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Digging Savannah
Archaeologists find Revolutionary War and Native American artifacts in downtown sites
Archaeologists with the Coastal Heritage Society have been digging in Emmet Park and Madison Square. They’re looking for evidence from the Revolutionary War era, but are encountering surprises from other periods of history along the way.
“We’ve found an Indian site, a midden or trash heap,” says Rita Elliott, curator of exhibits and archaeology for the CHS, says. “We’ve found oyster shells, animal bones and pottery.”
The midden, located in Emmet Park, is about 2,000 years old, Elliott says. Local folklore suggests that Yamacraw Bluff once was the site of an Indian settlement and still contains an Indian mound. Elliott says it’s possible.
“The English thought this was a great spot to live and the Indians would have thought so, too,” she says. “It makes sense that there would be an Indian mound on a bluff here.”
But what Elliott and her co-workers are looking now for is evidence from just a few centuries ago. “The Coastal Heritage Society got a grant from the National Park Service based on the work we did in 2005, when we found the Spring Hill Redoubt, Elliott says.
That work was done at the Battlefield Park at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and the Old Louisville Road. During that excavation, several artifacts from the Revolutionary War were found.
“The focus of the grant is to find out if anything is left from the Revolutionary War in Savannah,” Elliott says. “And, if there is, what kind of shape it’s in.”
To begin the search, Elliott obtained maps showing where the Battle of Savannah was fought. “We went to Pennsylvania, New York and Michigan and got lots of maps and archival material,” she says. “We brought the maps back and worked with the city to do GIS (geographic information systems work). We lined up the maps with modern-day Savannah.”
The Battle of Savannah was fought on two main approaches, Elliott says. “The main one was at Spring Hill where the heart of the battle was fought,” she says. “The second approach was at the central redoubt, where the colonists attempted to throw the British off.”
About 12,000 troops took part in the October 1779 battle. The British forces defeated the Americans and their French and Haitian allies, and about 800 were killed or wounded during the fierce fighting.
Some battle sites now lie under buildings. “We wanted to see which ones fall in green space, such as Emmet Park,” Elliott says. “We do archaeology to see what’s there. We’ve looked at all of Emmet Park.”
Radar was used to locate the most promising spots. “We did shovel tests where the radar said some things might be,” Elliott says. “We’re down to about 1800. We’ve gotten back as far as 1812.”
Elliott points out an excavation in Emmet Park. The dirt is marked in such a way that indicates some type of structure was located there. “We think it might be some kind of cellar,” she says.
For now, digging has been finished at Emmet Park and Madison Square. “We’ll take a look at the budget and if we can, we’ll look at other squares,” Elliott says.
“It’s a year-long grant,” she says. “That means a year to do research, field work and do an exhibit. There are just three of us and a volunteer.
“I see this project as a model project,” Elliott says. “Savannah was founded in 1733, but there are very few buildings from that period. If we want to tell the story of colonial Savannah and Revolutionary War Savannah, archaeology is the way to do it.”
There is great potential for cultural tourism because of Savannah’s Revolutionary War history, Elliott says. “We’ve had a huge amount of tourists come by to see what we’re doing,” she says.
“Across the board, they’ve all been uniformly positive about it,” Elliott says. “It’s nice to see that kind of support.”
Archaeologists don’t just look for artifacts, they look at the ground itself. “We’re looking for evidence and clues in the ground,” Elliott says. “Sometimes that is as important as artifacts.”
But still, some artifacts are being found. Elliott’s husband, Daniel, holds out a handful of pottery shards. “They’re from around 1800,” he says. “They’re post Revolutionary War, but could be from about 1812. They also could be from the Civil War.”
Laura Seifert found something, too -- a very modern water pipe. “We have to dig out the modern layer,” she says. “I knew we weren’t deep enough. It takes a lot of work to get down where we need to be.”
Carl Arndt of the Coastal Georgia Archaeology Society is a volunteer who is helping with the dig.
“I like to dig and to find relics of the past,” he says. “I’m retired, so I can more or less work at the same time the archaeologists need me.”
Arndt, too, has found artifacts. “I’ve found a bunch of rusting nails,” he says.
The nails are cut, which means they’re much older than modern types of nails. Arndt also has found some pottery shards, including Indian pottery.
“I’ve found different brass objects,” he says. “I found a heart-shaped pendant and the bottom part of a shoe. But the things we didn’t find are probably as important as what we found.”
At Madison Square, Elliott and her team discovered two musket balls -- one French, the other British -- as well as a shoe buckle, a brass ring and lots of loose brick fragments. The artifacts were found in the northeast corner of Madison Square between the Savannah DeSoto Hilton hotel and E. Shaver, Bookseller.
