As the fifth year of the American Revolution opened, hopes for colonial independence were growing dim. By 1779 British forces still occupied major American cities. Divisions plagued the Continental Congress and the rebel army. In the South, bitter civil war raged between Patriot and Loyalist Americans.

Georgia, the only American colony to be reconquered by the British, was just 42 years old when the war started. Georgia’s population was small, with barely 3,000 men of military age. On December 29, 1778, the colonial capital fell to British troops. The rebel defenders were routed, losing 550 captured or killed. Patriot forces were swept from the state.

Britain’s occupation of Savannah was only the first stroke in a strategy geared to bring Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia back under royal control. It was felt that the large numbers of Loyalists in the South would flock to the king’s cause. With the South secured, the stubborn Continentals in the North could be more easily tamed.

In January 1779, British Colonel Archibald Campbell moved up the Savannah River with 1,044 men and occupied Augusta. There, he invited residents of the surrounding countryside to come in and take an oath of loyalty to the king and receive pardons. About 1,400 men complied. Georgia seemed securely under royal control.

Campbell awaited the arrival of Colonel James Boyd, a Tory agent recently sent into South Carolina to recruit 6,000 Loyalist volunteers. Only 600 men were actually raised. Boyd’s failure to enlist anywhere near the expected numbers of Loyalists revealed the major flaw in Britain’s southern strategy, that of overestimating American enthusiasm for the royal cause. Many Tory recruits joined only out of fear or intimidation.

As Boyd’s Tories made their way toward Augusta, 200 South Carolina militia under Colonel Andrew Pickens and 140 Georgia militia under Colonel John Dooley pursued them. Though badly outnumbered, the little Patriot force hoped to overtake Boyd’s 600 Tories. They counted on pluck and surprise to give them a victory and prevent Boyd from joining Campbell’s British garrison at Augusta.

The rebels attacked Boyd’s command as it was encamped at Kettle Creek, near present-day Washington, Ga., on February 14, 1779. They caught the Tories by surprise as they were killing cattle and grazing their horses. The battle took only an hour; and the Tory camp was overrun. The Loyalists fled in panic, leaving 20 dead, including Boyd himself, and 22 were captured. The rebels lost seven killed and 15 wounded. Campbell, concerned about a possible rebel attack on Augusta, withdrew his troops that same day and moved south toward Savannah.

Encouraged by their badly needed victory at Kettle Creek, the rebels now planned a counteroffensive in Georgia. Patriot General John Ashe, with 2,300 troops, followed Campbell’s retreating army and reached Briar Creek, 60 miles south of Augusta. The rebels hoped to reinforce Ashe there and enlarge their army to 8,000 men. Such a force could then drive the British back to Savannah and possibly retake the city. The war could be reversed and Georgia liberated.

But Campbell, a wary and aggressive commander, anticipated the rebel plan and launched a bold counterattack of his own. From his base at Hudson’s Ferry, 15 miles south of Ashe, he sent a picked force of 900 men up the southern bank of Briar Creek. The redcoats crossed upstream and hit Ashe’s camp from the rear, trapping the rebel army in the angle of Briar Creek and the Savannah River.

Ashe’s army was completely surprised. With mounted patrols out and other units on detached duty, he had only 800 men to meet the approaching British onslaught. Most of his troops were untrained, inexperienced militia, poorly armed and equipped. When the British attacked at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon on March 3, 1779, the rebel battle line was just being formed.

Despite a heroic resistance by Colonel Samuel Elbert’s 200 Georgia Continentals and militia (who stood their ground until nearly all were killed, wounded or captured) Ashe’s North Carolina militia broke and ran almost immediately, fleeing in confusion into the Savannah swamp. A few swam the river and escaped. Others drowned, or were captured or killed by the pursuing redcoats. Abandoning his troops, Ashe fled across the river. He would later face charges of incompetency and neglect.

Briar Creek was the worst rebel disaster of the war in the South so far. One hundred and fifty rebel soldiers died. Twenty-eight rebel officers and 200 enlisted men were captured. Ashe lost seven field pieces, 1,000 small arms, ammunition, equipment, supplies and baggage. British losses were five killed and 11 wounded.

In Savannah, royal governor Sir James Wright formally reestablished British control in July, while a fledgling Patriot government in exile tried to carry on in Augusta. With the exception of the back country, where skirmishes between Patriots and Tories continued, Georgia was firmly in British hands.

Now, Patriot hopes had to look to another source: the rebel alliance with France, signed in February 1778.

In the summer of 1779, French Admiral Count Charles-Hector Theodat d’Estaing captured St. Vincent and Grenada in the British West Indies, tipping the balance there in favor of French naval superiority. D’Estaing’s powerful fleet was available for a joint operation with the Americans. The count soon received a flurry of letters from French diplomats and Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, Continental commander in the South, urging him to bring his fleet northward for a campaign against Savannah.

