enterprise checked the British, and prevented any attempt for the present against South Carolina; yet they extended themselves over a great part of Georgia, and had already established posts at Ebenezer, and at Augusta. As they extended their posts up the river Savannah on the south side, General Lincoln extended his on the north side; and fixed one encampment at Black Swamp, above Purisburgh, and another, nearly opposite to Augusta. It was the general's intention, as soon as a sufficient force should be collected, to cross the Savannah River above his upper encampment, and oblige the enemy to evacuate the upper parts of Georgia. Before he was able to execute this plan, General Prevost withdrew his troops from Augusta, and fell back to Hudson's Ferry, about twentyfour miles above Ebenezer. General Lincoln, in prosecution of his object, ordered the detachment, commanded by General Ash, consisting of fifteen hundred North Carolina militia, and about sixty continentals, to cross the Savannah, and take post near the confluence of Briar Creek with that river. No sooner had they taken this well chosen position, than General Prevost determined to dislodge them. Having made dispositions for keeping up the attention of General Lincoln by the semblance of a design to cross the Savannah, and for amusing General Ash with a feint on his front, he took a circuit of fifty miles, and, crossing Briar Creek fifteen miles above the ground occupied by Ash, came down unsuspected on his rear. The continental troops under Brigadier General Elbert commenced the action, and fought with great bravery; but most of the militia threw away their arms, and fled in confusion. The handful of continentals, aided by one regiment only of the militia, could not long maintain the action; and the survivors were compelled to surrender themselves prisoners of war. The killed and taken General Elbert and

amounted to upward of three hundred men. Colonel M'Intosh were among the prisoners. By this victory, which cost the British, in killed and wounded, but one officer and fifteen privates, their communication with the Indians and their friends in the back country was restored.

The southern army being afterward re-enforced with a body of one thousand militia; General Lincoln was enabled to resume his design of entering Georgia by the way of Augusta. His whole force amounted to five thousand men; of which number he left about one thousand to garrison Purisburgh and Black Swamp; and with the rest, on the twenty-third of April, he began his march up Savannah River. Five days afterward, General Prevost, to oblige him to return, passed two thousand four hundred men over the same river, near its mouth, into South Carolina. The posts at Purisburgh and Black Swamp were immediately abandoned; and General Moultrie, unable to withstand the force, which advanced against him, retired toward Charlestown, destroying all the bridges in his rear. Lincoln, on receiving information of these movements, detached three hundred of his light troops to re-enforce Moultrie; but, believing that Prevost

merely intended to divert him by a feint on Carolina, he proceeded with the main army toward Augusta. The original intention of the British general was no other than what General Lincoln supposed; but meeting with scarcely any impediment in his progress, and learning that Charlestown, on that side on which he could approach it, was in a defenceless state, he began to cherish the hope of being able to reduce it before General Lincoln could come to its relief. Happily for the Carolinians, Prevost, when advanced about half the distance, halted two or three days; and in that interval they made every preparation for the defence of their capital. All the houses in its suburbs were burnt. Lines and abbatis were carried across the peninsula between Ashley and Cooper Rivers; cannon were mounted at proper intervals; and in a few days a force of three thousand three hundred men assembled in Charlestown for its defence. On the tenth of May, in the evening, the British troops reached Ashley Ferry; and, having passed the river, appeared before the town on the following day. After inconsiderable skirmishes, the town on the twelfth was summoned to surrender; and favourable terms of capitulation were offered, but rejected. It being known, on the part of the Americans, that General Lincoln was hastening for the relief of Charlestown, it was an object with them to gain as much time as possible; and by dextrous management a whole day was spent in sending and receiving messages. When the commissioners from the town were at length told, that, as the garrison were in arms, they must surrender as prisoners of war, the negotiation terminated, and the inhabitants expected nothing else than an assault; but on the following morning they were agreeably surprised to find, that the British troops had been withdrawn during the night, and had recrossed Ashley Ferry.

