“Foreword to the Reissue” in “Storm Over Savannah: The Story of Count d’Estaing and the Siege of the Town in 1779”
Foreword to the Reissue
The Franco-American siege of British-held Savannah from September to October 1779 was one of the pivotal events of the War for Independence. A year earlier, having been thwarted in their attempts to subdue the American rebellion by launching campaigns in New York and Pennsylvania, British officials decided to shift their efforts to the South and captured Savannah in December 1778. The intended second phase of the British southern strategy, the occupation of South Carolina, depended on the retention of Savannah. The unexpected arrival of a French fleet and army, soon joined by American forces, threatened not only the city and its garrison but also put at risk the entire British plan for their southern campaign.
Given the importance of the siege, it is surprising that historians have devoted so little attention to it. When Alexander Lawrence published Storm Over Savannah in 1951, only two previous volumes had addressed the topic: Franklin Benjamin Hough’s The Siege of Savannah, a collection of documents that appeared in 1866, and Charles Colcock Jones’s brief 1874 work, The Siege of Savannah, in 1779. Lawrence was thus the first historian to undertake a comprehensive study of the siege, and since he wrote, no updated accounts have appeared. Benjamin Kennedy’s Muskets, Cannon Balls, and Bombs: Nine Narratives of the Siege of Savannah in 1779 (1974), provides a useful supplement to Lawrence’s work in the form of French, British, and American documents, and a few articles in the Georgia Historical Quarterly that focus on narrow aspects of the siege likewise enhance the story,1 but none of these match the thorough narrative and analysis found in Storm Over Savannah.
Lawrence stated that his purpose in writing was to present an objective account of the French participants in the operations at Savannah. He accomplished this task admirably, producing informative sketches of the lives and careers of the French commander Charles-Henri, comte d’Estaing, and his most important subordinates, including the comte de Grasse, the marquis de Vaudreuil, the comte de Noailles, and Louis-Antoine de Bougainville. Lawrence also explored the political machinations at the French court that made or destroyed officers’ careers and the internecine quarrels among officers that plagued the French forces at Savannah. Nevertheless, he made clear that despite the political maneuvering necessary to achieve high rank in the French military, all the officers involved in the siege were bold leaders. They willingly shared danger with their troops on the battlefield, even if in camp the class-based system created stark differences between the difficulties faced by common soldiers and the comforts enjoyed by their aristocratic commanders.
Had Lawrence focused only on these topics, his work would have been a valuable contribution to the literature on the siege. However, he went well beyond his declared intention; Lawrence also devoted extensive attention to the American and British participants at Savannah, from officers such as American commanding general Benjamin Lincoln and British colonel John Maitland to ordinary soldiers and the tribulations they faced, whether as besiegers or defenders, in the trenches around the city. The result was a detailed history of the military campaign, though Lawrence also discussed the plight of civilians in the besieged town. Furthermore, while most historians of his era, and many since, showed a distinct pro-American (and pro-French) bias when writing on the Revolution, Lawrence’s work is remarkably free of such favoritism. Readers become acquainted with the siege not only from the French and American perspectives but also from those of the British and their supporters.
Although Lawrence wrote more than a decade before the “new social history” that emerged in the 1960s brought fresh attention to the historical roles of marginalized groups such as women, African Americans, and Native Americans, he did not ignore these people in his account of the siege. Lawrence described the contributions of the Afro-Caribbean soldiers, who made up a substantial portion of the French land force, along with those of the African Americans in British service. The latter labored alongside Loyalists and British soldiers to construct fortifications, guided crucial reinforcements from South Carolina past French warships and into the city, and even bore arms to defend Savannah. Lawrence noted that African Americans faced prejudice from those they aided as well as their enemies, regardless of the cause they served. He addressed the hardships women experienced during the siege as they endured bombardment from French artillery and noted that Britain’s Native allies also participated in the defensive efforts, though the coverage of their contributions is brief. Lawrence’s writing on these groups reflected the conventions and prejudices of his time, however, and some of the language he used when referring to them is considered offensive today.
Another noteworthy aspect of the siege that Lawrence addressed, and that still remains largely obscure, was the strained relationship between the French and Americans. He noted that when American forces reached Savannah, d’Estaing wrote almost apologetically to the British commander, General Augustine Prevost, that he had been unable “to refuse the Army of the United States, uniting itself with that of the [French] King,” which Lawrence observed was a bizarre comment from an erstwhile ally. Lincoln and d’Estaing quarreled over several matters: the comte granted Prevost’s request for a twenty-four-hour truce without consulting Lincoln and was forced to apologize. When he learned that d’Estaing had earlier demanded that Prevost surrender the city and its garrison to the French, Lincoln took offense at the lack of any mention of the Americans. That dispute had barely been settled when the allies learned that Maitland had succeeded in getting his eight hundred troops from Beaufort, South Carolina, into Savannah to reinforce the defenders. This sparked a series of accusations and recriminations between French and American officers over whose mistakes had enabled Maitland to reach Savannah, with each side attempting to blame the other for what Lawrence asserted was the failure of both. Relations between the rank and file of the French and American armies verged on outright hostility, and the failure of the October 9 assault on the British defenses further strained relations as each ally criticized the other’s performance. Lawrence’s discussion of the tense and tenuous alliance, an issue he noted was glossed over in contemporary press reports and other public statements, provides a valuable insight into the true nature of the Franco-American relationship.
The attention to detail in Lawrence’s work further enhances its value. He pointed out that the pressure the French felt to conclude their operations at Savannah as rapidly as possible arose not only from concern about traversing the Atlantic Ocean during the hurricane season but also because the allied forces lacked provisions, whereas the defenders of the town were adequately supplied. Lawrence provided an insightful analysis of the death of Polish count and American general Casimir Pulaski; traditionally believed to have been mortally wounded while leading a cavalry charge, Lawrence noted that the terrain where Pulaski fought was unsuited for mounted troops and that Pulaski likely was struck at some distance from the British positions, a more accurate if less dramatic version of events.
Yet Lawrence’s work does not lack drama. His account of the allied attack on the British lines succeeds in capturing the spirit of the action without sacrificing accuracy, and his writing throughout the volume is engaging and accessible. Evidence of Lawrence’s thorough research is found on virtually every page, with quotations from American, French, British, Hessian, and Loyalist participants appropriately interspersed. A significant number of quotations in French, untranslated, may frustrate some readers.
JIM PIECUCH
Note
1. See, for example, George Fenwick Jones, “A Note on the Victor at Springhill Redoubt,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 63, no. 3 (Fall 1979): 377–79; Richard C. Cole, “The Siege of Savannah and the British Press, 1779–1780” Georgia Historical Quarterly 65, no. 3 (Fall 1981): 188–202.
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