V
Prevost Gets a Summons
SCARCELY had Maitland’s flotilla left Beaufort when the initial contingent of French troops began to disembark at Beaulieu thirteen miles below Savannah. About ten o’clock on the night of September 12th Count d’Estaing leaped ashore at the head of a few men at this bluff on the Vernon River which had been recommended by Philip Minis, a former resident of Savannah, as “the best place for landing, on account of its facilities both for disembarking and for forming any number of troops.”1
Fortunately the French encountered no opposition. “A hundred men would have been sufficient to drive us back,” said Jean-Rémy de Tarragon, an officer in the Armagnac Regiment.2 The spot was “very badly chosen,” complained d’Estaing who declared that “a post of a hundred men would probably have repulsed us” while “fifty soldiers with two small pieces of artillery would have killed many.”3 But the only casualties of the landing proved to be two infantrymen who were wounded when muskets went off by accident as the troops scaled the steep river bank in the dark “like blind men,” to use M. de Tarragon’s words. A hundred paces beyond, they discovered the next morning, an easy ascent was located.
Their first nights on the American mainland was an eerie experience for these Frenchmen. Overhead the moss drooped from the great oaks like the grey pennons of a spirit world. If Beaulieu was lovely, its beauty was a brooding, melancholy sort. The haunting cry of the whippoorwill never found more appropriate setting. Locating a large copper pot on the Morel plantation, the troops built big fires and feasted upon soup and “très bonne viande” to the enjoyment of which “the appetite we had contributed no little,” wrote Captain Séguier de Terson of the Régiment d’Agénois.4 Beyond the light of the campfires, for all one knew, lurked the redskinned allies of the English, the “sauvages” called “Cheroquais” But only the shades of Indians stalked this bluff which once had been a favorite camping ground for the coastal tribes. No enemy was near. Carefully husbanding his slender forces, General Prevost had withdrawn his outposts into Savannah.
The French were fearfully weary. Getting across the bar in front of Ossabaw Sound had involved “unheard-of difficulties.” Colonel Curt von Stedingk wrote that some of the troops were in open boats for three straight nights.5 “One is not able to undergo anything more cruel,” declared Séguier de Terson in describing his experiences. Content to understate things, M. de Tarragon reported that they had been “fort mal à leur aise” The passage of the bar was “infinitely dangerous,” according to d’Estaing. Considering the poor quality of the American pilots, a touch of bad weather would have sufficed, he said, “to end the expedition in a single hour by the drowning of all the landing troops.”
They had had trouble enough even in finding Beaulieu after entering the river, what with the multitude of creeks and islands along this coast. There had been frequent delays. The story of one of the diversions has a theme worthy of the pen of Cervantes. A French naval officer tells us that General d’Estaing landed on one of the islands with two hundred grenadiers—his mission, the capture of 500 beef cattle which he had been informed were guarded by a detachment of British troops. Several hours later the expedition returned empty-handed. The French had traversed the length and breadth of the island in the course of which they crossed bogs where “one sunk to his knees.” But they had found, wrote Meyronnet de Saint-Marc, “neither beef nor English.”6
Weary as the men were, much needed rest on reaching land proved what Séguier de Terson called a “vain hope.” There were no tents. The second evening ashore a squall came up and there was rain all night. Morning found the troops in “a pitiable state,” this officer reported.
The day after coming ashore d’Estaing sent a message to Casimir Pulaski, whose cavalry, probing ahead of the main American force, had reached the environs of Savannah. Complimenting the Polish soldier’s “sublime bravery and activity” that made “nothing impossible,” he expressed the hope that Pulaski would be “the first one who joins me.”7 They did not meet until the 14th or 15th. Meanwhile, however, Pulaski had made contact with the French army. From the Habersham plantation on the Ogeechee Road he forwarded a dispatch to General Lincoln on the early morning of the 14th. He wrote in faulty English, but it was good news he conveyed. “I give myself the pleasure,” Pulaski said, “of sending you the expedition of Count d’Estaing, & shall do my utmost for to join the Count as soon as possible with my Detachment.”8
When d’Estaing and Pulaski met near Beaulieu they “cordially embraced,” according to Captain Paul Bentalou. It was a rainy day and there was much to talk about. Pulaski spoke French well. No doubt the Polish hero unburdened his heart to this understanding Frenchman about the treatment a foreigner received at the hands of the Americans. “Nothing Less than my honour, which I would never forfeit,” he had recently complained, “retains me in a Service, which ill treatment makes me begin to abhor.”
