Notes

I. IMPERILED CITY

1. “The Siege of Charleston; Journal of Captain Peter Russell, December 25, 1779, to May 2, 1780.” Edited by James Bain, Jr. The American Historical Review (1889), IV, 482.

2. Letter of Hessian officer identified as “S.D.H __________n” written from Savannah on January 16, 1779. Letters from America, 1776–1779, Being Letters of Brunswick, Hessian, and Waldeck Officers with the British Armies During the Revolution. Translated by Ray W. Pettengill (Boston and New York, 1924), 202. The letters there translated were originally printed in Schlözer, Briefwechsel, meist Historischen und politischen inhalts (Göttingen, 1776–1782).

3. John Richardson to John Porteous, “Savannah River in Georgia On Board the Vengeance,” March 15, 1779. The American Historical Review (1902), VII, 294.

4. Letter dated May 1, 1849, written by Francis T. Brooke of Virginia entitled “A Narrative of My Life for My Family.” Louise Pecquet du Bellet, Some Prominent Virginia Families (Lynchburg, Va., 1907), II, 354–355. Brooke served at Savannah during the closing days of the Revolution. Watson’s description of Savannah society in 1778 is in Men and Times of the Revolution; or Memoirs of Elkhannah Watson (New York, 1861, 2nd ed.), 62.

5. Letter of Anthony Stokes to his wife, November 9, 1779. Frank Moore, Diary of the American Revolution. From Newspapers and Original Documents (New York, 1863), II, 228. When Chief Justice Stokes is quoted hereafter throughout this book the source, unless otherwise indicated, is this letter.

6. Elizabeth Lichtenstein Johnston, Recollections of a Georgia Loyalist (New York and London, 1901), 45.

7. Sir James Wright to Lord George Germain, November 5, 1779. Collections of the Georgia Historical Society (Savannah, 1873), III, 260. The source of the quotation in the text immediately preceding the one taken from this letter is a journal of the Siege of Savannah written by Governor Wright. Ibid., 262.

8. General Augustin Prevost to Admiral Byron, September 9, 1779. Public Record Office of Great Britain, London. Colonial Office Papers, Class 5, Vol. 131, pp. 17–20.

9. General Augustin Prevost to Sir Henry Clinton, September 6, 1779. A copy of this communication is among the British Headquarters Papers of Sir Henry Clinton in possession of Colonial Williamsburg, Inc., (No. 2258).

II. THE POMP AND GLORY

1. General Prevost to Governor Tonyn of Florida, September 11, 1779. Public Record Office, London. Colonial Office Papers, 5/98.

2. D’Estaing to M. de Sartine, Minister of Marine (sometimes spelled Sartines), December 5, 1779. Archives Nationales, Paris. (Marine), Series B⁴ 142, p. 137. This 70 page report of the Savannah campaign was sent by d’Estaing from Brest on his return to France. The voluminous French naval archives connected with the War of American Independence were photostated for the Library of Congress and are available at Washington. D’Estaing usually signed his name “Estaing” but French custom in his case authorizes the style “d’Estaing” when the name is used by others.

3. The Siege of Savannah, in 1779, as Described in Two Contemporaneous Journals of French Officers in the Fleet of Count d’Estaing (Albany, N. Y., 1874), 70. These journals were translated under the editorship of Charles C. Jones, Jr. For the sake of convenience this work is hereafter cited as French Officers’ Journals.

4. Henry Lee, Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States (New York, 1870, revised edition), 136.

5. Quoted by Jean Joseph Calmon-Maison in L’Amiral d’Estaing (1729–1794), (Paris, 1910), 274. D’Estaing’s letter to Maréchal de Mouchy is quoted in Gentilshommes Démocrates by the Marquis de Castellane (Paris, 1890), 6. The statement made by d’Estaing to M. de Sartine concerning Colonel de Noailles is from the Vice-Admiral’s report dated December 5, 1779. Archives Nationales (Marines), B⁴ 142, p. 138.

6. Compare Henri Christophe dans L’Histoire D’Haiti by Vergniaud Leconte (Paris, 1931), 2, and Black Majesty, The Life of Christophe King of Haiti by John W. Vandercook (New York, 1928), 11–17. The statement in Leconte’s work that Christophe was wounded at Savannah appears also in The Order of the Cincinnati in France by Asa Bird Gardiner (Newport, 1905), 190, and in The French in America During the War of Independence of the United States 1777–1783 by Thomas Balch, translated by E. S. and E. W. Balch (Philadelphia, 1895), II, 82. The fact that Henri Christophe was but twelve years old in 1779 lends support to the theory that he came to Georgia as valet rather than soldier.

7. French Officers’ Journals, 62.

III. THE AMERICANS

1. This account was reprinted in the Pennsylvania Gazette and Weekly Advertiser (Philadelphia), September 29, 1779. The previously mentioned item in the Gazette of the State of South-Carolina appeared in the issue of that paper on September 8, 1779.

2. Faites et motifs Préliminaires (Facts and Preliminary Motives) written by Count d’Estaing in connection with the Savannah campaign, 4. A copy of this manuscript is in the Library of the Service Hydrographique de la Marine in Paris. It is inserted as a preface to d’Estaing’s observations on O’Connor’s Journal of the Siege of Savannah. See note 9 of this Chapter.

3. M. de Brétigny to d’Estaing, undated. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 168, p. 255.

4. General Lincoln to President of the Continental Congress, September 5, 1779. Papers of the Continental Congress in the Library of Congress.

5. From a copy among the Benjamin Lincoln Papers in the New York Public Library of the answers furnished to the French at Charlestown by the Americans relative to the co-operation of the two armies. The document is in the Thomas Addis Emmet Collection.

6. General Moultrie to General Lincoln, September 26, 1779. William Moultrie, Memoirs of the American Revolution, So Far as It Related to the States of North and South-Carolina, and Georgia (New York, 1802), II, 35, 33.

7. Pulaski to General d’Estaing, September 12, 1779. Written from “Lomel at 5 o’clock in the evening.” Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 168, p. 205.

8. Benjamin Lincoln’s Order Book (Vol. 2) under date of September 14, 1779. MS in De Renne Collection, Library of the University of Georgia, Athens.

9. Observations of Count d’Estaing on O’Connor’s Journal Du Siège de Savannah. Septembre et Octobre 1779, 73. MS. Antoine-François-Térance O’Connor, a twenty-nine-year-old military engineer who had been educated at the School of Engineers in France, wrote a journal of the Siege which d’Estaing supplemented at some length with his own commentaries.

IV. IN WHICH COLONEL MAITLAND STARTS SOUTH

1. Sir Robert Douglas, The Peerage of Scotland, revised by John Philip Wood (Edinburgh, 1813, 2nd. ed.), II, 73.

2. The Memorial of Captain John Maitland of the Marines to His Grace the Duke of Newcastle (1761). Add. MS. 32930, fo. 406. The British Museum, London. Maitland requested that the rank of Major or Lieutenant Colonel be conferred upon him.

