hat
the conduct of Count D'Estaing immediately after the battle was unkind
if not unjust, to the Americans. While the paragraph does not pretend to
tell the whole truth, what it does tell ought to be the truth; and this
ought to be told in such a way as to give correct impressions. The
attack upon Savannah was well-planned and thoroughly well considered;
and it failed only because the works were so ably defended, chiefly by
British regulars, under brave and skillful officers. In a remote way,
which it is the purpose of this paper to trace, that sanguinary struggle
had a wider bearing upon the progress of liberty in the Western World
than any other one battle fought during the Revolution.

But first let us listen to the story of the battle itself. Colonel
Campbell with a force of three thousand men, captured Savannah in
December 1778; and in the January following, General Prevost arrived,
and by March had established a sort of civil government in Georgia,
Savannah being the capital. In April, the American general, Lincoln,
feeble in more senses than one, perhaps, began a movement against
Savannah by way of Augusta; but Prevost, aware of his purpose, crossed
into South Carolina and attempted an attack upon Charleston. Finding the
city too well defended, he contented himself with ravaging the
plantations over a wide extent of adjacent country, and returned to
Savannah laden with rich spoils, among which were included three
thousand slaves, of whose labor he made good use later.

The patriots of the South now awaited in hope the coming of the French
fleet; and on the first of September, Count D'Estaing appeared suddenly
on the coast of Georgia with thirty-three sail, surprised and captured
four British war-ships, and, announced to the government of South
Carolina his readiness to assist in the recapture of Savannah. He urged
as a condition, however, that his ships should not be detained long off
so dangerous a coast, as it was now the hurricane season, and there was
neither harbor, road, nor offing for their protection.

By means of small vessels sent from Charleston he effected a landing in
ten days, and four days thereafter, on the 16th, he summoned the
garrison to surrender to the arms of France. Although this demand was
made in the name of France for the plain reason that the American army
was not yet upon the spot, the loyalists did not fail to make it a
pretext for the accusation that the French were desirous of mak