with a view to partial conquest.
But the loss of the army commanded by Burgoyne, the alliance of
America with France, and the unexpected obstinacy with which the
contest was maintained, had diminished their confidence; and, when the
pacific propositions made in 1778 were rejected, the resolution seems
to have been taken to change, materially, the object of their military
operations; and, maintaining possession of the islands of New York, to
direct their arms against the southern states, on which, it was
believed, a considerable impression might be made.

It was not unreasonable to suppose that the influence of this
impression might extend northward; but, however this might be, the
actual conquest and possession of several states would, when
negotiations for a general peace should take place, give a complexion
to those negotiations, and afford plausible ground for insisting to
retain territory already acquired. The most active and interesting
operations therefore of the succeeding campaigns, were in the southern
states.

Lieutenant Colonel Campbell, who sailed from the Hook about the last
of November, 1778, escorted by a small squadron commanded by
Commodore Hyde Parker, reached the isle of Tybee, near the Savannah,
on the 23d of December; and, in a few days, the fleet and the
transports passed the bar, and anchored in the river.

The command of the southern army, composed of the troops of South
Carolina and Georgia, had been committed to Major General Robert Howe,
who, in the course of the preceding summer, had invaded East
Florida.[16] The diseases incident to the climate made such ravages
among his raw soldiers, that, though he had scarcely seen an enemy, he
found himself compelled to hasten out of the country with considerable
loss. After this disastrous enterprise, his army, consisting of
between six and seven hundred continental troops, aided by a few
hundred militia, had encamped in the neighbourhood of the town of
Savannah, situated on the southern bank of the river bearing that
name. The country about the mouth of the river is one tract of deep
marsh, intersected by creeks and cuts of water, impassable for troops
at any time of the tide, except over causeways extending through the
sunken ground.

[Footnote 16: So early as January, 1776, congress had recommended the
reduction of St. Augustine to the southern colonies.--_Secret Journals
of Congress, page 38._]

[Sidenote: Invasion of Georgia.]

Without mu