3. From a letter dated November 8, 1779, written by a Scotch merchant who was posted in a redoubt at Savannah, The Scots Magazine (Edinburgh, December, 1779), 715.

4. John S. Keltie, A History of the Scottish Highlands, Highland Clans and Highland Regiments (Edinburgh, 1885), 470 n.

5. The Gazette of the State of South-Carolina, July 9, 1779.

6. Sir Henry Clinton to Maj. Gen. Augustin Prevost, New York, September 9, 1779. Public Record Office (London), America and West Indies, Colonial Office Papers, Vol. 15, fo. 214. The immediately preceding quotation is from The Gazette of the State of South-Carolina, July 30, 1779, which quoted The Royal Georgia Gazette of July 15, 1779.

7. The South-Carolina and American General Gazette, September 10, 1779. A similar account appeared in The Gazette of the State of South-Carolina on September 15, 1779.

8. This journal which was kept by an unidentified English naval officer appeared in The Royal Gazette (New York) on December 15th, 1779. It is printed in The Siege of Savannah, by the Combined American and French Forces, under the Command of Gen. Lincoln, and the Count d’Estaing, in the Autumn of 1779 (Albany, N. Y., 1866), 57–79. Edited by Franklin B. Hough. This work contains letters, accounts, etc., of the Siege of Savannah which appeared in The Royal Gazette, published in New York by the Tory editor, James Rivington. Hough’s work is hereafter cited under the title of Siege of Savannah.

9. The Siege of Charleston With an Account of the Province of South Carolina: Diaries and Letters of Hessian Officers From the von Jungkenn Papers in the William L. Clements Library. Translated and edited by Bernhard A. Uhlendorf (Ann Arbor, 1938), 137. The quotation is from the Journal of Captain (later Lieutenant General) Johann Hinrichs. Ibid., pp. 161–173.

10. General Augustin Prevost to Sir Henry Clinton, July 14, 1779. This letter, which is among the Colonial Office Papers at the Public Record Office at London, was printed in Report on American Manuscripts in the Royal Institution of Great Britain (London, 1904), I, 472–474. The Montpelier mentioned by Prevost is a city in southern France noted for its healthy climate.

V. PREVOST GETS A SUMMONS

1. The report made by Minis concerning suitable landing places near Savannah is found in B. F. Stevens’ “Facsimiles of Manuscripts in European Archives Relating to America 1773–1783,” a copy of which is in the Library of Congress (No. 2013). Depositions were also furnished by Levi Sheftall and Chief Justice John Glen. After the landing Sheftall and Minis served as guides for d’Estaing while Glen and a Mr. Lloyd were assigned to conduct the detachment of Colonel de Rouvray. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 167, p. 386.

2. Journal de la Campagne de Savannah En 1779. B. F. Stevens, “Facsimiles of Manuscripts in European Archives Relating to America 1773–1783” (No. 2010). A convenient English translation accompanies this as well as the other French documents relating to the Siege of Savannah in Stevens’ Facsimiles. The author of the Journal is given as “Pechot,” a name probably used for purpose of anonymity. The real author was the Chevalier Jean-Rémy de Tarragon, a captain in the Armagnac Regiment at Savannah. See Extrait du Journal de Campagne du Chevalier Jean-Rémy de Tarragon Capitaine commandant les chasseurs du régiment d’Armagnac et major de la division de Dillon au siège de Savannah 1779 (Moulins, 1935).

3. Count d’Estaing’s Notes on O’Connor’s Journal of the Siege of Savannah, 13.

4. A. de Cazenove, Le Siège de Savannah. Extrait de la Revue de Midi (Nîmes, 1903), p. 30. This work is based upon the journal of Philippe Séguier de Terson, who entered the French army in 1756. He was a captain in the Agénois Regiment at the time of the Siege of Savannah. The translations of the journal are mine.

5. Von Stedingk to King Gustave III of Sweden, January 18, 1780, as translated in “Count Stedingk,” Putnam’s Monthly, October, 1854, p. 352. The original letter is printed in Mémoires Posthumes de Feld-Maréchal Comte de Stedingk by Le Général Comte de Bjornstjerna (Paris, 1844), I, 36–44.

6. Comte rendu des opérations faites par l’armée française, commandée par Mr. d’Estaing devant Savannah (Amérique), 3. This journal of the Siege of Savannah was written by Meyronnet de Saint-Marc, a young lieutenant on the Marseillais. A manuscript copy, which is not in his handwriting, is in the New-York Historical Society. The original was located in the Bibliothèque Municipale of Avignon, France. No. 2750, pp. 139–146 (folio pages). That institution also possesses the day by day journal or log of the Marseillais which was kept by the Chevalier Meyronnet de Saint-Marc during his 21 months of service aboard her in 1778–1779. At one point during the Siege of Savannah he was in charge of the French landing boats at Thunderbolt. His account of the happenings on land during the Siege was apparently second-hand.

7. D’Estaing to Pulaski, September 13, 1779. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 168, p. 232. Pulaski’s letter is ibid., p. 205. Years later Captain Paul Bentalou stated that the Dragoons stopped a horseman, wearing a red coat, while riding through the woods. The messenger bore a dispatch from d’Estaing to General Lincoln and the letter to Pulaski mentioned above. Bentalou accurately recalled that in d’Estaing’s communication the French commander informed Pulaski that he “was very sure he would be the first to join him.” See A Reply to Judge Johnson’s Remarks on an Article in the North American Review, Relating to Count Pulaski (Baltimore, 1826), 33.

8. Pulaski to Lincoln, 6 A.M., September 14, 1779. Quoted in American Historical and Literary Autographs, Catalogue No. 159, p. 27. Carnegie Book Shop, 140 East 59th Street, New York City. Curiously, a note was appended by J. Washington asking General Lincoln to permit d’Estaing to land 1,000 men on the White Bluff Road if “proper.” Lincoln states in his Journal under date of September 14th that he received a message from a Captain Washington who had “seen the Count.” On the 15th the American commander noted that he heard directly that day from d’Estaing to the effect that he would camp nine miles from Savannah that night and “next day reconnoitre it in person.” There is in existence another dispatch from General Pulaski to Lincoln dated September 14th. It was written at 3 A.M. from the “widow Gibbon’s house, on the way to Ogeeche’s ferry” and recounts Pulaski’s operations in the vicinity. It mentions the necessity of keeping a “free Communication with Count d’Estaing” but refers to no meeting. The original is in the Archives and Museum of the Polish Roman Catholic Union in Chicago.

