Southern Mainland States.
In mid-1778, the French navy was as yet uncommitted and had a choice of where it wished to go. It could concentrate on the English Channel, where its enemy was massed, and force a decisive battle. The Comte de Vergennes, however, preferred to fight a more limited war, which reflected the fact that despite improvements, the French navy still felt itself to be inferior to the Royal Navy.1 Therefore he favored tying down the British home fleet in the English Channel, while sending out considerable forces to overseas’ theaters like the West Indies or the rebellious American colonies. Many historians think that this was a mistake, arguing that Vergennes would have been wiser to concentrate on the Channel, rather than dispersing his strength overseas.
The Royal Navy’s primary duty was now controlling the English Channel, especially observing the activities of France’s naval base at Brest.2 In July 1778, the classic showdown between the maneuvering British and French battle fleets in the English Channel finally took place. Admiral Augustus Keppel’s ships met those of Admiral Comte Louis d’Orvilliers near Ushant Island off Brest. The battle was inconclusive, but the French performed well enough to shake British confidence in their naval superiority.
France had developed an important naval base at Toulon in the Mediterranean, which was much more difficult to watch than the Channel. Earlier in February, Vergennes had sent Admiral Charles-Henri-Hector d’Estaing to take command of the French fleet at Toulon and it became evident to the British that he would lead that fleet to a distant destination. A cousin of Lafayette, d’Estaing was a very thin man, having suffered from a severe bout of dysentery.3 The 49-year-old had been a lieutenant general in the French army, but now received the position of vice admiral of the French navy, which would make him France’s senior naval officer when he arrived in American waters. His land experience was thought to qualify him to lead amphibious operations, using sailors as marines. However, French naval officers resented outsiders from the army, who had been forced to find jobs in the navy after the army was reduced. D’Estaing may have been a brave soldier, but he seemed confused and indecisive as naval officer. In an ironic twist of fate, he would be guillotined during the French Revolution.
British intelligence usually knew all, but the French were able to keep d’Estaing’s destination a secret. Were the British to remain concentrated in the Channel in case d’Estaing went there, or would they disperse if he headed for America? Sandwich believed that the Channel must remain the highest priority for fear of invasion, and he hesitated to create separate navy fleets for distant theaters.4 Thus, no squadron was sent to Gibraltar or the Mediterranean Straits to determine d’Estaing’s direction. Finally, Royal Navy ships found him in the Atlantic and it was realized that he was heading for America and a warning was sent to Admiral Howe, who received it off the Delaware Capes. In Britain, a relieving squadron was formed to follow d’Estaing, but it was delayed because of the usual manning and supply difficulties.5
Having been warned, Admiral Howe had rushed the Philadelphia evacuation to be able to face d’Estaing’s fleet as it neared New York. In reality, the French fleet greatly outnumbered and out gunned Howe’s fleet.6 Reinforcements for Howe from the Channel Fleet had not yet come. He had to make do with his New York resources, taking volunteers from the transports to fill the gaps in his crews, receiving marines from the army by lot, while New York’s Chamber of Commerce and merchants offered recruits, provided fire ships and scouted for the admiral.
In early July, d’Estaing’s fleet arrived off the Delaware coast and Congress’s Marine Committee welcomed it by offering water and food. The French then moved north toward Sandy Hook, New Jersey, a notorious center of night-time smuggling. Inside the bend of Sandy Hook Island, Howe had double anchored his ships and springs were applied to the anchors allowing the ships to swing into position for a broadside. D’Estaing came within a mile of Howe, but dared not attack the shallows of the Hook as they were unknown to him.7 He never seemed to have mastered the navigational skills necessary to command a great fleet. He sounded the harbor bar and maneuvered for several days, while Howe and Clinton strengthened Sandy Hook’s land defenses. D’Estaing had not received the promised supplies from the Marine Committee, as they had been delayed because of a ‘long land carriage’. Finally, he gave up, veering off from Sandy Hook’s shallows and headed into the Atlantic.
D’Estaing eluded Howe’s fleet and went to Newport to coordinate with a rebel army besieging the town. On August 8, the French fleet entered Narragansett Bay, but suddenly Howe’s fleet appeared and positioned itself advantageously. Unfamiliar with the waters, d’Estaing again backed off from a confrontation. He then doubled back to threaten Newport, but a gale suddenly incapacitated both fleets. Admiral Howe’s Apollo was completely dismasted and Hamond found Howe sitting by the rudder head of his damaged ship, so he had him transferred to the safety of another ship. The siege of Newport by the rebels failed. D’Estaing decided to take his fleet to Boston for repair as the Roebuck and other warships shadowed the limping fleet to the very edge of Boston Harbor.8 D’Estaing would eventually sail to Martinique. Howe’s fleet was back at Sandy Hook on September 11, the admiral having succeed in protecting New York and Newport from a more powerful enemy fleet.