Prevost, after foraging some days, knowing by an intercepted letter that Lincoln was coming on his rear, retired with his whole force from the main to the islands near the sea. Both armies encamped in the vicinity of Charlestown, and watched each other's movements. Although it was not the interest of general Lincoln to haz ard a general engagement with the enemy; it was his wish to attack their outposts, and cut them off in detail. With this view, he appeared with his army on the fourth of June in front of the British post at Stono Ferry; but, after viewing the lines, thought fit to retire. Not long after, Prevost departed for Savannah, carrying with him the grenadiers of the sixtieth rigiment; and about this time it seems to have been determined to abandon the post at Stono. Measures for this purpose were taken by lieutenant colonel Maitland, on whom the command devolved after the departure of Prevost. The garrison had now become much weakened; and general Lincoln, knowing its weak state, renewed his design of cutting it off. On the twentieth of June he advanced against it with about twelve hundred men. The garrison had redoubts with a line of communication, and field pieces in the intervals, and the whole was secured by

an abbatis. According to a preconcerted plan, a feint was to have been made from James Island with a body of Charlestown militia, at the moment when General Lincoln began the attack from the main; but, from some mismanagement, they did not reach the place of destination until the action was over. The attack was continued an hour and twenty minutes, and the assailants had the advantage; but the appearance of a re-enforcement, which the feint was to have prevented, rendered their retreat necessary. The whole garrison sallied out on the retiring Americans; but the light troops, commanded by Colonel Malmedy and Lieutenant Colonel Henderson, so effectually retarded their pursuit, that the troops, commanded by General Lincoln, retreated with regularity, and brought off their wounded in safety. The loss of the Americans, in killed and wounded, was one hundred and seventy-nine. Among the slain, was Colonel Roberts, an artillery officer of distinguished abilities, whose early fall was the subject of universal regret. The British, after this attack, retreated from the islands near Charlestown. General Prevost established a post at Beaufort, in Port Royal Island, the garrison of which was left under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Maitland; and their main army returned to Savannah. General Lincoln, at the head of about eight hundred men, retired to Sheldon, in the neighbourhood of Beaufort.

The Count D'Estaing, after repairing and victualing his fleet, at Boston, sailed for the West Indies; and, having taken St. Vincent's and Grenada, retired to Cape Francois about the beginning of this year. On the solicitation of General Lincoln, President Lownds, of South Carolina, and Mr. Plombard, consul of France, he sailed for the American continent, and arrived on the coast of Georgia with a fleet, consisting of twenty sail of the line, two of fifty guns, and eleven frigates. As soon as his arrival was known, General Lincoln with the army under his command marched for Savannah; and orders were given for the militia of Georgia and South Carolina to rendezvous near the same place. The British, to prepare for their defence, employed great numbers by day and night in strengthening and extending their lines, while the American militia, sanguine in the hope of expelling the enemy from their southern possessions, turned out with unusual alacrity. Before the arrival of General Lincoln, Count D'Estaing demanded a surrender of the town to the arms of France. Prevost asked a suspension of hostilities twenty four hours for preparing terms; and the request was incautiously granted. Before the stipulated time had elapsed, Lieutenant Colonel Mait, land, with about eight hundred men, after struggling with great difficulties, arrived from Beaufort, and joined the royal army at Savannah. The arrival of so considerable a reinforcement of chosen troops, and especially the presence of the officer who commanded them, in whose zeal, ability, and military experience much confidence was justly placed by the army, inspired the garrison in Savannah with new animation; and an answer was returned to the count,

that the town would be defended to the last extremity. The zeal and ardour of both officers and men rose with the occasion; and new defences were daily constructed under the masterly direction of an able engineer, Captain Moncrieff.

On the morning of the fourth of October, the batteries of the besiegers were opened with nine mortars, thirty seven pieces of cannon from the land side, and fifteen from the water. It being at length ascertained, that considerable time would be necessary to reduce the garrison by regular approaches, it was determined to make an assault. In pursuance of this determination, on the ninth of October, while two feints were made with the militia, a real attack was made on Spring Hill battery just as day light appeared, with two columns, consisting of three thousand five hundred French troops six hundred continentals, and three hundred and fifty of the inhabitants of Charlestown. The principal of these columns, commanded by Count D'Estaing and General Lincoln,marched up boldly to the lines; but a heavy and well directed fire from the gallies threw the front of the column into confusion. The places of those who fell being instantly supplied by others. it still moved on until it reached a redoubt, where the contest became more fierce and desperate. Captain Tawse fell in defending the gate of his redoubt, with his sword plunged in the body of the third assailant whom he had slain with his own hand, and a French and an American standard were for an instant planted on the parapet; but the assailants, after sustaining the enemy's fire fifty-five minutes, were ordered to retreat. Six hundred and thirty-seven of the French, and two hundred and forty one of the continentals and militia, were killed or wounded. Immediately after this unsuccessful assault, the militia almost universally went to their homes, and Count D'Estaing, reembarking his troops and artillery, left the continent."*†

