BY EDWARD CHANNING,
Instructor in History in Harvard College.
IN the autumn of 1778 the British commander-in-chief, Sir Henry Clinton, determined to attempt for the second time the subjugation of the Southern colonies, and Savannah was selected as the first point of attack. On November 27, 1778, Lieutenant-Colonel Archibald Campbell, with thirty-five hundred men of all arms, sailed from Sandy Hook, and anchored off Tybee Entrance December 23d. Meantime a deserter from an advance transport had given the Americans warning. Their commander was General Robert Howe, a good but unsuccessful officer, who had not been fortunate in securing the confidence of the authorities of Georgia. Ascertaining these facts, Campbell pressed on without awaiting the arrival of Brigadier-General Augustine Prevost with a reinforcement from Florida. On the 28th, late in the afternoon, the British fleet assembled in the Savannah River, off Giradeau's house on Brewton Hill, which is about two miles from Savannah in a straight line, though double that distance by road. A causeway, nearly half a mile in length, ran from the river to the bluff through a rice-field which in ordinary times could have been flooded, but over which the bluff was now accessible from all points.
On the morning of the 29th the Highlanders carried the position with trifling loss, when Campbell, advancing toward Savannah, found the Americans most advantageously posted across the highroad. Through no fault of Howe, his rear was attained, while he awaited an attack in front. The Americans suffered a severe loss, and only a small part of them succeeded in joining Lincoln beyond the Savannah River. Campbell pushed up the Savannah, and in ten days the frontier of Georgia was secured, and this was the condition when Prevost arrived and took command.
Although Lincoln had arrived at Charleston on December 6th, he was not able to reach Purisburgh before the 5th of January, 1779. His army, composed almost entirely of militia, refused under him, as it had under Howe, to be governed by the Continental rules of war.[1014]
At first it seemed to the enemy that the occupation of Georgia could be easily maintained, but the neighboring militia rallied under Pickens, and drove the British back. The American success, however, was brief, for Colonel Prevost, a brother of the general, turned upon General Ashe, who with a detachment from Lincoln's army was following the British retreat. The Americans were surprised and suffered a defeat, which cost Lincoln one third of his army and restored to Prevost his superiority in Georgia.[1015]
The scale again turned. Lincoln, reinforced, once more severed the British communications with the up-country Tories, when Prevost, to disconcert his adversary, at first sought to get between him and Charleston, and then suddenly advanced on the city itself. Here Moultrie, who had been watching the British advance, threw up some defences. Negotiations for a surrender followed, and Governor Rutledge, who was in the town, even proposed a scheme of neutrality for the State during the war, to which Prevost would not listen. The British now intercepted a messenger from Lincoln, and finding that general closing in upon him, Prevost suddenly decamped and marched toward Savannah.
The summer was uneventful; but in the early autumn D'Estaing, who after leaving Newport had been cruising with some success in the West Indies, now turned northerly, and on September 3 (1779) his advance ships arrived off the mouth of the Savannah River. A landing, however, was not effected until the 12th, when the troops landed at Beaulieu, on Ossabaw Sound, fourteen to sixteen miles from Savannah. They did not reach that town until the 16th, so that Prevost had time to call in his scattered detachments, and all but those from Beaufort had arrived when, on the evening of that day, D'Estaing, in the name of the king of France, summoned him to surrender. A correspondence followed, which was prolonged till the defences were strengthened and Maitland got up from Beaufort with eight hundred men, when Prevost refused to surrender.
D'Estaing had been all the more willing to grant the truce as Lincoln, who was looked for from Charleston, had not arrived on the 16th. By the 23d a considerable part of the Americans had joined the French, and siege operations were begun. Guns were brought up from the French ships and trenches pushed to within three hundred yards of the besieged lines. On September 24th a sortie was made by the garrison for the purpose of developing the strength of the besiegers. The sortie was repulsed with ease, but the French, following the assailants back to their lines, were exposed to a murderous fire, and incurred a heavy loss in killed and wounded. The bombardment was then begun with vigor, but with little effect. At last, on October 8th, D'Estaing declared that he could not keep his vessels longer exposed to the Atlantic gales. An assault was determined on. In the night the sergeant-major of one of the Charleston militia regiments deserted to the enemy and gave full information of the intended movement, and further declared that the attack on the British left would be only a feint, the real attack being directed against the Spring Hill redoubt, on the right.[1016]