Siege of Savannah

16 September 1779

British Victory

Early in September 1779, the British learned that a French fleet had arrived at Tybee Island, Georgia. It generated a sizeable recruiting effort by British Maj. Gen. Augustine Prévost to bolster his defensive positions and garner Loyalist supporters. On 10 September 1779, a 1,500-man detachment of the Continental forces in the south and a French fleet with 5,000 soldiers attacked 3,200 Crown soldiers at Savannah, Georgia. The combined American and French armies sent multiple demands that the British surrender the city and its fortifications. French V. Adm. Comte d’Estaing feared leaving his ships exposed to a possible British fleet action and was concerned about the rising cases of disease among his sailors. Consequently, he insisted on a premature attack, which failed in a bloody shambles on 9 October—d’Estaing himself was twice wounded and Continental cavalry commander Brig. Gen. Casimir Pulaski was killed. Neither the Americans nor the French were happy with their ally’s performance as they lifted the siege. The British remained in control of the city until July 1782.

Late in 1778 the British began to turn their main effort to the south. The King’s ministers hoped to bring the southern states into the fold one by one. From bases there, they would strangle the recalcitrant north. A small British force operating from Florida cooperated with the first reinforcements sent by General Sir Henry Clinton and quickly overran thinly populated Georgia in the winter of 1778–79. Alarmed by this development, Congress sent Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln south to Charleston in December 1778 to command the Southern Army and organize the southern effort. It hoped that he could repeat his performance during the Saratoga campaign as a leader who could mix Continental regulars and militiamen. Lincoln gathered 3,500 continentals and militiamen; but in May 1779, while he maneuvered along the Georgia border, Prévost slipped around him.

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