Admiral Howe’s feat in the face of personal danger would enhance his reputation when he returned to England. An admirer summed up his achievement:
Thus, by a happy mixture of prudent and bold measures, by a series of maneuvers, which the naval tactic was scarcely thought capable of exhibiting; … Lord Howe, having, with forces so unequal, defeated all the great designs of the enemy, protected the army and the fleet of transports at New-York, raised the siege of Rhode Island, and driven the French Squadron into the port of Boston, whence their shattered condition would not suffer them to venture for a length of time …9
After the evacuation of Philadelphia and Howe’s defense of New York, it appeared to Lord Germain and Sir Henry Clinton that the South, with its strong Loyalism among whites and blacks, was now the best place to carry on the war.10 The policy was a reaction to the situation in the Middle Colonies where, despite the Howe’s successes, Washington’s army remained stubbornly at large. It recognized that New England was a bottomless source of recruits for the rebel military, thwarting any hope of restoring that region to the crown. The renewed assault on the South would begin at the furthest distance in Georgia and from there lead to the conquest of Charleston, and ultimately move north to Virginia and the Chesapeake.
At the outbreak of the Revolution, fortified St Augustine, Florida was strategically placed to serve as a British base on edge of the Southern colonies. It had been taken from Spain by the
British at the Seven Years’ War peace table. The commander of its garrison was Swiss-born Augustine Prévost, a colonel of the 60th Regiment.11 The 60th had been raised in North America during the Seven Years’ War and included many foreign and colonial Protestants and was dedicated to the forest tactics necessary in North America. Prévost and Governor Patrick Tryon of East Florida had their differences, but with its own vice-admiralty court, St Augustine attracted Loyalist privateers and a few Royal Navy ships. Its harbor was protected by a treacherous bar and channel, which could only be navigated with a pilot.
Southern Mainland States.
As the first step in the Southern strategy, Clinton sent 3,000 Germans and Provincials under Highlander Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell to Georgia, in a squadron under Hyde Parker. They arrived in late December 1778 and were guided by an elderly female slave through the swamps, surprising the rebel garrison at Savannah. Simultaneously, Prévost invaded Georgia from St Augustine. He crossed the St Marys River into Georgia and after token resistance, the rebel forces abandoned Savannah, leaving it to be occupied by both armies at the end of the year. On Prévost’s arrival in Savannah, he took command of the British forces, as he was a brigadier general, outranking Campbell.12
Clinton wanted Savannah to be a secure post from which to invade the Carolinas. Campbell was charged with the occupation of city and the cultivation of Loyalist support. He showed a concern for the civil population that made him dreaded by rebel leaders. ‘His immediate care was to soften the asperities of war, and to reconcile to his equitable government, those who had submitted, in the first instance, to the superiority of his arms.’13 Inhabitants flocked to serve the British, altogether numbering 5,000 enslaved and free blacks and 2,000 whites.
Prévost left Georgia in March 1779 to advance into South Carolina as he felt that it was the center of the region’s opposition to the crown. He defeated the rebels at Briar Creek and reached the outskirts of Charleston. It appeared the city was ready to surrender, as long as it was agreed that South Carolina would be neutral for the rest of the war. Prévost overplayed his limited hand, however, demanding unconditional surrender of the city. General Benjamin Lincoln’s army arrived to oppose him and he was forced to lift the siege. According to Clinton, Prévost wisely retreated, leaving a force ‘under Lieutenant Colonel Maitland at Beaufort for the purpose of securing a footing in Carolina’.14 Governor John Rutledge of South Carolina painted a picture of chaos created by Prévost’s invasion, requesting help from d’Estaing in the West Indies. He decided to respond to the request as he still needed to demonstrate the valor of French arms in a victorious action.
In occupied Savannah, rumors of the gathering of 1,500 rebel troops at Augusta, Georgia, were the first indication to the British that something was a foot.
By September 1, 1779, d’Estaing’s fleet of forty-two sail and 5,000 French troops arrived from the West Indies, including black volunteers from Saint Dominque.15 They were to cooperate with Lincoln’s army. D’Estaing hoped the isolated British garrison would be easy prey, warning Lincoln that he could only be involved for a limited time. His ships had been at sea for too long and badly needed refitting, so that he had only a narrow window in which to take Savannah.
