After 1778 there was no more decisive fighting in the North.The British plan was to hold New York and keep there a threatening force, but to make the South henceforth the central arena of the war.Accordingly, in 1779, they evacuated Rhode Island and left the magnificent harbor of Newport to be the chief base for the French fleet and army in America.They also drew in their posts on the Hudson and left Washington free to strengthen West Point and other defenses by which he was blocking the river.Meanwhile they were striking staggering blows in the South.On December 29, 1778, a British force landed two miles below Savannah, in Georgia, lying near the mouth of the important Savannah River, and by nightfall, after some sharp fighting, took the place with its stores and shipping.Augusta, the capital of Georgia, lay about a hundred and twenty-five miles up the river.By the end of February, 1779, the British not only held Augusta but had established so strong a line of posts in the interior that Georgia seemed to be entirely under their control.
Then followed a singular chain of events.Ever since hostilities had begun, in 1775, the revolutionary party had been dominant in the South.Yet now again in 1779 the British flag floated over the capital of Georgia.Some rejoiced and some mourned.Men do not change lightly their political allegiance.Probably Boston was the most completely revolutionary of American towns.Yet even in Boston there had been a sad procession of exiles who would not turn against the King.The South had been more evenly divided.
Now the Loyalists took heart and began to assert themselves.
When the British seemed secure in Georgia bands of Loyalists marched into the British camp in furious joy that now their day was come, and gave no gentle advice as to the crushing of rebellion.Many a patriot farmhouse was now destroyed and the hapless owner either killed or driven to the mountains to live as best he could by hunting.Sometimes even the children were shot down.It so happened that a company of militia captured a large band of Loyalists marching to Augusta to support the British cause.Here was the occasion for the republican patriots to assert their principles.To them these Loyalists were guilty of treason.Accordingly seventy of the prisoners were tried before a civil court and five of them were hanged.For this hanging of prisoners the Loyalists, of course, retaliated in kind.Both the British and American regular officers tried to restrain these fierce passions but the spirit of the war in the South was ruthless.To this day many a tale of horror is repeated and, since Loyalist opinion was finally destroyed, no one survived to apportion blame to their enemies.It is probable that each side matched the other in barbarity.
The British hoped to sweep rapidly through the South, to master it up to the borders of Virginia, and then to conquer that breeding ground of revolution.In the spring of 1779 General Prevost marched from Georgia into South Carolina.On the 12th of May he was before Charleston demanding surrender.We are astonished now to read that, in response to Prevost's demand, a proposal was made that South Carolina should be allowed to remain neutral and that at the end of the war it should join the victorious side.This certainly indicates a large body of opinion which was not irreconcilable with Great Britain and seems to justify the hope of the British that the beginnings of military success might rally the mass of the people to their side.For the moment, however, Charleston did not surrender.The resistance was so stiff that Prevost had to raise the siege and go back to Savannah.
Suddenly, early in September, 1779, the French fleet under d'Estaing appeared before Savannah.It had come from the West Indies, partly to avoid the dreaded hurricane season of the autumn in those waters.The British, practically without any naval defense, were confronted at once by twenty-two French ships of the line, eleven frigates, and many transports carrying an army.The great flotilla easily got rid of the few British ships lying at Savannah.An American army, under General Lincoln, marched to join d'Estaing.The French landed some three thousand men, and the combined army numbered about six thousand.A siege began which, it seemed, could end in only one way.Prevost, however, with three thousand seven hundred men, nearly half of them sick, was defiant, and on the 9th of October the combined French and American armies made a great assault.They met with disaster.D'Estaing was severely wounded.With losses of some nine hundred killed and wounded in the bitter fighting the assailants drew off and soon raised the siege.The British losses were only fifty-four.In the previous year French and Americans fighting together had utterly failed.Now they had failed again and there was bitter recrimination between the defeated allies.
D'Estaing sailed away and soon lost some of his ships in a violent storm.Ill-fortune pursued him to the end.He served no more in the war and in the Reign of Terror in Paris, in 1794, he perished on the scaffold.