It did not take d’Estaing long to gain an unfavorable impression of what he called the “américains de la georgie” On the road to Savannah lay the orphanage founded by the celebrated George Whitefield. While reconnoitering, the Count stopped at Bethesda which was then serving as the residence of George Baillie. On entering the house he observed in a conspicuous place an elegant, life-size painting of what he took to be “Liberty” represented, he said, in the person of “Milady Abbington” who carried a wreath of thorns in her hand and trampled upon a crown. It was evident that it was not hanging in its accustomed place. During the absence of Mrs. Baillie (who “did not show the least American zeal”) Count d’Estaing inquired of two small children when the portrait had been placed there. “Last night,” they informed him, divulging in the innocence of youth that they were all “Royalistes .”9 Actually what the French General saw was Russell’s allegorical portrait of the Countess of Huntingdon, patroness of Bethesda. The crown upon which her foot rests in the painting is a symbol of things temporal, the thorns of those spiritual. At best this devout English dowager was a dour model for “Liberty” and the Right Honourable Selina would no doubt have been greatly perturbed to learn that her portrait was being palmed off in Georgia as a symbol of American freedom.
Led by General d’Estaing astride a “large Chair Horse” borrowed at the Orphan House, the French began to move up toward Savannah in force on the 14th. On the night of the 15th they camped four miles from the town. The Count was superbly confident. The main idea now was to beat the Americans to Savannah. So, at any rate, it seemed to Major Thomas Pinckney. Had not the American general Sullivan furnished d’Estaing with a precedent at Newport the year before? Soon the city would be his, a brighter feather in his cap than Grenada. There would be a Te Deum at Paris and a triumphal return to the Oeil-de-Boeuf! The very thought was calculated to make the General’s sensuous mouth curl in a smile of anticipation—Condé, Turenne, Saxe, d’Estaing.
There was much pillaging along the way. The better disciplined among the French troops went hungry, said Captain de Tarragon, while the others lived off the fat of the land, slaughtering “poultry and sheep under the eyes of their officers, who were too feeble to make any opposition.” It was as though a locust plague had passed through the countryside. From Bethesda the French took 13 steers, 10 cows, 5 sheep, 39 hogs, 50 fowl, and 20 gallons of Jamaica rum. The Morel plantation at Beaulieu was ransacked, d’Estaing’s troops carrying away 9 horses, 23 cows, 30 hogs, 13 sheep, 3 hens, 5 wagons and a carriage, crystal goblets, candles, and many other things. The widow Morel promptly submitted a bill for £267.10 But despite the good Whig background of this daughter of the patriotic Jonathan Bryan, there is little likelihood that her losses were made good.
On the morning of September 16th the French, 2000 strong, were at the Minis house three miles from Savannah. Advancing at the head of one hundred and fifty grenadiers to within a mile of the city, Count d’Estaing sent in a flag. The emissary bore a summons to surrender. In haughty phrases General Prevost was called on to capitulate “aux Armes de Sa Majesté Le Roy de France.” The British General was informed that he would be held personally responsible for attempting a defense characterized as “manifestly vain and ineffective.” There were ill-veiled threats. When d’Estaing stormed Grenada it was impossible for him “to be happy enough to prevent the whole being pillaged.” “Humanity obliges the Count d’Estaing to recall this event to his memory; having so done, he has nothing to reproach himself with.”11
Captain Séguier de Terson thought the summons “très honnête et fort bien écrite.” But most observers considered it a vainglorious display. Captain Joseph O’Moran of the Dillon Regiment, who spoke both French and English without trace of accent was the bearer of the letter. He was instructed to look and listen closely in order to observe the real reactions in the English camp. The better to fool the enemy, he changed his uniform to one other than that of the Dillon Regiment.12
Instead of being deceived the British became deceivers. Time was a precious commodity. From little Fort Charlotte at the eastern end of the bluff the English could look far out across the marshes toward the sea. Somewhere out there were Maitland and his men.
General Prevost stalled. Before he answered the summons he had to confer with the Royal Governor. “I hope your excellency will have a better opinion of me and of British Troops,” he finally replied, “than to think either will surrender on a General Summons without Specifick Terms.” He requested the French to offer conditions that might be honorably accepted. D’Estaing had replied, refusing to propose terms, that being the “part of the besieged.” (Was not Maitland bottled up in Beaufort?) By this time it was afternoon. Every hour the British gained was solid gold.
Prevost then suggested a truce of twenty-four hours for the purpose of considering the question of surrender. “There being various Interests to discuss, just time,” he said, “is absolutely necessary to deliberate.” It was nine P.M. when his letter reached the French camp. The British had gained a whole day. Meanwhile they were busy entrenching themselves, a fact of which d’Estaing was not ignorant. “It is a matter of very little importance to me,” he had informed General Prevost, requesting the English for “form’s sake,’’ however, to desist while the conferences were going on.