"One of the most extraordinary enterprises ever related in history, one indeed which nothing but the respectability of the testimony could have prevented our considering as marvellous, occurred during the siege of Savannah. It was an enterprise conceived and executed by Colonel John White, of the Georgia line. A Captain French of Delancey's 1st battalion, was posted with 100 men, British regulars, on the Ogeechee River, about 25 miles from Savannah. There lay also at the same place five armed vessels, the

* An assault is believed to have been unadvisble; but this measure was forced on D'Estaing by his marine officers, who remonstrated against his continuing to risk the French fleet on a dangerous coast, in the hurricane season, and at such a distance from the shore, as to be endangered by a British squadron. "In a few days, the lines of the besiegers might have been carried, by regular approaches, into the works of the besieged." Count Pulaski was mortally wounded in this assault; and Congress resolved that a monument should be erected to his memory. He was a Polander of high birth, who with a few men had carried off King Stanislaus from the middle of his capital. The king, after being some time a prisoner, made his escape; and soon after declared Pulaski an outlaw. Thus proscribed, he came to America, and offered his service to congress, which honoured him with the rank of brigadier general.

Holmes' Annals, vol. ii. p. 410-16.

largest mounting 14 guns, and having on board altogether 41 men. Colonel White, with Captain Etholm, three soldiers, and his own servant approached this post on the evening of the 30th of September, kindled a number of fires, arranging them in the manner of a large camp, and summoned French to surrender, he and his comrades in the mean time riding about in various directions, and giving orders in a loud voice, as if performing the duties of the staff to a large army. French, not doubting the reality of what he saw, and anxious to spare the effusion of blood which a contest with a force so superior would produce, surrendered the whole detachment, together with the crews of the five vessels, amounting in all to 141 men, and 130 stand of arms! Colonel White, however, had still a very difficult game to play; it was necessary to keep up the delusion of French, until the prisoners should be secured; and with this view, he pretended that the animosity of his troops was so ungovernable that a little stratagem would be necessary to save the prisoners from their fury, and that he should therefore commit them to the care of three guides with orders to conduct them to a place of safety. With many thanks for the Colonel's humanity, French accepted the proposition, and marched off at a quick pace under the direction of the three guides, fearful at every step that the rage of White's troops would burst upon them in defiance of his humane attempts to restrain it. White, as soon as they were out of sight, employed himself in collecting the militia of the neighbourhood, with whom he soon overtook his prisoners, and they were conducted in safety for 25 miles to an American post."*

"The operations of the British in the more northern parts of America were predatory, rather than military. In May, 1779, a naval and land force, commanded by Sir George Collier and general Matthews, made a descent on Virginia. On their arrival, they took possession of Portsmouth, and of Norfolk; destroyed the houses, vessels, naval stores, and a large magazine of provisions, at Suffolk; made a similar destruction at Kemp's Landing, Shepherd's Gosport, Tanner's Creek, and other places in the vicinity; and, after setting fire to the houses and other public buildings in the dockyard at Gosport, embarked with their booty for New-York.

A similar expedition was soon after undertaken from New-York against the southern margin of Connecticut, by Governor Tryon, with two thousand six hundred land forces, supported by Brigadier General Garth, and accompanied by Sir George Collier with armed vessels to cover the transports. Early in the morning of the fifth of July, the fleet, consisting of about forty sail, anchored off West Haven; and at sunrise, a detachment of one thousand troops. under General Garth, landed at that place. No soldiers were at this time stationed at New-Haven; but the militia and citizens made instant preparations to harass the enemy, whom they could not hope effectually to resist. Captain James Hillhouse with a small band of brave young men, some of whom were students at Yale College.

*Allen's Revolution, vol. ii. p. 272.