9. Count d’Estaing’s Notes on O’Connor’s Journal of the Siege of Savannah, 14f. The portrait of Lady Huntingdon which the French saw at Bethesda now hangs in Hodgson Hall, home of the Georgia Historical Society.

10. From a statement summarizing what the “Madame Widow Morel” had “furnished” to the French army. The bill, which is written in French, is dated September 17, 1779. It is found in Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 167, p. 202. Mrs. Jourdina Cungm [Cunningham] Baillie sent an itemized statement of what was taken from Bethesda. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 168, p. 326.

11. The Prevost-d’Estaing correspondence is in the Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 168, pp. 182–191 and 194–202 and in the Public Record Office (London), America and West Indies, Colonial Office Papers, Vol. 155.

12. The Journal of Séguier de Terson (p. 32) states that “Captain Moran” carried in the message. A roster of the officers of the battalion of the Dillon Regiment, which served at Savannah, in the Benjamin Lincoln Papers in the Thomas Addis Emmet Collection carries the name of Captain O’Moran but not that of “Moran.” There is a recommendation by Colonel Dillon in the French Archives regarding promotions among the officers of his Regiment at Savannah which cites O’Moran but mentions no “Moran.” O’Moran was badly wounded during the English sortie on the morning of September 24th.

VI. THE BRITISH DIG IN

1. Alexander Garden, Anecdotes of the American Revolution (Charleston, 1828), 108f.

2. Prevost to L. V. Fuser, September 11, 1779. Clinton Papers in the William L. Clements Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan. General Prevost must have written to Colonel Fuser in German as the dispatch quoted from is described as a translation by the latter.

3. From a British Regimental Order Book, July 2-October 2, 1779, the original of which is in the Library of Congress. The quotations are respectively taken from orders that were issued by Prevost on September 12th and 13th. According to Colonel Cruger, of New York, the British had decided to defend the town regardless of whether Maitland ever arrived. “Weak as we were,” he wrote, “we were determined to have fought Monsieur had he thought proper to come on, tho’ the odds were against us.” “The Siege of Savannah, 1779, as Related by Colonel John Harris Cruger.” Magazine of American History, II (August, 1878), 489–492.

4. Prevost to Clinton, September 9, 1779. The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia (Atlanta, 1937), XXXIX, 254. Typewritten copy of unpublished British records as compiled by Allen D. Candler. General Prevost’s letter of September 8th to General Clinton on similar lines is in the British Headquarters Papers of Sir Henry Clinton in possession of Colonial Williamsburg, Inc. (No. 2262).

5. Minutes of the Governor and Council of Georgia, July 11, 1780. MSS in the Georgia Historical Society. These papers have been edited by Lilla M. Hawes and published in The Georgia Historical Quarterly under the title of “The Proceedings and Minutes of the Governor and Council of Georgia, October 4, 1774 through November 7, 1775 and September 6, 1779 through September 20, 1780.” For McLean’s statement see ibid., XXXV (September, 1951), 205.

6. Affidavit of John Murray of Christ Church Parish, dated June 6, 1780, filed in the case of The King vs. Glen. A copy of the original was furnished to me by the late Telamon C. Cuyler of Wayside, Georgia.

7. Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell to William Eden, January 19, 1779. B. F. Stevens, “Facsimiles of Manuscripts in European Archives Relating to America 1773–1783” (No. 1252).

8. Lewis Butler, The Annals of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps (London, 1913–1932), I, 324. Butler evidently quoted from a private letter. There are letters in the Public Record Office at London dated July 14th and 30th, 1779, in which General Prevost complains to Clinton of ill-health and expresses the wish that the command were in younger hands. See abstracts in Report of American Manuscripts in the Royal Institution of Great Britain (London, 1904), I, 474, 483.

9. From an account bearing the date-line, Charlestown, September 22, 1779, printed in The Boston Gazette and the Country Journal on November 15, 1779. Apparently this was a reprint of an item in a Charlestown newspaper.

10. Governor Wright to Lord Germain, April 6, 1780. Collections of the Georgia Historical Society (Savannah, 1873), III, 288. For the statement that Wright cast the deciding vote in the Council of War at Savannah see Lorenzo Sabine, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution (Boston, 1864), II, 458.

11. From General Prevost’s official report to Lord Germain dated November 2, 1779, in which an official journal of the Siege of Savannah was included. Public Record Office (London), America and West Indies, Colonial Office Papers, Vol. 307, fo. 207. A copy is in Stevens’ “Facsimiles of Manuscripts in European Archives Relating to America 1773–1783” (No. 2020). Prevost’s report was contemporaneously published, among other places, in The Gentleman’s Magazine, XLIX, 633ff. (London, 1779) and The Westminster Magazine, pp. 683–687 (London, 1779).

12. Minutes of the Governor and Council of Georgia, September 6th, 1779. The Georgia Historical Quarterly, XXXV (March, 1951), 32. The preceding reference in the text to the burning of the Tattnall house is based on manuscript British records in the Department of Archives and History of the State of Georgia in Atlanta. See “Bonds, Bills of Sale, Deeds of Gift, Powers of Attorney,” 1778–1782, Part I, 75; also 1779–1789, pp. 267–269.

13. Captain (later Admiral) John Henry was at Savannah during the Siege. His report concerning the naval aspects of that episode is reprinted in Hough’s Siege of Savannah, 134–146.

14. Anthony Stokes, A Narrative of the Official Conduct of Anthony Stokes of the Inner Temple, London, Barrister at Law; His Majesty’s Chief Justice, and one of his Council of Georgia; and of the Dangers and Distresses He underwent in the Cause of Government (London, 1784), 73.

15. The Royal Georgia Gazette (Savannah), December 16, 1779.

VII. MAITLAND FINDS A WAY

1. From a Charlestown, South Carolina, account dated September 22, 1779, which appeared in The Boston Gazette and the Country Journal on November 15th, 1779. A similar report was printed in The South-Carolina and American General Gazette on September 17th, 1779.

2. Rutledge and Lincoln to d’Estaing, September 5, 1779. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 168, p. 220. The translation into French is on page 223.

3. D’Estaing to M. de Sartine, December 5, 1779. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 142, p. 148. The order to d’Albert de Rions, capitaine de vaisseau, dated September 7, 1779, is found in B⁴ 166, 05.

4. Fontanges stated that d’Estaing attributed the failure to cut off the Beaufort troops “to my negligence and to the little care I took in getting a response to this important point during the 8 hours I was at Charlestown.” The French Consul’s reply is dated September 23rd. Copies of General de Fontanges’ letter and Plombard’s answer are in the Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 167, 113ff. and 109ff., respectively. Some of the Frenchmen blamed their own commander. “This unfortunate junction would not have taken place,” said Captain de Tarragon, “if our general had marched direct to Savannah on landing or if he had sent a fifty-gun vessel into the river at Port Royal as the council of war held by the Americans at Charlestown had requested.”