D’Estaing was enthusiastic about the proposal. The 50-year-old aristocrat was eager to make up for a failed allied operation against Newport, R.I., that had to be aborted the previous year because of poor cooperation and poor weather.

The count arrived off the Georgia coast on September 1 with 37 ships, including 22 ships of the line, and 4,000 troops detached from duty in the West Indies. The formidable French fleet surprised and captured several British vessels near the mouth of the Savannah River.

The fleet anchored off Savannah Bar as the British ships withdrew upriver. The small garrison at Fort Tybee, on Great Tybee Island, guarding the entrance to the river, fired on the French ships with their two guns without effect. That night a French detachment occupied the fort, which they found abandoned.

On September 12, a vanguard of 1,200 French troops landed unopposed at Beaulieu beach on Ossabaw Sound, a few miles south of Savannah. The bulk of the French army disembarked, and a camp was established three miles from the city.

On September 16, d’Estaing arrogantly sent a formal demand to the British General Augustine Prevost that he surrender Savannah ‘to the arms of his Majesty the King of France. He reminded Prevost that he had captured Grenada with a far smaller force, and he held Prevost personally answerable for what might happen should siege operations drag on.

To the Americans’ chagrin, d’Estaing added, I have not been able to refuse the Army of the United States uniting itself with that of the King. The junction will probably be effected this day. If I have not an answer therefore immediately, you must confer in future with General Lincoln and me.

Prevost asked for a 24-hour truce to allow him to confer with civil authorities in Savannah; and d’Estaing foolishly agreed to his request. He could have captured Savannah by direct assault, since the British garrison was unprepared for an attack. Instead, he allowed Prevost to stall for time and strengthen the town’s defenses. The allies would regret losing their best opportunity to take Savannah.

Prevost was a veteran of many years’ service in the British army. The Swiss-born officer had been wounded at Fontenoy in 1745. At the capture of Quebec from the French in 1759, he received a wound which had left a circular scar on his temple and led to his being nicknamed Old Bullet Head. He complained of poor health and was not regarded as an aggressive commander. Colonel Campbell wrote that Prevost seems a worthy man, but too old and inactive for this service.

Old Bullet Head used the delay wrested from d’Estaing to put soldiers, townspeople and several hundred black slaves to work around the clock to finish the city’s fortifications. He also sent an urgent message to Lt. Col. John Maitland to bring his 800 troops down from Beaufort, S.C., to reinforce the Savannah garrison.

Maitland, commander of the Highland 71st Regiment, was from a distinguished Scottish family. The resourceful 47-year-old veteran, who had lost his right hand in combat at Lagos Bay in 1759, was respected both by his own men and by the Americans.

Maitland had contracted a fever (in fact, he had just a little over a month to live); yet he force-marched his men to the Savannah River. With the help of black fishermen as guides, he crossed upriver from Savannah, and he and his reinforcements arrived in the besieged town on September 17. With Maitland’s troops in place and his defenses strengthened, Prevost finally sent his reply to d’Estaing: No surrender!

Benjamin Lincoln and his Continental officers were upset that the count had moved on Savannah without them, as if the operation were purely a French exercise. They feared d’Estaing might take the town and hold it for the French king–fear that did not bode well for cooperation between the allied armies.

Lincoln joined d’Estaing on September 23. His 3,000 troops included Georgia and South Carolina Continentals and militia. With d’Estaing’s 4,000 French regulars, the allies now had 7,000 men with which to take Savannah. Opposing them in the town were 2,500 British and Loyalist troops under Prevost.

General Benjamin Lincoln–a New Englander who neither drank nor cursed–was a patient and cautious commander. D’Estaing seemed unimpressed by him, describing him as a brave man but extremely indifferent with no opinion of his own. The count was astounded at the phlegmatic Lincoln’s habit of falling asleep in his chair, even when dictating correspondence.

The French had a low opinion of the Americans. Baron Curt von Stedingk, a Swedish officer in the French army, wrote that the rebels were so badly armed, so badly clothed, and I must say so badly commanded, that we could never turn them to much account. The American militia, d’Estaing wrote, would run or take cover just because some cannon balls came close. A grenadier captain wrote that the militia are supposedly quite good, at least they say they are. Higher marks were given to the Continental regulars, who, according to another officer, conducted themselves in a superior manner at all times.

Rebel cuisine also failed to impress the count. D’Estaing complained of the meager fare at Lincoln’s table, a massive cake of rice and corn cooked under the ashes of an iron platter and a mixture of sugar, water, and fermented molasses which makes up the Nectar the Americans call grog.

Delays plagued the allies. Lack of horses and artillery carriages prevented them from landing heavy artillery, which was not in place until October 4. Siege entrenchments were begun on September 24, but progress was slow, and the British exploited every opportunity to disrupt the work. British sorties against the siege lines on September 24 and September 27 confounded the allies. The second sortie provoked an accidental exchange of fire in the darkness between French and American troops; and several soldiers were killed.

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