53. The Invasion of Georgia

The British ignited the war in the South on December 23, 1778, landing an invasion force of 3,500 men under the command of Col. Archibald Campbell at the mouth of the Savannah River, just below Savannah, Georgia. Meanwhile, in a coordinated strike, General Augustine Prevost moved up by land from St. Augustine with 2,000 troops. Maj. Gen. Robert Howe, Lincoln’s predecessor, not yet replaced in the field, was there to defend Savannah with fewer than 900 men, mostly South Carolina and Georgia militia. Howe split his small force, weakening it further, leaving part south of Savannah at Fort Sunbury to check Prevost, and absurdly preparing himself to defend Savannah frontally against overwhelmingly superior British arms. To cap his strategic error of accepting direct confrontation, he added the tactical one of not choosing a defensible site, and he allowed himself to be nearly surrounded. Campbell easily smashed him on December 29 and seized Savannah. Howe’s folly led to more than 500 American casualties and losses, a staggering rate of well over 50 percent of the American force. British losses were almost nonexistent. Fort Sunbury was soon captured by Prevost, and 200 more men were lost to the American war effort. At the end of January, Prevost, now in command of the joint force, sent Campbell northwest up the Savannah River with 1,000 men to capture Augusta and erect garrisons throughout western Georgia.

In Augusta, Campbell administered the oath of allegiance to 1,400 citizens and formed them into twenty Tory militia companies. By February, all of Georgia was under British control. The first phase of the British campaign in the South had been a resounding success, and they rushed the last royal governor, Sir James Wright, and the other loyal top officials back to Savannah to reestablish a British civil regime in Georgia. This regime was the only one during the war to convene a legislature under British authority. (Even in New York City the British never felt secure enough in their six continuous years of occupation to shift from military to civilian rule.) The old Tory proclivities of the Georgians quickly came to the fore; most of the people of Georgia were opportunists and they flocked to make their peace with the British restoration under guarantee of royal protection. Reliance on Tories seemed truly to be the key to conquest of the South.

The Savannah River became the line between the two main armies: General Lincoln took up his post with 3,600 men at Purysburg on the South Carolina side of the river, north of the town of Savannah, while Prevost was stationed at Ebenezer across the river with over 3,000 men. The river was too wide and swampy for a crossing in force by Prevost or the Americans; but Prevost used the Royal Navy to land a Major Gardiner and 220 men to seize Port Royal Island behind Purysburg. Lincoln quickly sent Gen. William Moultrie to the island to raise the militia, and he assembled over 300 men to occupy Beaufort, the island’s major town. Moultrie’s force fought off the British in a pitched, if necessarily small-scale, battle on February 3, and Gardiner withdrew with heavy losses. This battle stopped the British military momentum and for the time being halted any attempt to invade South Carolina.

Meanwhile, Colonel Campbell, encouraged by his reception by the Tories at Augusta, had sent 200 mounted Tories under the command of Col. John Hamilton, an aristocratic and highly influential Scots Highlander, to the Georgia back country to recruit more Tory militia. This stimulated Colonel Boyd, a leading Tory of North Carolina, to round up 700 Scottish Tories of that state and march to back-country Georgia to join Hamilton. By plundering happily as they marched, Boyd’s men gained few adherents to the royal cause in the Carolina back country and alienated many. After easily driving off a small party of American militia under a Captain Anderson, Boyd and his party crossed the Savannah River into up-country Georgia. While they were relaxing at Kettle Creek, on the Georgia side of the river, a party of fewer than 300 South Carolina militia surrounded the camp on three sides and fell upon them in a surprise maneuver. The outcome was a total rout of the superior Tory militia; Boyd was killed, nearly 200 other casualties were suffered, and almost half the survivors fled back to their homes. Three hundred of the beaten men were able to scurry to join Campbell at Augusta. The patriot militia, in contrast, had only about 30 casualties. The 75 captured Tories were taken to South Carolina, where they were tried en masse on charges of high treason, and all were condemned to death. While seventy were pardoned, five leading Tories were duly hanged for treason—a hanging that taught the back-country Tories an impressive lesson.