5. Joseph Clay to John Lewis Gervais, September 22, 1779. Letters of Joseph Clay, Merchant of Savannah, 1776–1793. Collections of The Georgia Historical Society (Savannah, 1913), VIII, 142.

6. “Epitaph on the Hon. Col. Maitland’’ by “Dr. C________r” in The Scots Magazine, 1779, p. 684.

7. The Boston Gazette and the Country Journal, November 15, 1779, quoting a Charlestown writer.

8. The order given to Durumain, Costebelle, and de Puysegur to ascend the Savannah is in Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 166, p. 278. Among the French maps pertaining to the Siege of Savannah in the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan is a chart of the Savannah River which was prepared in October 1779 by the Comte de Chastenet de Puysegur. It shows the depths of the stream from Tybee bar to a point in Back River opposite Yamacraw. It was prepared with evident care by this skilled hydrographer. D’Estaing called M. de Puysegur’s navigation and soundings of the Savannah River “un chef-d’oeuvre.” Family papers of Bernard-Jacques-Hubert, Comte de Puysegur of Paris, France.

9. Report of General Prevost to Lord Germain, November 2, 1779. Governor Wright’s statement is from his journal of the Siege published in The Royal Georgia Gazette on November 18, 1779, and reprinted in Collections of The Georgia Historical Society (Savannah, 1901) V, Part I, pp. 129–139. The Journal of the naval officer referred to in the text appeared in Rivington’s Royal Gazette on December 15th, 1779. See Hough’s Siege of Savannah, op. cit., 57ff.

10. Charles Stedman, The History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War (London, 1794), II, 126.

11. Fontanges to d’Estaing, September 16, 1779. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 167, p. 112.

12. Count d’Estaing’s Notes on O’Connor’s Journal of the Siege of Savannah, p. 19. The Count’s statement about his mortification at seeing the Beaufort troops pass is from his letter to the Chevalier Durumain, dated September 20, 1779. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 166, p. 287. D’Estaing also remarked that the “impossibilities” encountered by the Truite in ascending the Savannah would “cost the lives of many men.” I have adopted Durumain’s own mode of signing his name rather than the more generally used “du Rumain.”

13. Journal of Captain Séguier de Terson, op. cit., 33. The circumstances of the capture of M. de Cambis are found in the Journal of Meyronnet de Saint-Marc. The line from Les Fourberies de Scapin as misquoted by Séguier de Terson in his journal reads, “Mais que diable alliez-vous faire dans cette galere?”

VIII. THE ALLIES RESORT TO THE SPADE

1. Letter written by Major T. W. Moore, dated November 4, 1779, published in Rivington’s Royal Gazette, December 29, 1779. See Hough’s Siege of Savannah, 83.

2. The French strength at Savannah as stated in the text is taken from a document in the Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 167, p. 247. The summary of the British forces is from a “List of the English Troops, Militia, etc. within the town on the 9th October 1779 according to Statements of Deserters.” B. F. Stevens’ Facsimiles (No. 2016). Another document in the Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 167, p. 250, shows an estimated strength of 2,935 English troops. An official return of the British forces in Georgia by General Prevost, dated November 15, 1779, is among the Clinton Papers in the William L. Clements Library at Ann Arbor, Michigan. It indicates that on that date 3,050 officers and men were present and fit for duty.

3. The Royal Gazette (New York), December 15, 1779.

4. Comte rendu des opérations faites par l’armée française, commandée par Mr. d’Estaing devant Savannah (Amérique), op. cit., p. 7.

5. Johnston, Recollections of a Georgia Loyalist, op. cit., 62. Mrs. Johnston stated that her husband conducted Viscount de Noailles to General Prevost’s headquarters where the summons was delivered by the French officer in “an elegant style.”

6. “Burlesque Letter, Attributed to a French Officer” published in Rivington’s Royal Gazette, January 12, 1780. See Hough’s Siege of Savannah, 96. The letter purports to have been written by a French officer off Tybee to a friend in Charlestown but is quite possibly a satire by some Englishman. Choiseul’s characterization of d’Estaing is taken from Maurice Besson, Le Comte D’Estaing (Paris, 1931), 57.

7. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 168, p. 220. The translation of the American communication into French is found on page 223.

8. D’Estaing to Lincoln, September 17, 1779. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 168, p. 242. The original is among the Lincoln Papers in the Thomas Addis Emmet Collection, New York Public Library.

9. M. L. Weems, The Life of Gen. Francis Marion (Philadelphia, edition of 1839), 60. Use of material in Weems’ work must be accompanied by a strong monition. The Parson borrowed General Horry’s unpublished account of Marion’s Brigade, taking such liberties with the manuscript in his “Life” of General Marion that Horry was to complain to him, “Most certainly ’tis not my history, but your romance.” General Horry’s name was not carried as a co-author until after his death. See A. S. Salley’s introduction to A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion by William Dobein James (1821) in reprint by Continental Book Company, Marietta, Ga., 1948. The Horry manuscript unfortunately is not extant. However, his own volume of Weems’ Life of Gen. Francis Marion containing his (Horry’s) marginal notes or commentaries is in existence, a photostat being in possession of Mr. Salley. Horry did not deny or comment upon the remarks attributed by Weems to Marion in connection with the granting of the truce. Following that incident there appears in Weems’ book a burlesque dialogue between d’Estaing, using broken English, and Colonel Laurens. As to this passage Horry commented, “All this of Count De Stangue is the fruitful Invention of the Brain of Mr. Weems—”

10. Count d’Estaing’s “Facts and Preliminary Motives,” p. 5. Library of the Service Hydrographique de la Marine, Paris.

11. D’Estaing to M. de Sartine, Minister of Marine, December 5, 1779. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 142, p. 145.

12. Letters of Joseph Clay, Merchant of Savannah, 1776–1793, op. cit., 144, 147, 149.

IX. SEEDS OF FAILURE

1. From Extrait du Journal d’un officier de la marine de L’Escadre de M. le comte d’Estaing (Paris, 1782) as translated in Balch, The French in America During the War of Independence of the United States 1777–1783, op. cit., II, p. 119. The charge of insubordination of this type was vigorously denied by Édouard Chevalier in his Histoire de la Marine Française Pendant la Guerre de L’Indépendance Américaine (Paris, 1877), 2, 109f., 152, 154.

2. French Officers’ Journals, 58. The immediately preceding reference in the text as to Count d’Estaing’s statement to General Washington is from the former’s letter of December 25, 1783. See Gardiner, The Order of the Cincinnati in France, op. cit., 12.

3. These excerpts are from d’Estaing’s report to M. de Sartine, December 5, 1779, in Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 142, p. 126 and from Count d’Estaing’s Notes on O’Connor’s Journal of the Siege of Savannah, p. 21.

