On the 4th of June of this year Captain Howell entered the inlet of Sunbury, and learned from a negro that he had been sent out to catch fish for Mr. Kitchins, the Collector of the port, with whom a party of British officers, both civil and military, were to dine that day,—it being the King’s birthday. Although Mr. Kitchins’ house was within four hundred yards of the fort,—now no longer called fort Morris, but named by its captors fort George in honor of his majesty, King George III,—presuming that the assembled guests on this festive occasion would indulge freely and be found entirely off their guard, Captain Howell resolved upon their capture. Ascending the river with muffled oars, and under cover of the night, the Captain with twelve men passed the fort without attracting its notice, and, landing at Sunbury, surrounded the house about eleven o’clock and took the entire party, numbering twelve persons, prisoners. Among the captured was Colonel Roger Kelsall, who had insulted and ill-treated Captain Howell while he was a prisoner of war. Incensed at the recollection of these indignities, Captain Howell was on the eve of taking him out and drowning him in the river, when the prayers of the lady of the house induced him to spare his life. Having exacted from his captives a pledge that they would not again take up arms until regularly exchanged, Captain Howell returned, without loss or molestation, to his privateer.
Upon the transfer of active operations to the Carolinas, Sunbury seems to have been but feebly garrisoned by the enemy. At times, and for a considerable portion of the year 1780, it appears doubtful whether any British force was there stationed. The Royal army in Georgia was then so much reduced that the garrison at Savannah did not exceed five hundred men.[219]
The truth is, the available forces of the State had been so largely withdrawn for service elsewhere, the entire coast region was so thoroughly impoverished, and so many of the Whig families had moved away, that there was scarcely any necessity for maintaining this post except as a matter of convenience in keeping open the land communication between Savannah and St. Augustine.
In this exhausted and comparatively quiet condition did matters remain until the close of the war. We are not aware that any events occurred in Sunbury, during the residue of the struggle, worthy of special mention or calculated to rouse the inhabitants from that quietude born of want and oppression, feebleness and present despair.
The successes of General Greene in Carolina enabled him to inaugurate such measures for the relief of Georgia that, in order to escape from the advancing and investing columns under General Wayne and Colonel Jackson, the British garrison embarked on the 11th of July, 1783, and Savannah, after having been more than four years and a half in the possession of the enemy, was formally surrendered to the Patriots who had already virtually achieved the independence of the thirteen Confederated States.
Colonel James Jackson was designated by General Wayne as the officer to receive the surrender of the town;—a compliment well merited in view of the patriotism and gallantry which had distinguished him during the whole war, and in recognition of the recent active and hazardous service performed by his command while operating in advance of the army of occupation.
Georgia’s losses, particularly along her south-eastern borders, had been very great. Her slave population, although quiet during the struggle, was essentially demoralized and reduced. It is estimated that between the 12th and 25th of July, 1783, not less than five thousand negroes made their escape from Savannah in sailing vessels. Upon the cessation of hostilities the agricultural and commercial interests of the State were in a most disastrous situation. Particularly was this the case in Liberty county where negroes and property of every description had been, from time to time during the continuance of the struggle, carried off, patriotic citizens driven into exile, plantations burned and converted into waste places, and the seeds of poverty and distress sown broadcast.
On the first Monday in August, 1783, Governor Martin convened the Legislature in Savannah. Courts of Justice were re-established, commissioners of confiscated estates appointed, and measures adopted for the rehabilitation of the State. It was not, however, until the assembling of the Constitutional Convention on the first Monday in January, 1784, when Lyman Hall was appointed Governor, George Walton, Chief Justice; Samuel Stirk, Attorney General; John Milton, Secretary of State; John Martin, Treasurer, and Richard Call, Surveyor General, that the machinery of reconstruction was fully set in motion.
With the incoming of peace many who had been absent in the army, and others who had sought, in South Carolina and elsewhere, temporary refuge from the devastations of the war, returned to their former homes in Sunbury and on the adjacent plantations, and entered with becoming spirit and energy upon the labor of rebuilding and repeopling the desolated region. For a season it seemed as if the prosperity of this seaport would be revived. Not a few of its inhabitants, however, having, during the continuance of hostilities, formed settlements elsewhere, determined to remain where they were, and so the ante bellum population was by no means regained. Others had died, and others still in their places of retreat found themselves so impoverished that they could not command the means requisite for a removal.
The first session of the Superior Court of Liberty county was held at Sunbury on the 18th of November, 1783,—their Honors, Chief Justice George Walton, and Assistant Judge Benjamin Andrew, Senior, presiding. On the 20th, the Grand Jury being empanneled and sworn, the Chief Justice delivered a charge in which,—having alluded to the fact that good order and subordination had everywhere characterized the courts presided over by him on this his first riding since the close of the war, and assured them that nothing could so much contribute to confirm the blessings of peace as an observance of the laws which had for their sole object the general happiness of the people,—he spoke as follows: “I congratulate you, gentlemen, on the news of a definitive treaty of peace by which our freedom, sovereignty, and independence are secured. The war which produced it was one of necessity on our part. That we were enabled to prosecute it with firmness and perseverance to so glorious an issue, should be ascribed to the protecting influence of the Great Disposer of events, and be a subject of grateful praise and adoration. While the result of the contest is so honourable and advantageous to us and to posterity, it is to be lamented that those moral and religious duties so essential to the order of society and the permanent happiness of mankind, have been too much neglected. To recover them into practice, the life and conduct of every good man should be a constant example. Your temples, which the profane instruments of a tyrant laid in ashes, should be built again: for nothing tends to harmonize the rude and unlearned organs of man more than frequent meetings in the places of holy worship. Let the monument of your brave and virtuous soldier and citizen,[220] which was ordered by Congress to his memory, be erected on the same ground, that his virtues and the cause in which he sacrificed his life may be seen together by your children and remembered through distant ages.[221]