The triumph at Kettle Creek brought into prominence Col. Andrew Pickens of the South Carolina militia, commander of the victorious force. The dour young Pickens, a Presbyterian elder, was to prove to be one of the finest guerrilla leaders of the war.

The nearly simultaneous victories at Beaufort and Kettle Creek in early February 1779 not only greatly buoyed American hopes, but they also turned the tide of public opinion in back-country Georgia. The emboldened patriot militia flocked to Lincoln’s camp and inspired him to try to retake Georgia. He sent two contingents to the up country, one a force of 1,500 North Carolina militia under Gen. John Ashe to Briar Creek, and another of 1,200 men under Gen. Andrew Williamson of Georgia to the east bank of the Savannah opposite Augusta. Seeing this formidable force coming upriver, Campbell decided to leave Augusta and march back to Savannah. This withdrawal disheartened the Tories of the back country, and their militia companies wilted away, leaving upper Georgia, including Augusta, open to the rebels. Furthermore, by spreading themselves too thin in Georgia and consequently being forced to contract again, Campbell disheartened Tory sentiment throughout the South.

As General Ashe, his forces swelled to nearly 1,700 men, eagerly pursued Campbell’s retreating force down to Briar Creek, about halfway to Savannah, General Prevost devised a brilliant plan to defeat him. Prevost sent his younger brother, Col. Mark Prevost, with 900 men in a wide flanking movement around Ashe, to encircle the American force and attack it from the rear. Ashe learned of Prevost’s advance, but took no steps whatever to meet or forestall it. As a result of this remarkable display of incompetence, he was attacked simultaneously from front and rear, and on March 3 his army was totally shattered. Nearly 200 Americans were killed in this Battle of Briar Creek, and almost another 200 were captured, along with seven cannon and almost all of Ashe’s arms and ammunition. Of the rest of Ashe’s large force, nearly two-thirds scattered to their homes. Approximately a third of the southern army had been lost. Georgia had been saved for the British, who had lost only a tiny handful of men.

Despite the heavy American losses, Lincoln’s forces continued to swell with militia recruits, and he still determined to march into Georgia. Leaving only Moultrie’s 1,000 men to guard the lower Savannah, Lincoln marched upriver with 4,000 men on April 23 to take Augusta. General Prevost saw that lower South Carolina was weakly defended, and anxious to draw Lincoln back to South Carolina, he crossed the river with over 2,500 men to take Purysburg on April 29. After successive rear guard skirmishes, his advance pushed Moultrie all the way back to Charleston, the only major city of the three southernmost states and by far the leading port in the South. Prevost pursued the Americans, and reaching Charleston on May 12, he demanded that the city surrender. Even though 3,000 American troops were within the city’s walls, the fainthearted, the opportunistic, and the conservatives tried to opt out of the war effort. President John Rutledge (who had been given almost dictatorial powers by the legislature) and his fellow conservatives in the upper house prevailed upon South Carolina to propose an agreement of neutrality for the state for the remainder of the war, an offer which Prevost scorned.

The South Carolinians were prevented from making further moves in the same direction by the return of Lincoln’s large force. Prevost retreated to John’s Island below Charleston and kept a fortified bridgehead on the mainland at Stono Ferry. From there he decided to extricate himself by sea to Savannah. He left behind a vastly outnumbered rear guard of 900 under Col. John Maitland. On June 19, Lincoln attacked Stono Ferry with only 1,200 of his 6,000 men against the fortified position. Moultrie, on James Island, failed to provide expected support, and Lincoln had to retreat after suffering heavy losses and a large number of desertions. Prevost completed his withdrawal to Savannah and left Maitland in occupation of Port Royal Island, which could be protected by British control of the sea. Prevost had gained little from his swift foray to Charleston except for intensive looting of the civilian population en route. The British found great numbers of slaves flocking to welcome and aid them, but their gratitude consisted of selling the thousands of Negroes back into slavery in the West Indies. Once again, they had failed to take the opportunity to split America, especially the South, by offering to liberate the slaves. But then, the British could scarcely have been expected to suppress a revolution by outdoing the Americans in so radical an act.

Fighting stopped for the summer months, and the British were in firm control only of Savannah and its environs. In the up country, the Tories had been demoralized and the British were subject to continuing raids by the rebels. They made Mark Prevost temporary lieutenant governor of Georgia to try to restore order in upper Georgia until Wright and the other royal officials could arrive.

