The summer of 1778 saw Supreme British commander General Henry Clinton with troop concentrations in three major locations; Newport, Rhode Island, New York City, and East Florida at St. Augustine. New York City and East Florida would remain in British hands, but Rhode Island’s troops would soon be contested by an expedition that combined French and American forces. The Siege and Battle of Rhode Island, August 9 – 29, 1778, proved to be a shambles with dashed hopes for a quick and decisive victory. France had joined the war as America’s allies earlier that year and arrived with a fleet and troops under Admiral Comte de Estaing to invest itself on American soil. Only just as French troops embarked, they reloaded their men and set sail, fearful of a threatening storm. They would not return. The storm pounded the French ships, forcing them first to Boston for repairs, then onto the Caribbean. The abandoned and outnumbered Americans were left to their fate. Without French support, militiamen deserted for home leaving the Continental forces no other course but to retreat before British and German troops sallying from their entrenchments.
Rhode Island’s fiasco and disappointment had a far more important impact on the war than Washington’s inability to pry the British from New England. It established doubt. In the minds of both Congress and London. It questioned France’s commitment to the Americas. To shield their desire for war with England only as a tool to gobble up British holdings in the Caribbean and West Indies. England and France had been battling over the southern island colonies for generations. And for these two old rivals, the West Indies were far more profitable than enabling American colonies to govern themselves. With the war in the American north stalled by a cautious Clinton probing his enemy from behind strong defenses, and American General George Washington’s continued Fabian tactics that failed to produce a decisive battle, England’s puppet masters looked south.
Even before Rhode Island, England’s Secretary for the American Colonies, Lord George Germain had already set his sights on beefing up British holdings in the Caribbean. That included establishing a strong presence in the southern colonies; particularly coastal harbors and ports. Though Florida remained British, there were far better ports at Savannah and Charleston that would act as bases for the navy. With those rich trade centers under his belt, England’s navy could dominate not only the American coast, but control trade channels between the colonies and the Caribbean. From southern coastal bases, British troops and its navy could respond quicker to Caribbean threats from France.
So too, with the report of legions of loyalists ready to bear arms for their king, especially the large number of Scottish immigrants, it would be a simple matter to subjugate Georgia and South Carolina’s interior. Command of the Carolinas would sever the critical link of southern commodities and comestibles sent to the northern colonies; erupting both the colonial war effort and devastate an already fragile economy many in England believed was in its dying breaths. Lastly, England’s farsighted tacticians were already looking to end the war most favorable to British interests. It became important to reach out into the interior of America to control as much colonial land as possible. If and when a Peace Treaty was signed, England could be left with a considerable chunk of her former colonial holdings. This would increase the Ministry’s bargaining position, leaving a fractured United States that would remain vulnerable for future British influence and possible conquest.
A further cause for a southern expedition was to placate the English public. The Ministry was under pressure to save face after three years of North American war and some type of change was necessary to gain at least some level of support for the colonial war.[1] London’s decision to test American southern strength was finalized while General Henry Clinton was still in Philadelphia. Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord George Germain, wrote to Clinton on March 8, 1778. In the same letter that gave Supreme command of British forces in America, he advised his new chief that he abandon Philadelphia. That an expedition to the southern colonies was “considered by the King [George III] as an object of great importance in the scale of the war.” Once back in New York City, Clinton began plans to comply with the ministry’s request. Ships were assembled and regiments and battalions selected for the expedition.
Washington knew something was adrift when his spies reported in November, 1778, that troops were assembling along New York City’s harbor and transports were being readied. But the American commander had no information of any southern invasion along the coast, believing that with French beefing up its presence in the Caribbean, England was shifting their troops away from the American theatre to their West Indies bases. On November 26, 1778, Lt. Colonel Archibald Campbell[2] set sail for Savannah, Georgia, with 3,100 battle hardened regulars. He was to join with Brigadier General Augustine Prevost, commander at St. Augustine, Florida, who would march his small army up from Florida.
On December 29, 1778, Lt. Colonel Campbell defeated American Brigadier General Robert Howe’s inferior force at Savannah, Georgia. England had her foot in the door and was far more committed when General Clinton sailed to Charleston in December of 1779 with a much larger invasion force. After capturing the Southern Continental army under Major General Benjamin Lincoln in May, 1780, British forces were ingrained in a fight for the southern interior. The southern colonies would be the battleground that would ultimately decide the war’s outcome. But Clinton had already foreseen looming disaster the very day he received his commission as commander-in-chief, writing “The great change which public Affairs had undergone, in Europe as well as America…had so clouded every prospect of a successful issue to the unfortunate contest we were engaged in…a change so hopeless as this now appeared likely to be.”[3]
If you would like to read more, we recommend the following books:
Of similar interest on Revolutionary War Journal
RESOURCES
Commager, Henry Steele & Morris, Richard B. The Spirit of Seventy-Six: The Story of the American Revolution As Told by Participants. 1958: Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, Indiana.
Gordon, John W. South Carolina and the American Revolution: A Battlefield History. 2003:University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, South Carolina.
Jones, Charles C. The History of Georgia: Volume 2 Revolutionary Epoch. 1883: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., Boston, MA.
McCall, Hugh. The History of Georgia, Containing Brief Sketches of the Most Remarkable Events Up to the Present Day: Volume 2. 1816: Printed and Published by William T. Williams, Savannah, GA.
Russell, David Lee. The American Revolution in the Southern Colonies. 2000:McFarland and Company, Inc., Jefferson, North Carolina.
Wilson, David K (2005). The Southern Strategy: Britain’s Conquest of South Carolina and Georgia, 1775–1780. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press
ENDNOTES
[1] Russell, pg. 99.
[2] Lt. Colonel Archibald Campbell had recently been exchanged for Ethan Allen. Lt. Colonel Archibald Campbell, leading the 71st Highland regiment, arrived Boston Harbor on June 16, 1776 with a detachment of his regiment. He was unaware that British General Howe had evacuated Boston some months earlier and he was soon surrounded by American privateers. In lightly armed transports, he suffered many casualties before forced to surrender. Ethan Allen, the former Green Mountain Boys’ leader – his men had voted him out after he convinced one and all his ability to down a bottle of rum far exceeded his value as a military leader – been captured during an impromptu and poorly planned attack he led on Montreal, September 25, 1775. The exchange took place in New York City on May 6, 1778. By far the British received the better deal. Campbell returned to lead his 71st Highlanders in the Southern Theatre with capture of Savannah. When Washington received Allen, he knew of the braggard’s incompetence and soon after sent him packing to northern Vermont with a worthless title. There, Allen spent the rest of the war far from hostilities, nursing his pride and the bottle, while treating his drinking buddies to his war epics, imaginary tales far from reality.
[3] Russell, pg. 98.