Elliott believes the site at Madison Square occupies the location of a French and American diversionary attack on British lines, designed to distract attention away from the main attack on the Spring Hill Redoubt. The brick fragments may be remnants of a former military barracks.
The barracks were torn down before the battle to provide cover for British troops defending the city. The artifacts were found in the shadow of a monument to Sgt. William Jasper, who died in the 1779 battle.
The dig is being conducted under the watchful eye of David White, the director of the City of Savannah’s Parks and Trees Department. It’s pretty uncommon to have archaeologists digging in the city’s prized parks and squares, he said.
“That’s why we’ve been so concerned,” White says. “We were kind of taken by surprise. They coordinated with the city manager’s office and it didn’t filter down to us.”
At one point, White nearly shut the dig down. “We’ve very protective of the squares,” he says.
As an enthusiast of history, White is now enjoying watching the dig. “There might have been houses here at one time,” he muses. “When you go back 250 years, there’s no telling what was going on at that time.”
Elliott says White’s protectiveness is good for archaeology, because it protects precious sites. After all, once a site is destroyed, it’s gone for ever.
“If someone lived here, archaeology will tell us,” she says.
So far, no skeletal remains have turned up.
“We haven’t found any body parts. We haven’t found the mass grave at Spring Hill. There’s been a lot of construction over there over the years. Whether it still exists, we don’t know,” Elliott says.
“Over here, it’s less likely to find a body in Emmet Park, but you never know,” she says. “That’s one of the things that makes archaeology interesting.”
http://www.connectsavannah.com/savannah/digging-savannah/Content?oid=2159170
The siege of Savannah, the second deadliest battle of the Revolutionary War (1775-83), took place in the fall of 1779. It was the most serious military confrontation in Georgia between British and Continental (American revolutionary) troops, as the Americans, with help from French forces, tried unsuccessfully to liberate the city from its year long occupation by the British.
The Continental army's failure to recapture Savannah marked a signal British victory in a distinctly international affair. Among the senior commanders fighting with the American revolutionaries (or Whigs) were Count Charles Henri d'Estaing of France, Arthur Dillon and his "Wild Geese" of Ireland, and Polish aristocrat Casimir Pulaski. Together, they faced the Tories, composed of British and Scots regulars joined by German mercenary troops (Hessians), American Loyalists, American Indians, and armed slaves.
France Joins the Revolution
French Royalists joined the North American rebellion against the British Crown after the defeat of British general John Burgoyne in 1777 at Saratoga, New York. On February 6, 1778, France signed both a treaty of amity and commerce and a treaty of defensive alliance with the newly established United States. French king Louis XVI then ordered d'Estaing, a senior officer in the French navy, to take command of the Toulon (Mediterranean) Squadron and sail for North America.
For the first time in French naval history, a French squadron crossed the Atlantic Ocean with the primary mission of combat. The squadron took part in the Battle of Rhode Island in August 1778 before capturing the West Indies islands of St. Vincent and Grenada in July 1779. In an undated letter, Charles-François Sevelinges (or the Marquis de Bretigny), a Frenchman in South Carolina service, wrote to d'Estaing and urged him to recapture Savannah, which had been under British control since December 29, 1778. He insisted that the city could be taken without firing a shot.
D'Estaing agreed. On September 3, 1779, a British lookout reported five French men-of-war approaching Tybee Island. The remainder of d'Estaing's fleet, consisting of thirty-three warships and transports carrying more than 4,000 troops, reached Tybee Island on September 9. The French squadron arrived at the worst possible time of year, during hurricane season on the Georgia coast. While no hurricane developed during the siege of Savannah, the seasonal bad weather played a central part in its outcome.
Preparations for Battle
In Savannah, the British began work in earnest to improve their defenses. To block the French approach, they sank six ships in the Savannah River between Savannah and Tybee Roads (where the river's estuary meets the Atlantic Ocean).
On
the night of September 11 or 12 the French began landing operations at Beaulieu, fourteen miles south of Savannah on the Vernon River. Disembarking at night, without a pilot to guide them through the maze of waterways surrounding the city, the French struggled to find their way ashore. Some of the soldiers sat in open boats for three straight nights before landing. Once on land, the troops had no tents, and the rain reduced them to "a pitiable state," in the words of one French solider. It took days for the disorganized forces to begin formal operations.
Meanwhile, the upcountry Whigs, despite being divided into radical and conservative political factions, managed to turn out a poorly equipped militia, which marched south to join the French. The ferrymen on the Savannah River struggled to get General Benjamin Lincoln's long column of Continental and militia forces across the water. Liaison between these converging but separate allied forces was poor at best and even nonexistent at times.