The growing difficulties encountered in the southern campaign did nothing to nurture whatever enthusiasm General Clinton had had for the southern invasion. Much has been made in recent years of Clinton’s alleged personality defects as the explanation for his ambivalence and indecision. In truth, however, there were plenty of objective considerations to cause him—or anyone else in his place—to be indecisive. For one thing, a great many factors that could tip the balance were beyond his control. Among these were the dispositions of the British and French fleets, the number of reinforcements he might obtain, the extent of Toryism that would be revealed in the South, and the political and strategic considerations and decisions that would be weighed and concluded in London. Certain it is that Clinton was not an outstanding general, but mediocre generals abound and are well understood without dragging in psychological approaches of dubious value by armchair historical “psychoanalysts” two centuries later. Suffice it to say that what the British needed was a military genius and Clinton scarcely filled the bill; but, for this fact, no historical psychologizing is required.*

While it is true that Clinton lacked any comprehensive or sound strategic plan in the South, his superiors in London had nothing better, and his means were limited. Under Lord Germain’s general instructions, he did carry out a quick thrust against the Virginia coast. In early May 1779, he had sent out Gen. George Matthews and Commodore Sir George Collier with 2,500 men to prevent reinforcements being concentrated on the Georgia front; in a resounding military success, they captured Portsmouth, Norfolk, and other southern supply centers on the coast, and destroyed numerous ships and enormous amounts of provisions, naval stores, and ammunition. The captured towns were sacked and plundered and the plantations looted, all without the loss of a single man. The American losses have been estimated at the huge figure of 2,000,000 pounds. The British then abandoned the coast, as planned, although Commodore Collier made a strong case for at least retaining Portsmouth and giving aid and shelter to the many Virginia Tories who had suddenly emerged joyously to greet the British, and who, abandoned and disillusioned, would be left to their fate.

Clinton also decided to reinforce the troops in Georgia for a drive northward. But twice, in the summer and fall of 1779, his plans were thwarted by the French fleet: first when Jamaica asked for reinforcements to defend against the French and second in the fall. Admiral D’Estaing, fresh from victories in the West Indies, appeared off the Georgia coast in early September with nearly 6,000 troops and forced Clinton’s 3,000 troops to turn back and withdraw to New York.

The French fleet moved in to beseige Savannah, and the fall campaign of 1779 found the British on the defensive. Maitland waded through the swamps of Port Royal with 800 men to increase Prevost’s defense force at Savannah to 4,000. Meanwhile, Lincoln arrived near Savannah with 1,400 men to strengthen the siege.

D’Estaing should have assaulted Savannah immediately when he arrived in mid-September, to take advantage of surprise and take the city easily. Instead, the admiral confined himself to a siege, giving Prevost time to strengthen the city’s defenses. Furthermore, winter was approaching, and a long naval siege was not feasible in winter months. Hence, after a further siege of a month, D’Estaing assaulted Savannah on October 9. But the frontal assault of 3,500 French and over 800 American troops on the well-entrenched British positions failed ignominiously, and the French and Americans experienced heavy losses—over 800 casualties, a staggering proportion of the attacking force—and the British lost only 150. D’Estaing was wounded and the American Gen. Casimir Pulaski, a young revolutionary Polish count and cavalry officer who had enlisted in the American cause, was killed in the battle. Despite the pleas of Lincoln to continue the siege, D’Estaing and the French force hurried away to France. The British and the Tories were elated, and the Americans disheartened, by this defeat at Savannah. This was the third operation (the others had been at New York and Newport) that D’Estaing had conducted against the British on American shores, and each was a failure. Moreover, Georgia was again safe for the British, and they were now free to continue their campaign northward.

* This is apart from the distortions injected into historical accounts when only one general is “psychoanalyzed” while all others in the historical drama are treated by ordinary rational historical analysis without benefit of psychologizing. For a brief but much needed critique of the recent psychological treatment of Clinton, see Curtis P. Nettels, “Review of William B. Willcox, Portrait of A General: Sir Henry Clinton and the War of Independence.” The Journal of American History (June 1965), pp. 115–16.