t D'Estaing resolved on immediate departure. General Lincoln was
indignant, but concealed his wrath; and being too weak to carry on the
siege alone, he at last consented to abandon it.

The French loss, in killed and wounded, was six hundred and thirty-seven
men, and the American four hundred and fifty-seven. The British lost one
captain, two subalterns, four sergeants, and thirty-two soldiers,
killed; and two captains, two sergeants, two drummers, and fifty-six
soldiers, wounded. Colonel Maitland was attacked with a bilious disease
during the siege and soon after died. The British troops had been sickly
before Savannah was attacked; but the soldiers were reanimated, and
sickness, in a manner, was suspended, during active operations. But when
the Americans withdrew, and all excitement had ceased, sickness returned
with aggravated violence, and fully one fourth the men were sent to the
hospital.

While these operations were going on in Georgia and South Carolina a
disaster overtook the grenadiers of the 71st who were posted at Stony
Point and Verplanks, in the state of New York. Washington planned the
attack on Stony Point and deputed General Wayne to execute it. So
secretly was the whole movement conducted, that the British garrison was
unsuspicious of danger. At eight o'clock, on the evening of July 15,
1779, General Wayne took post in a hollow, within two miles of the fort
on Stony Point, and there remained unperceived until midnight, when he
formed his men into two columns, Lieutenant-Colonel Fleury leading one
division and Major Stewart the other. At the head of each was a forlorn
hope of twenty men. Both parties were close upon the works before they
were discovered. A skirmish with the pickets at once ensued, the
Americans using the bayonet only. In a few moments the entire works were
manned, and the Americans were compelled to press forward in the face of
a terrible storm of grape shot and musket balls. Over the ramparts and
into the fort both columns pushed their way. At two o'clock the morning
of the 16th, General Wayne wrote to Washington:

"The fort and garrison, with Colonel Johnson, are ours. The officers
and men behaved like men who were determined to be free."

The British lost nineteen soldiers killed, and one captain, two
subalterns, and seventy two soldiers, wounded; and, in all, including
prisoners, six hundred. The principal part of this loss fell upon the
picket, commanded by Lieutenant Cumm