D’Estaing’s fleet appeared at Tybee light house, which the British abandoned to concentrate on the defense of the city above it. They were surprised by the extensive French force, which captured their largest ship, the 50-gun Experiment. The remaining Royal Navy squadron consisted of the 20-gun Rose, the Foley, and the smaller brig Keppel, along with the Germain, Comet and Thunderer, all three galleys from St Augustine.16 Also, the British armed two merchant vessels, the Savannah and Venus. At first, the squadron was ordered to shadow the French fleet as it advanced up the Savannah River. Considering the odds, however, it seemed best to sacrifice the squadron for the defense of the city. On September 20, the Rose, which James Wallace had commanded so effectively in Rhode Island, was scuttled and sunk to block the channel, while the Savannah and Venus were burnt, and three transports sunk to further obstruct the river. Responding to Prévost, Captains John Henry, Brown and Fisher came ashore and brought their seamen (of whom thirty were black), marines and cannon to support the town’s batteries, leaving the remaining ships almost defenseless. Most of the batteries in the town would be manned by sailors and the marines were added to the 60th Grenadiers. Sailors on transports, privateers and merchant vessels volunteered to be assigned to posts. As at Quebec, the navy would provide an important segment of the onshore defense.
With the river blocked, it took d’Estaing two weeks to move beyond the lighthouse and he was unable to get close enough to bombard the city. The allies demanded that Prévost surrender, but he refused, instead strengthening the city’s defenses as a siege became inevitable. Captain James Moncrief, the commanding engineer and a great asset, constructed an entrenched defensive line on the plains outside of the town, using slave and free black labor.17 He secured the city’s river front by throwing a boom across the river. Troops came in to defend the town from all over Georgia, including those of New York Loyalist Lieutenant Colonel John Cruger (brother of Henry). On September 16, Colonel John Maitland arrived with reinforcements of the 71st Regiment and New York Volunteers from Beaufort. The rebels were supposed to stop him before he entered the town, but they mistook his men for French troops. Maitland had left earlier, but had taken inland waterways to avoid the allies, delaying his arrival until just before a truce was called. At least 620 blacks were involved in erecting fortifications, as Black Pioneers, as volunteers and as seamen. Uniquely 250 black freemen were armed to serve as skirmishers.
Prévost’s defense forced d’Estaing into a prolonged siege.18 He was ill-prepared to establish land batteries, for his ship’s cannon had to have their carriages modified for service on land and be manned by his sailors. In October, he was finally able to erect batteries with tools lent by Lincoln, and his sailors were able to bombard the town but were ineffective against the British lines, sheltering troops and gun crews. Desperate to end the siege and move his fleet as scurvy had broken out, d’Estaing decided to launch a frontal attack on October 9 on the Spring Hill redoubt. However, a counterattack by marines and two companies of the 60th drove him back with the loss of 700 to 900 Frenchmen, killed, wounded or taken prisoner, without counting the rebels. D’Estaing himself was twice wounded. Of the defenders, only sixteen were killed and thirty-nine wounded.
After the failure of the frontal attack, the besiegers gradually lost heart as many French and rebel troops deserted to the British. On October 20, d’Estaing left his camp, retreating down the Savannah River to return to France, leaving the North American coast for the second time. He was most concerned to save his fleet for another day, having momentarily brought French and American forces together. By the end of the year, he was back in Europe ‘having achieved nothing in eighteen months cruising and fighting around the western hemisphere’.19
The failure at Savannah caused the French and Americans to blame each other, a condition that strained the alliance. It seemed to the rebels that the British were more than capable of coping with the new French presence in the war.20 On news of the repulse at Savannah, Sir Henry Clinton would be able to continue his Southern strategy by preparing an expedition against Charleston, South Carolina. Savannah would be a base for that expedition as it would continue to be occupied by the British until July 1782.
As Savannah’s slaves became freemen defending their city, ironically French and British forces struggled over West Africa, for decades the center of the slave trade. Among places they sought control of was Goree off the Senegal Coast, a notorious if not flourishing slave-trading island, from which slaves in Savannah may have come. Early in 1779, the French had taken it from the British, but only months later, Admiral Edward Hughes’ reinforcements on the way to the Indian Ocean returned it to British control.21 The slave-quarters had actually fallen into disuse as the war had interrupted the slave trade, leading Goree’s merchants to diversify into peanuts, gum Arabic and ivory, providing a more secure future for the colony. The 1783 Peace of Paris restored Goree and Senegal to the French.