4. French Officers’ Journals, 63.

5. Allan Maclean Skinner, Sketch of the Military Services of Lieutenant-General Skinner and his Sons (Stafford, 1863), p. 19. Skinner’s friend was evidently Lieutenant Henry McPherson of the 1st Battalion of the Seventy-first Regiment as McPherson was the only British officer killed in the sortie of September 24th.

6. Count d’Estaing’s Notes on O’Connor’s Journal of the Siege of Savannah, 36. The next night (September 27th) something very similar occurred, complained d’Estaing, despite “all I have said, my reproaches, my reprimands.” The French left flank and the right flank started shooting at each other by mistake and several lives were lost. “But for the firmness and good conduct of M. de Sigoier, captain of the grenadiers of the Foix regiment, the damage would have been very great,” reported Count d’Estaing, ibid., 37. The official journal of General Prevost recorded that a brief sortie was made on the night in question by a body of troops under Major McArthur of the Seventy-first. The occasion mentioned by the Count apparently occurred later the same night. See French Officers’ Journals, 23f.

7. Account of the Siege of Savannah by General Thomas Pinckney in Garden’s Anecdotes of the American Revolution, op. cit., 21.

8. “Journal of Major Gen. Lincoln from September 3rd to October 19th, 1779.” MS. Papers of the Continental Congress. The Library of Congress.

9. D’Estaing’s letter to Colonel John Laurence [sic], dated September 6, 1779, is among the Lincoln Papers in the Thomas Addis Emmet Collection in the New York Public Library. Laurens’ letter to Count d’Estaing is translated from the version found in Chevalier’s Histoire de la Marine Française Pendant la Guerre de L’Indépendance Américaine, op. cit., 146. The date of the communication is not indicated by Chevalier.

10. “The Siege of Savannah, 1779, as Related by Colonel John Harris Cruger.” Magazine of American History, II (August, 1878), 489–492.

11. Ibid., 41. The translation is mine.

12. Stedingk to King Gustave III of Sweden, January 18, 1780, as translated in “Count Stedingk,” Putnam’s Monthly, October, 1854, 352.

13. Vicomte de Noailles, Marins et Soldats Français En Amérique Pendant la Guerre de L’Indépendance des États-Unis (1778–1783), (Paris, 1903 ed.), 102n.

X. THE BOMBARDMENT

1. French Officers’ Journals, pp. 24f.

2. John Jones to his wife, October 7, 1779. Seaborn Jones Papers in Duke University Library. The letters written by Major Jones during the Siege to his wife who had refugeed to Jacksonborough in South Carolina are in George White, Historical Collections oj Georgia (New York, 1854), 535–536.

3. Mémoires et voyages du Chevalier Aristide-Auhert du Petit-Thouars, capitaine de vaisseau (Paris, 1822). “Expedition de Savannah,” 239–242. See also, Admiral Bergasse du Petit Thouars, Aristide Aubert du Petit Thouars. Héros d’ Aboukir, 1760–1798. Lettres et documents inédits (Paris, 1937), 24–29.

4. A Narrative of the Official Conduct of Anthony Stokes, op. cit., 50.

5. The Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg), October 23, 1779.

6. A. S. Salley, Jr., ed., Journal of the Commissioners of the Navy of South Carolina July 22, 1779—March 23, 1780 (Columbia, S. C., 1913), 16. The Rutledge was captured by the British off Tybee on November 4th and renamed Viper. The command of the galley was given to John Steele, master’s mate of the Rose, in recognition of his gallant conduct on October 9th in the British battery north of Spring Hill redoubt.

7. Alexander Garden, Anecdotes of the Revolutionary War in America (Charleston, 1822), 111f.

8. “William Hasell Gibbes’ Story of his Life.” The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, L (April, 1949), 65.

9. French Officers’ Journals, 26.

10. Extract of a letter from Savannah dated October 22, 1779, which was quoted by Governor Tonyn in a dispatch sent by him to General Henry Clinton. Public Record Office, London. Colonial Office Papers, 5/98.

XI. D’ESTAING DECIDES TO ATTACK

1. From the journal of a cadet on the Guerrier. Entry for October 14–15, 1779. MS. Records in the Library of the Service Hydrographique de la Marine, Paris, 721. This terse but expressive diary was kept by an unidentified garde de marine on Bougainville’s ship.

2. “Provisions remaining in His Majesty’s Magazines at Savannah 24th Octr 1779.” Clinton Papers in the William L. Clements Library at Ann Arbor, Michigan.

3. “Order Book of Maj. John Faucheraud Grimké, August 1778 to May 1780.” The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, XVII (April, 1916), 84.

4. Letters of John Jones to his wife, Polly, October 5 and 7, 1779. MSS. Seaborn Jones Papers in Duke University Library.

5. The quotations from Bougainville’s journal are from R. de Kerallain, Bougainville à L’Escadre du Cte D’Estaing Guerre d’Amérique 1778–1779 (Paris, 1927).

6. Relation du Siège de Savannah capitale de la nouvelle Géorgie, province du Sud de l’Amérique Septentrionale. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 142, p. 199. This thirteen page account was prepared by an unidentified French officer. Pulaski had pointed out the same thing about the Spring Hill sector in a memorandum to d’Estaing proposing a plan of attack. “According to the report of one of the deserters who has passed by the same place, it is presumed that the right wing of the enemy is more accessible than one imagines and the number of soldiers on that side is very feeble.” “Le plan d’attaque au Camp retranché des Anglais auprès de la ville de Savanna 6 Octobre, 1779.” Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 168, p. 207.

7. French Officers’ Journals, 38. The Spring Hill redoubt was located approximately where the Central of Georgia Depot now stands on West Broad Street. In Historic and Picturesque Savannah Adelaide Wilson has commented eloquently upon the obliviousness of the “hurrying throngs of humanity, each absorbed in his tiny circle of cares or pleasures” to the great memories associated with the spot. Ibid., 60. The Railroad’s excavations at the site failed to turn up much in the way of relics. A former officer of the Company reminisced that when the depot grounds were enlarged “30 skeletons” were found about three feet underground near the foot of Liberty Street “buried in a Row with what was decided to be the Hessian uniform.” The principal relic unearthed was a “large solid gold Buckle.” Reminiscences of George W. Shaffer, ex-Treasurer of the Central Rail Road, transmitted to General Henry R. Jackson, President of the Georgia Historical Society, in a letter dated “May, 1893.” MS.

8. Captain de Tarragon’s Journal of the Siege of Savannah as translated in B. F. Stevens’ “Facsimiles of Manuscripts in European Archives Relating to America 1773–1783.” The approximate location of the Allied trenches in present-day Savannah was in the general area between Taylor and Gaston streets on the north and south and Drayton and Price streets on the west and east. The barracks near the center of the lines was located where the DeSoto Hotel stands.

