VI

The British Dig In

WHEN the French first arrived nearly everyone at Savannah despaired of hope. “Deep and universal despondency prevailed within the Garrison, and the only deliberation was, how to render submission as little disgraceful as possible,” said Alexander Garden.¹ The British had hardly twelve hundred troops to man a semi-circular line over 12,500 feet in length connecting the eastern and western ends of the long river bluff. Because of the nature of the terrain it could not be narrowed.

Prevost himself seems to have shared the prevailing pessimism. “We are not afraid of any one of them,” he said in a dispatch to Admiral Byron, “but both together may be too many for us, if they should be able to effect a Junction and the French Land Forces is anything considerable.” A similar air of resignation is sensed in a message he hurried off to St. Augustine. “The Season seemed to promise us that we had nothing to fear this year from such Forces, but so it is,” wrote the British General, “and this is to advise you of it. We will defend ourselves as long as we can. If we are abandoned, it will be so much the worse.”²

There was brave official talk, to be sure. The British were to defend the redoubts “with the bayonets till the last extremity.” Prevost expressed confidence that they would “exert themselves as usual in that required for their own honour and the honour of the King’s Arms.” Their spirits were bolstered by his assurance that the enemy, being “mostly Carolinians, are not expected to be very determined.”³

But apparently there was serious thought of surrender at one point. As the days passed the possibility of the arrival of Maitland became “to all thoughtful persons more and more doubtful,” declared the Georgia Gazette. Writing to General Clinton on September 8th, Prevost said, “I hope Colonel Maitland will be here this day with the detachment from Beaufort.” The next day in another letter to Clinton, he expressed the same hope, regretting that the Seventy-first had ever been left at Beaufort. It was a decision, however, that had been concurred in, he explained, by every one of his field officers. “If Lieu^t. Col°. Maitland arrives safe, all will be well,” he added.⁴ Two days later (the 11th) Sir James Wright was confiding to Governor Tonyn of Florida that “If we do not hear something of him today I shall be in great pain about him.” General Prevost and Governor Wright would have been pained, indeed, had they known that Maitland had not even left Beaufort.

Fear was felt for the safety of the populace of Savannah if the town were stormed. There were “bloody menaces,” according to Anthony Stokes; while Colonel Cruger of New York said that the enemy “talk’d of nothing but putting all to the Sword.” “What furious people intended, and humane persons expected” was illustrated, declared the Georgia Gazette, by the case of Charles Price of Sunbury. This young attorney, who was regarded by James Jackson as “one of the best lawyers in the United States,” had come to Savannah with the Americans. The Tory editor had an explanation as to why this son of an English official was serving with the enemy. His sole purpose in coming, it was explained, had been “to save his father from the general carnage.” Since Price was killed during the Siege of Savannah, no one will ever know the real answer.

But some American militiamen undoubtedly came to Savannah with the main idea of protecting the populace when the town was captured. For example, there was Andrew McLean, who claimed that he was regarded by the “Rebells as a Person inimical to their Party.” He was induced by General Lachlan McIntosh to march with the American militia, he later explained to the Royal Council. The Rebel leader had come to him and suggested that the “Prospect of being presently in Possession of Savannah was so certain” that, since McLean’s “Principles were regarded in an unfavorable Light,” he should “come down with the Army” merely to save himself. McLean had been thus induced to accompany the Americans, but he had gone with what he called “a firm Resolution to take no active Part in Favor of Rebellion, but to use all his Endeavors to assist the Inhabitants of Savannah, in Case that Place had been taken.”⁵

The case for the belief that little quarter would have been given is bolstered by an affidavit furnished the English authorities by John Murray, a loyal subject of the King who was captured on his way from Florida. Murray claimed that he was taken aboard the Languedoc where he saw a number of American sympathizers, including John Glen, the Rebel Chief Justice of Georgia. In a conversation between the two on September 8th, the latter expressed confidence that Savannah would soon be in the hands of the Americans. Murray thereupon ventured the hope that if the city fell they would be lenient to the Loyalists. To this Glen replied, “It was not now a time to use gentle & moderate measures, but to make reprisals and to retaliate for the injuries which had been done to their persons & their properties.”⁶ The Americans had not forgotten how Savannah was sacked a few months before. “The finest furnishings, comptoirs, tables and chairs of mahogany were smashed and lay around the streets,” wrote a Hessian officer. “It was a pity to see,” he added. There had been more than looting, according to Pierre Colomb who served with the Americans. “Robbery, incendiarism, rape, and murder were the fruits of that unhappy day,” this French volunteer recorded in his Journal.

Major General Augustin Prevost, who in appearance resembled George Washington, was a soldier of experience and personal courage—“brave as Caesar,” in the words of one of his aides-de-camp at Savannah. He had been wounded at Fontenoy and still bore near his temple the unsightly circular scar from a wound received while serving under Wolfe at Quebec. His reputation in Georgia was not that of a very forceful individual. According to a letter of a Scotch merchant at Savannah published in The Scots Magazine in December, 1779, the General was “very diffident” and possessed “no opinion of his own.” During the same year Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell, one of the abler British soldiers of his day, had appraised him in terms somewhat less than enthusiastic. “Prevost seems a worthy man,” he wrote, “but too old & inactive for this service. He will do in Garrison, and I shall Gallop with the lighttroop.”⁷ For some months the general had been requesting to be relieved of his command in Georgia, where his wife and children were with him. His successor was even now on the high seas. The rigors of war in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina had undermined his constitution. “I begin to feel the effect of age,” he confessed, “and find that this campaign necessitates the greater physical powers of a younger man.”⁸

In significant italics Governor Wright was to inform Lord Germain that he had “some strong Reasons to apprehend & fear” that Savannah would be surrendered. “The enemy’s soldiery were much dissatisfied, and though it was pretended that Savannah would be defended, even the officers gave their opinions publicly that it would capitulate,” reported a Charlestown paper.⁹ A French naval officer recorded in his journal that Prevost announced at the parleys that he “wished only to save his honor by the appearance of a defense.” But the British General was at the time engaged in a desperate game of dissimulation and such statements must be received with a good deal of skepticism.

