Special acts of bravery during the savannah battle
Answers
As the fifth year of the American Revolution opened, hopes for colonial independence were growing dim. By 1779 British forces still occupied major American cities. Divisions plagued the Continental Congress and the rebel army. In the South, bitter civil war raged between Patriot and Loyalist Americans.
Georgia, the only American colony to be reconquered by the British, was just 42 years old when the war started. Georgia’s population was small, with barely 3,000 men of military age. On December 29, 1778, the colonial capital fell to British troops. The rebel defenders were routed, losing 550 captured or killed. Patriot forces were swept from the state.
Britain’s occupation of Savannah was only the first stroke in a strategy geared to bring Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia back under royal control. It was felt that the large numbers of Loyalists in the South would flock to the king’s cause. With the South secured, the stubborn Continentals in the North could be more easily tamed.
In January 1779, British Colonel Archibald Campbell moved up the Savannah River with 1,044 men and occupied Augusta. There, he invited residents of the surrounding countryside to come in and take an oath of loyalty to the king and receive pardons. About 1,400 men complied. Georgia seemed securely under royal control.
Campbell awaited the arrival of Colonel James Boyd, a Tory agent recently sent into South Carolina to recruit 6,000 Loyalist volunteers. Only 600 men were actually raised. Boyd’s failure to enlist anywhere near the expected numbers of Loyalists revealed the major flaw in Britain’s southern strategy, that of overestimating American enthusiasm for the royal cause. Many Tory recruits joined only out of fear or intimidation.
As Boyd’s Tories made their way toward Augusta, 200 South Carolina militia under Colonel Andrew Pickens and 140 Georgia militia under Colonel John Dooley pursued them. Though badly outnumbered, the little Patriot force hoped to overtake Boyd’s 600 Tories. They counted on pluck and surprise to give them a victory and prevent Boyd from joining Campbell’s British garrison at Augusta.
The rebels attacked Boyd’s command as it was encamped at Kettle Creek, near present-day Washington, Ga., on February 14, 1779. They caught the Tories by surprise as they were killing cattle and grazing their horses. The battle took only an hour; and the Tory camp was overrun. The Loyalists fled in panic, leaving 20 dead, including Boyd himself, and 22 were captured. The rebels lost seven killed and 15 wounded. Campbell, concerned about a possible rebel attack on Augusta, withdrew his troops that same day and moved south toward Savannah.
Encouraged by their badly needed victory at Kettle Creek, the rebels now planned a counteroffensive in Georgia. Patriot General John Ashe, with 2,300 troops, followed Campbell’s retreating army and reached Briar Creek, 60 miles south of Augusta. The rebels hoped to reinforce Ashe there and enlarge their army to 8,000 men. Such a force could then drive the British back to Savannah and possibly retake the city. The war could be reversed and Georgia liberated.
But Campbell, a wary and aggressive commander, anticipated the rebel plan and launched a bold counterattack of his own. From his base at Hudson’s Ferry, 15 miles south of Ashe, he sent a picked force of 900 men up the southern bank of Briar Creek. The redcoats crossed upstream and hit Ashe’s camp from the rear, trapping the rebel army in the angle of Briar Creek and the Savannah River.
Ashe’s army was completely surprised. With mounted patrols out and other units on detached duty, he had only 800 men to meet the approaching British onslaught. Most of his troops were untrained, inexperienced militia, poorly armed and equipped. When the British attacked at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon on March 3, 1779, the rebel battle line was just being formed.
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