9. D’Estaing to M. Gérard, October 26, 1779. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 168, p. 59. I have used the translation of this passage in Joachim Merlant, Soldiers and Sailors of France in the American War for Independence (1776–1783) as translated from the French by Mary Bushnell Coleman (New York, 1920), 89f.

10. “Facts and Preliminary Motives,” 7. Library of the Service Hydrographique de la Marine, Paris.

11. Extrait du Journal d’un officier de la marine de l’Escadre de M. le comte d’Estaing, op. cit., 4–5. The translation is mine. Compare the following character sketch of Count d’Estaing by a member of the Chamber of Agriculture of San Domingo: “Wide-awake mind, full of activity; less judgment. The heart of an Auvergnat, good and honest. Subject to violent spells of anger; impenetrable secrecy.” Quoted in Merlant, Soldiers and Sailors of France in the American War for Independence (1776–1783), op. cit., 59.

12. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 167, p. 396.

13. Pulaski to d’Estaing, October 6, 1779. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 168, pp. 207f., 209.

14. Pulaski to d’Estaing, apparently dated October 2, 1779. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 168, p. 206.

15. Count d’Estaing’s Notes on O’Connor’s Journal of the Siege of Savannah, 63.

16. Weems, The Life of Gen. Francis Marion, op. cit., 71. The statement of that author that the deserter was later captured and hanged cannot be confirmed. However, it was not challenged by General Horry in his comments on the margin of the book. The first historian to identify James Curry as the deserter was William Gordon in The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States of America (New York, 1789), III, 33. Research in Charleston failed to identify Curry.

17. Minutes of the Governor and Council of Georgia, July 11, 1780. The Georgia Historical Quarterly, XXXV (September, 1951), 204f.

XII. OCTOBER NINTH

1. General Clinton to Lord Germain, New York, November 10, 1779. MS. Clinton Papers in the William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The same thought was expressed by Clinton in a letter that day to William Eden. He indicated in it, however, that if Savannah should fall the expedition might be shifted to Virginia. See B. F. Stevens’ “Facsimiles of Manuscripts in European Archives Relating to America 1773–1783” (No. 1032).

2. French Officers’ Journals, 29f. The guide was evidently Major Roman de Lisle of the Georgia Continental Line.

3. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney to his mother, October 9, 1779. MS. C. C. Pinckney Papers in the Library of Duke University. This letter is published in Charles C. Jones, Jr., History of Savannah, Ga. (Syracuse, 1890), 289 n.

4. Joseph Johnson, Traditions and Reminiscences Chiefly of the American Revolution in the South (Charleston, 1851), 239. An eye-witness informed Johnson of this incident.

5. Count d’Estaing’s Notes on O’Connor’s Journal of the Siege of Savannah, 74–75. Captain O’Connor stated that “The fire of the Scotch regiment which held the redoubt was very lively.” An English map shows the 2nd Battalion of the Seventy-first Regiment stationed at a point east of Spring Hill. Three companies of the Highlanders constituted a reserve on October 9th. Apparently they did not participate to any real extent in the fighting. They were ordered to support the charge of the Sixtieth and though they came up rapidly the Allies had been driven from the works by the time the Seventy-first arrived.

6. L. V. Fuser to General Clinton, October 30, 1779. Public Record Office, London, Colonial Office Papers, 5/98. The French account referred to in the text immediately before this reference is from a history of the Gâtinais Regiment in the American Revolution found in Les Combattants Français de la Guerre Américaine 1778–1783 by the “Ministère des Affaires Étrangères.” 58th Congress, 2d. Session. Document No. 77 (Washington, 1905), p. 305.

7. Count d’Estaing’s Notes on O’Connor’s Journal of the Siege of Savannah, 67.

8. From a letter written to a friend in New York by a “Gentleman of the General Hospital at Savannah,” November 24, 1779. Hough’s Siege of Savannah, 81.

9. The return is among the Benjamin Lincoln Papers in the Thomas Addis Emmet Collection, New York Public Library. The statement concerning the conduct of the Virginia militia is from French Officers’ Journals, 32.

10. Count d’Estaing’s Notes on O’Connor’s Journal of the Siege of Savannah, 73.

11. Connecticut Journal (New Haven), December 29, 1779, quoting an account in a Boston paper by a “gentleman from the southward recently in town.”

12. Count d’Estaing’s Notes on O’Connor’s Journal of the Siege of Savannah, 73. The part of the quotation that Pulaski died by “his own fault in placing himself where he should not have been at the moment” is from d’Estaing’s report to M. de Sartine dated December 5, 1779. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 142, p. 125. Additional evidence as to the circumstances of Pulaski’s death (though hardly reliable) comes from Thomas Garrett, a 105-year-old veteran of the Revolution, who told a reporter for a Charleston newspaper in 1836 that while he was assisting a wounded soldier General Pulaski rode up and remarked, “My brave fellow, take care, you are in a dangerous position.” To this remark Garrett claimed that he replied: “General, if you intend to be in a place of safety I’ll keep near you.” He said that the famous cavalry officer fell just after riding away from him. The Charleston Courier, August 30, 1836. Clipping in Thomas Gamble Scrap Books in the Savannah Public Library.

13. The Royal Georgia Gazette, December 2, 1779.

14. Alexander Garden, Anecdotes of the Revolutionary War, op. cit., 112. The language attributed to Colonel Laurens is also of questionable authenticity since it is taken from M. L. Weems’ Life of Gen. Francis Marion, op. cit., 64f. In the marginal notes which Horry wrote in his own volume of that work he did not challenge Weems’ allusion to the incident, a fact considered in using the quotation here.

15. O’Connor’s Journal of the Siege of Savannah, 62; Count d’Estaing’s Notes, 70. A manuscript journal entitled “Journal de M. Le Comte D’Estaing” in the records of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania repeats the quoted statement of Captain O’Connor word for word. In French Officers’ Journals (36f.) there is a fuller account of the conduct of the reserves. Based on a statement once made by Rev. T. G. Steward, Haitian sources sometimes credit the saving of the Franco-American army to the bravery of the Negro volunteers who it is said comprised the corps of reserve. See for example, J. N. Léger, Haiti, Her History and Her Detractors (New York and Washington, 1907), 42 n. A table showing the composition of the French troops during the attack which is incorporated in Captain de Tarragon’s Journal would indicate that the reserve was not composed of any Negro soldiers. However, General Thomas Pinckney’s account of the Siege refers to a corps of West Indian troops in the reserve.

16. Count d’Estaing’s Notes on O’Connor’s Journal of the Siege of Savannah, 69.

XIII. LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF A WARM OCTOBER MORNING

1. William Smith to Lord Carlisle, New York, December 10, 1779. The Manuscripts of the Earl of Carlisle, Preserved at Castle Howard (1897), 435.

