding up Midway river in the evening, he landed between eight and nine o’clock at night, and, with twelve of his men, entering the house, made Colonel Cruger and the English officers at the table prisoners of war. Intending to carry off some negroes, Captain Spencer kept his prisoners under guard until morning when, having taken their paroles, he permitted them to return to Sunbury. Colonel Cruger was soon after exchanged for Colonel McIntosh who had been captured at Briar Creek.
On the 28th of the same month Major Baker, advancing toward Sunbury, attacked and defeated a company of mounted recruits under Captain Goldsmith at the White-house. Several of the enemy were killed and wounded. Among the former was Lieutenant Gray, whose head was almost severed from his body by a sabre cut delivered by Robert Sallett. Major Baker entered Sunbury without opposition.[216]
It was by these, and kindred partizan exploits, that the British troops at various detached posts were held in partial check, and the drooping spirits of the oppressed inhabitants from time to time revived.
Upon the appearance of Count D’Estaing’s fleet off the coast of Georgia, General Augustine Prevost concentrated as rapidly as he could within the lines around Savannah the various detachments on duty in the vicinity. That under Lieutenant Colonel Cruger, at Sunbury, was ordered in and reached Savannah on the 10th of September, just two days prior to the landing of the French troops at Beaulieu.
It does not lie within the compass of this sketch to recount the operations of the allied armies under Count D’Estaing and General Lincoln which culminated in that bloody and disastrous repulse on the morning of the 9th of October, 1779. Suffice it to say that Sunbury had her patriotic representatives among the troops commanded by General Lachlan McIntosh, both during the progress of the siege and in the final assault. Two of them at least attested with their lives their supreme devotion to the patriot cause:—Major John Jones who had been for some years a resident of Sunbury, and who was at the time an aid to General McIntosh; and Charles Price, formerly a practising Attorney at Sunbury, and a young gentleman of promise in his profession.[217]
Upon the repulse of the allied armies, and after the departure of Count D’Estaing, and the retreat of General Lincoln into Carolina, the condition of the sea-coast of Georgia was more pitiable than ever. Exasperated by the formidable demonstration, and rendered more arrogant and exacting, the Loyalists set out in every direction upon missions of insult, pillage, and inhumanity. Plundering banditti roved about unrestrained, seizing negroes, stock, furniture, wearing apparel, plate, jewels, and anything they coveted. Children were severely beaten to compel a revelation of the places where valuable property and money were concealed. In the language of Captain McCall,[218] “The militia who had been under the protection of the British, not allowing themselves to doubt of the success of the allied forces, cheerfully participated in a measure which promised the recovery of the State to the union. Future protection was not to be expected, and nothing remained for them but the halter and confiscation from the British or exile for themselves, and poverty and ill-treatment by an insolent enemy for their wives and children who were ordered forthwith to depart the country without the means for travelling or any other means but a reliance on charity for subsistence on their way.
“The obscene language which was used, and personal insults which were offered to the tender sex, soon rendered a residence in the country insupportable. Having neither funds nor means of conveyance for themselves and children, they were obliged to abandon the country under the most deplorable circumstances and seek a dependent residence in the adjoining States at the most inclement season of the year. Numbers whose former condition enabled them to make their neighboring visits in carriages, were obliged to travel on foot; many of them without shoes, through muddy roads and deep swamps.”
Prominent among these raiding Tories was the renegade McGirth.
Under such depressing influences some portions of Liberty county were almost depopulated. Deprived of a support from the back-country, and with nothing to sustain commerce from abroad, Sunbury languished. Its decline, inaugurated when Prevost and Cruger demonstrated the insecurity of the position, and confirmed when Major Lane surrendered Fort Morris, was now day by day accelerated. All who could possibly get away fled the place, and those who remained led lives of disquietude, and penury. In the face of these difficulties, however, Commodore Oliver Bowen, Captains Spencer, Howell, Maxwell, Pray, Hardy, Lawson, Stiles, and others owning private armed vessels, made frequent voyages along the coast, capturing parties who were engaged in collecting provisions for the British troops in Savannah and transporting them through the inland passages, removing the property of the Whigs from the down-trodden districts, and occasionally executing summary vengeance upon the crews of such craft as were known to be employed upon missions of arson, robbery, and murder. Sometimes sharply contested naval engagements occurred, such as that between Captain Braddock with his two American gallies, and the brigantine, Dunmore, Captain Caldeleugh, mounting twelve guns. The Dunmore had sailed from Sunbury for Jamaica, and was attacked so soon as she crossed St. Catharine bar, on the 18th of September, 1779.