Any thought of surrender found a stout antagonist in Sir James Wright. But for the Governor’s efforts, claimed friends, the decision would have been otherwise. He is even credited by some with casting the deciding vote in the Council at a time when the others were equally divided. “I thought myself happy in being here at the time of Siege,” the Governor informed Lord Germain, “For I Clearly Saw that if this Province then fell, America was Lost and this I declared on every occasion & urged the Necessity of every Exertion Possible to Defend the Place.”¹⁰ His Chief Justice backed him strongly. “I did all that I could to support those who desponded, and I would not suffer the language of fear to pass my lips,” said Anthony Stokes.

Strange at times are the ways of the English. Since the capture of Savannah few measures had been taken to strengthen its defenses. There was only a gesture in that direction. “We had been repairing the Old Redoubts and raising New Works,” claimed Governor Wright in extenuation. But little enough had been accomplished before the French arrived. “All this would have been considered unforgivable negligence had not the whole affair turned out favorably,” opined Captain Johann Hinrichs.

But if the English are given to complacency, they are equally capable of extraordinary exertions in time of peril. A critical moment in the fortunes of the Empire was at hand—one that “might materially have affected Great Britain not only with regard to her colonies, but even as a nation,” said the Royal Georgia Gazette. The defenders rose to meet the challenge. England was to experience at Savannah one of her finer hours.

Fortunately for the garrison, it possessed in James Moncrief a brilliant army engineer. Though related by blood or marriage to Whigs of high station in the North like Governor Livingston, General Montgomery, and John Jay, he had remained loyal to his King. Moncrief was now to win “immortal honour.” “There is not one Officer or Soldier in this little Army,” Prevost would inform Lord Germain, “capable of reflecting or judging—who will not regard as personal to himself any mark of Royal favour graciously confer’d thro’ your Lordship on Captain Moncrief.”¹¹ Sir James Wright was to add a strong endorsement to these views. “Now my Lord give me leave,” he asked, “to mention the great ability & Exertions of Captain Moncrief the Chief Engineer who was Indefatigable day & Night.”

Between four and five hundred slaves were put to work on the defenses around Savannah. Many of them were from the Royal Governor’s eleven plantations. The barn, rice machine, and other buildings on his property adjoining the town common were dismantled and the materials utilized for making platforms for the works. Houses near the town which might give shelter or cover to the enemy were burned. Among those destroyed was the two story dwelling of Josiah Tattnall, called “Fair Lawn,” together with the “large Kitchen Store House, Stable and Chair House . . . Barn and Fodder House.” Drafts were placed upon slave-holders who were ordered to furnish “Hoes, Axes, and Spades, also cooking Utensils.”¹² Formidable works began to rise, admirably adapted to a force which was insufficient to man the whole of a closed line. The four redoubts which were in existence when the French arrived eventually became thirteen. The ten or twelve cannon that faced the Allies when they first appeared were to become more than a hundred. The works consisted of a chain of redoubts between which horse-shoe batteries in embrasure were erected. Supporting them to the rearward were epaulements and traverses. The whole was surrounded on the front by an abatis of cedar and pine. A chain of sentries provided communications between the redoubts.

The British vessels retired to Savannah. Cannon were removed and the seamen assigned to batteries. The marines were incorporated with a battalion of the Sixtieth Regiment. Vessels were sunk across the channel and a boom stretched across the river to prevent fire rafts being floated down. The old cables of the Fowey were cut up into wads for the guns and her sails were utilized for tents. Able-bodied civilians were sent into the lines. The clergy itself pitched in. Reverend John Joachim Zubly who had once announced in the Continental Congress that “A Republican government is little better than a government of devils” became Chaplain to the Provincial troops. His Independent meeting house was turned into a Hessian hospital. “Every officer, Soldier and Sailor worked with the utmost Cheerfulness,” declared Captain John Henry of the British navy.¹³ “Perhaps never did troops and militia join more generally and heartily in the defence of any place,” said the Royal Georgia Gazette, a view in which Chief Justice Stokes concurred. “The conduct of the Militia and Volunteers, who went into the lines to defend the town, would do honour to veteran troops,” he informed a Grand Jury. “It proves,” Stokes said, “how well men will behave when they are fighting in a good cause.”¹⁴

However, there was to be a seamy side too. In bitter terms a British officer was later to complain of the men who in the hour of peril had “feigned themselves sick,” “inhabited deep cellars” or had taken refuge “in dens and caves under the Bluff and at Yamacraw” and on the shipping in the harbor. Among the troops in the lines these “skulkers” were the subject, he said, of “many murmurings, councils, and conversations.”¹⁵

But it is time to turn back now to follow the fortunes of the troops who had left Beaufort on the evening of September twelfth.