2. White, Historical Collections of Georgia, op. cit., 537.

3. White, Historical Collections of Georgia, op. cit., 473, quoting “Reminiscences of Captain Roderick McIntosh” by John Couper, April 16, 1842.

4. “Extracts from a Private Manuscript written by Governor Paul Hamilton, Sr., During the Period of the Revolutionary War, from 1776–1800.” Year Book—1898. City of Charleston, So. Ca., 304f.

5. Alexander Gregg, History of the Old Cheraws (Columbia, S. C., 1925 ed.), 296. The quotation is from an entry in Pugh’s Journal for November 21, 1779.

6. The American losses of both regulars and militia on October 9th are shown according to units in “A Return of the killed and wounded in the action at Savannah Oct. 9th, 1779.” Lincoln Papers, The Siege of Savannah. Thomas Addis Emmet Collection, the New York Public Library. In his report to Congress, dated October 22, 1779, General Lincoln stated that 170 Continental troops were killed or wounded in the attack. The statement of French casualties is based on an official return found in the Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 167, p. 375. The British losses are taken from General Prevost’s report. Their casualties during the entire Siege amounted to only 38 killed, 58 wounded, and 48 deserted, according to an official return signed by Prevost. See the Clinton Papers in the William L. Clements Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

7. General Prevost’s report of the Siege gives a somewhat different version of the reason for the surrender. Colonel White’s accomplishment is confirmed by the Journal of General Lincoln and also by a letter from Charlestown, dated October 6, 1779, which was printed in The Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg), on November 6, 1779. The original report by White of the episode was mentioned by Francis Bowen who saw it among the papers of Benjamin Lincoln while preparing his biographical sketch of the New England general. The manuscript was acquired in 1924 by Colonel Preston Davie of New York City. The only letter of White found in the Thomas Addis Emmet Collection of Lincoln Papers is dated January 29, 1780. In it he asked permission of General Lincoln, despite his ill-health, to take the field again in view of the projected British attack on Charlestown. Colonel White died a few months later as a result of the exposures he underwent during the Siege of Savannah.

8. It is interesting to compare Weems’ imaginary version of Jasper’s dying comments and the dramatic death-bed discourse of Pulaski in Louvet de Couvrai’s novel, Amours du Chevalier de Faublaf. A portion of this work was translated and published in America under the title of The Interesting History of the Baron De Lovzinski. Written by Himself. With a Relation of the Most Remarkable Occurrences in the Life of the Celebrated Count Pulaski (Hartford, 1800). Americans of the day recognized this book as fiction, something most of them failed to do in the case of portions of Weems’ Life of Gen. Francis Marion.

9. From a letter written on January 7, 1854, by James Lynah, a grandson of Dr. Lynah, to the Philadelphia Herald which was reprinted in Historical Magazine, 1866, 286. The fatal grapeshot extracted from Pulaski’s groin by the Charlestown surgeon is in Hodgson Hall, home of the Georgia Historical Society, where it was deposited by J. H. Lynah of Savannah. Another grim memento of the past possessed by the Society is “Splinters from the bone of the arm of Colonel Maitland” which was shattered by a cannon ball in the battle of Lagos Bay, Spain, between the British and French in 1759. The fragments which are identified as such in eighteenth century handwriting were presented by the Right Honorable Ian Colin Maitland, Fifteenth Earl of Lauderdale, who resides at Thirlestane Castle, Lauder, Scotland.

10. Notes written by James Jackson on David Ramsay, The History of the Revolution of South-Carolina, From a British Province to an Independent State (Trenton, 1785). Stedman was evidently Captain James Stedman of the Georgia Continental Line.

11. William B. Stevens Papers in the Georgia Historical Society. The story is given as it is recorded in Stevens’ hand. Different versions are found elsewhere; for example, in The Romance of Lower Carolina by C. Irvine Walker (Charleston, S. C., 1915), 109.

12. Mémoires Posthumes du feld-maréchal Comte de Stedingk, op. cit., I, 52.

13. T. S. Arthur and W. H. Carpenter, The History of Georgia, from its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time (Philadelphia, 1852), 185f.

14. Hugh McCall, The History of Georgia, Containing Brief Sketches of the Most Remarkable Events up to the Present Day (Savannah, Ga., 1811, 1816), II, 269 n. I have changed the remark attributed to Major d’Erneville from the third to first person and the tense to the present. McCall spells the name “d’Ernonville” but the French casualty lists show it as given here.

XIV. THE COUNT RAISES THE SIEGE

1. Merlant, Soldiers and Sailors of France in the American War for Independence (1776–1783) op. cit., 91. Merlant does not give the source of the quotation.

2. From Bougainville’s journal, October 14, 1779. Kerallain, Bougainville à L’Escadre du Cte D’Estaing Guerre d’Amérique, 1778–1779, op. cit., 44.

3. Mrs. Jourdina Cungm [Cunningham] Baillie to Count d’Estaing, Bethesda, October 14, 1779. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 168, p. 327.

4. D’Estaing to Lincoln, “Au Camp Devant Savannah,” September 23, 1779. Lincoln Papers, The Siege of Savannah. Thomas Addis Emmet Collection, New York Public Library.

5. Jane Bowen to Count d’Estaing, Greenwich, October 7, 1779. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 168, p. 321. The basis of my statement that d’Estaing was hospitalized at the Bowen house is the paper of William P. Bowen, Sr., printed in Henry Williams, An Address Delivered on Laying the Corner Stone of a Monument to Pulaski, in the City of Savannah, October 11, 1853 (Savannah, 1855), 33. See also Adelaide Wilson, Historic and Picturesque Savannah, op. cit., 77. In French Officers’ Journals (p. 66) it is said that d’Estaing “rode on horseback to the village of Thunderbolt.’’ The orders signed by the French General during the period in question are headed “Thunderbolt Bluff.’’

6. From Journal de la campagne du vaisseau le Marseillais de 74 canons portant 36 . . . 18 et . . . 8. Commandé par monsieur de la Poïpe de Vertrieux, Capitaine des vaisseaux du Roy. Manuscript in the Bibliothèque Municipale of Avignon, Vol. 2750, pp. 73, 73vo. The name of the author of this Journal, who was an officer on the Marseillais, does not appear on the manuscript but it was evidently written by Lieutenant Meyronnet de Saint-Marc. It is an entirely different manuscript from the Journal of that officer which has been previously mentioned and quoted from throughout this work.

7. Campagne de M. le Comte d’Estaing en Amérique ou Mémoire pour servir de réfutation au Libelle contre ce Vice-Amiral (Brussels, 1782), 71. This pamphlet is a defense of d’Estaing against the critical Extrait du Journal d’un officier de la marine, the author of which is disparagingly referred to as “l’Anonyme” by a writer who chose to remain equally so.

8. John Wereat to Count d’Estaing. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 168, p. 212.

9. The Gazette of the State of South-Carolina, October 13, 1779.

10. General Lincoln to Major Everard Meade, Charlestown, November 1, 1779. Lincoln Papers, The Siege of Savannah. Thomas Addis Emmet Collection, New York Public Library. The source of the immediately preceding quotation in the text is the letter from General Lincoln to Samuel Huntington, President of the Continental Congress, dated October 22, 1779. Papers of the Continental Congress. No. 158, pp. 279–282. The Library of Congress.

11. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney to his mother, October 15, 1779. C. C. Pinckney Papers in the Library of Congress.

12. Annals of Congress, 7th Congress, 2nd. Sess., 149. From a speech by Hon. James Jackson in the United States Senate.

13. Rutledge to d’Estaing, October 12, 1779. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 168, p. 172. Count d’Estaing later ordered the Chimère, the Bricole, and the Truite to Charlestown to assist the Americans in the event of an attack on that place. The two latter vessels were sunk there to block the channel.

14. The protest which is dated October 13, 1779, is found in Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 167, pp. 39–41 (folio pages). The letter of Dillon from which the preceding quotation in the text was taken is dated October 12, 1779. It is in Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 167, pp. 35–36. A manuscript copy is in the Thomas Addis Emmet Collection in the New York Public Library among the Lincoln Papers. Copies of these letters are found in the Journal of Jean-Rémy de Tarragon. On the margin of his copy of the protest is a notation that it was sent “under M. de Dillon’s name but dictated by the Viscount de Noailles.” Captain de Tarragon’s younger brother, Anne-Claude, served as assistant adjutant general of Dillon’s Division at Savannah.

15. De Rouvray to General d’Estaing, October 12, 1779. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 167, p. 233. Dillon’s observations concerning lack of discipline is from the letter dated October 13, 1779, referred to in note 14 of this Chapter.

16. L. V. Fuser to General Clinton, October 30, 1779. Public Record Office, London, Colonial Office Papers, 5/98. Colonel de Noailles’ statement that the English “send us word that they would not disturb us in our retreat unaccompanied by the Americans” is found in the letter to d’Estaing dated October 13th referred to in note 14 of this Chapter.

17. The New-York Mercury, or, General Advertiser, December 10, 1779,

18. From a letter dated October 23, 1779, in The Pennsylvania Gazette and Weekly Advertiser (Philadelphia), November 17, 1779. The preceding quotation in the text concerning Count d’Estaing is from the December 1st, 1779, issue of the same newspaper.

19. John Laurens to Henry Laurens, Charlestown, October 23, 1779. Lincoln Papers, The Siege of Savannah. Thomas Addis Emmet Collection, New York Public Library.

XV. THE CAPTAINS AND THE KINGS DEPART

1. Count d’Estaing to General George Washington, December 25, 1783. Gardiner, The Order of the Cincinnati in France, op. cit., p. 12. The order given to de Grasse to proceed with his squadron to the Chesapeake for provisioning is in the Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 166, p. 188. However, a French naval officer states that orders were also received from the Admiral “not to depart until they had been furnished with his final instructions.” See French Officers’ Journals, 49.

2. Chevalier, Histoire de la Marine Française Pendant la Guerre de L’Indépendance Américaine, op. cit., p. 307. Comte de Marigny is not to be confused with his brother, Charles-René, Vicomte de Bernard de Marigny—another well-known French naval officer.

3. Thomas MacKenzie to Monsieur _________, aboard the Amazonne, October 17, 1779. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 166, p. 242. After the capture of the Ariel Count de La Pérouse courteously offered his services to Captain MacKenzie who requested of him, “Commit me to the care of Thomas Pinckney. He will not forget an old friend and school-fellow, even in a captive enemy.” It was a coincidence that MacKenzie’s brother later saved the life of Major Pinckney when the latter was wounded during the Battle of Camden. Rev. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Life of General Thomas Pinckney (Boston and New York, 1895), 60.

4. D’Estaing to M. de Sartine, December 5, 1779. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 142, p. 137.

5. Hough’s Siege of Savannah, 54f. From a journal of the Siege printed in The Royal Gazette (New York), November 18, 1779.

6. D’Estaing to M. de Sartine, December 5, 1779. Archives Nationales (Marine), B⁴ 142, p. 154.

7. Edwin Martin Stone, Our French Allies (Providence, 1884), 128. The source of the anecdote is a contemporary French letter. In d’Estaing’s report to M. de Sartine he says that he desired to pay his respects to the Minister and to let him know that he counted more than ever on justice and the good will of the King which the friendly offices of de Sartine could secure for him.

8. Campagne de M. le Comte d’Estaing en Amérique ou Mémoire pour servir de réfutation au Libelle contre ce Vice-Amiral, op. cit., 75.

9. From family records in possession of Comte Dillon of Auch, France, who kindly furnished the author with biographical information as to the Dillons who participated in the American War of Independence.

XVI. AND WHAT OF COLONEL MAITLAND?

1. Letter to Governor Wright from Lord Germain, January 19, 1780. The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia (Atlanta, 1937), XXXVIII (Part II), 247. Typewritten copy of unpublished British records compiled by Allen D. Candler.

2. “The Siege of Charleston; Journal of Captain Peter Russell, December 25, 1779, to May 2, 1780.” Edited by James Bain, Jr. The American Historical Review, IV (1899), 482.

3. Passenger lists of the vessels bound for France from Georgia. B. F. Stevens, “Facsimiles of Manuscripts in European Archives Relating to America 1773–1783” (No. 2019). These lists are revealing in places. For example, Count Arthur Dillon appears to have carried a retinue of six servants back to Europe.

4. Letter from London dated December 22, 1779. The Scots Magazine, 1779, p. 685.

5. II, p. 279.

6. General Augustin Prevost to Sir Henry Clinton, Savannah, November 6, 1779. British Headquarters Papers of General Clinton in possession of Colonial Williamsburg, Inc., Williamsburg, Virginia (No. 9848).

7. Letter from London dated December 22, 1779, in The Scots Magazine, 1779, p. 684f.

8. The Royal Gazette (New York), December 15, 1779, under the date line, Savannah, November 18, 1779.

9. These and Mrs. De Lancey’s lines which appeared in Rivington’s Royal Gazette on April 26, 1780, are printed in Hough’s Siege of Savannah, 112–114. The Mrs. De Lancey to whom the authorship of the poem was attributed could have been either Mrs. Stephen De Lancey, wife of Lieutenant Colonel De Lancey, or Mrs. Oliver De Lancey, each of whom had married into the distinguished Tory family of that name in New York.

10. This death notice appeared originally in The Royal Georgia Gazette and was reprinted in The New-York Gazette and The Weekly Mercury on December 13, 1779.