General Lincoln finally reached Cherokee Hill, ten miles northwest of Savannah, with 600 Continental troops, 200 of Pulaski's legionnaires, and 750 militiamen. On the morning of September 16, d'Estaing demanded that British general Augustine Prevost surrender the garrison at Savannah. Prevost delayed his reply, during which time British lieutenant colonel John Maitland and his force of 800 Scottish troops (Fraser's Highlanders) arrived in Savannah after marching from Beaufort, South Carolina. With their arrival, British troops numbered 3,200, in addition to the numerous militiamen, Indian warriors, and armed slaves at Prevost's disposal.
With
their strengthened defensive posture, Prevost and his council of war agreed to reject d'Estaing's demand for surrender. Whig general William Moultrie pressed for a swift attack on Savannah, but Lincoln and d'Estaing decided instead to open siege warfare with a bombardment of the city. On September 22 the French off-loaded their heavy ordnance at Thunderbolt and Causton's Bluff, coastal communities adjacent to Savannah, and began hauling it overland some five miles. Their movement was delayed by heavy rains.
The British, meanwhile, pulled down the brick barracks in the center of their lines and erected a great defensive work, or redoubt, in its place to cover White Bluff Road leading into Savannah from the south. The defenders constructed another redoubt on the northeast corner of their line at Trustee's Garden. These main posts were defended by smaller redoubts and by a line of earthworks protected by an abatis—a closed row of sharpened stakes pointing outward and creating a formidable obstacle to any assault force, especially horsemen. In the Savannah River the armed brig Germain supported the northwest portion of the line. This ship covered the Sailors' Battery, which in turn covered the strong redoubt at Spring Hill. A creek and thick swamp guarded Prevost's western flank.
The Siege Begins
On the night of October 8, with more bad weather closing in, d'Estaing ordered his assault, which he intended to carry out as three coordinated attacks. A diversionary column of 500 South Carolina and Georgia militiamen, commanded by General Isaac Huger, made a feint—a false attack—toward the White Bluff Road redoubt in an attempt to draw British attention away from the main objective. The British met them with musketry and music, forcing Huger to withdraw.
Meanwhile, Whig-allied colonel Arthur Dillon's Irish battalion moved secretly around to the northwest and conducted a second attack, aimed at the British right flank near the Sailors' Battery. D'Estaing chose Major Charles-Noel-François Romand de l'Isle, the French officer who earlier had commanded Georgia's Continental artillery, to guide Dillon's command through the British defenses. The British had altered their fortifications, however, and Romand de l'Isle became confused, losing his way in the swamp. When Dillon's assault force finally emerged in plain view of the British, his troops met with heavy fire and were driven back.
The Whig allies executed their main attack exactly where Prevost had predicted they would—against the Spring Hill redoubt on the Ebenezer Road, a sector of the British lines commanded by Maitland. Fully alert, the defenders awaited the allied forces in the redoubt.
D'Estaing's strategy called for three French and two American columns to make a simultaneous assault at dawn, around 5 a.m. The French were to charge northeast across about 500 yards of open ground toward the Spring Hill redoubt, while the Americans were to form on the French left and charge Spring Hill from the west. The French, however, arrived late. Moreover, when the first French column reached its position on the right flank of the line of departure, d'Estaing immediately sent it forward before the other columns arrived.
French battle cry "Vive le roi!" [Long live the king!] rang out while the Scottish bagpipes of the defenders greeted the assault. British grapeshot tore into the French column as it moved across the open plain, while those who reached the abatis protecting the redoubt fell to British musket balls. In spite of the French officers' best efforts, their attack column broke away and sought the protection of the surrounding woods. As the second and third French columns moved into the attack, they met with the same fate as the comrades who had preceded them.
In the American zone, Pulaski waited for the infantry to breach the defensive lines so that he could lead his 200 horsemen on a charge through the gap. Colonel John Laurens's 2nd Regiment South Carolina Continentals and the 1st Battalion Charleston Militia led the allied infantry advance. General Lachlan McIntosh followed with the 1st and 5th South Carolina Continentals, along with some Georgia regulars. They crossed the open area, swarmed into the ditch, hacked their way through the sharp-pointed abatis, and planted the flags of South Carolina and France on the earthworks. The British, in response, cut down the attackers and their colors, and launched an aggressive counterattack, led by the grenadiers of the 60th Regiment and a company of marines. The battle raged for nearly an hour. The defeated allies retreated, leaving 80 dead in the ditch and 93 more between it and the abatis. None of the French grenadiers had managed to get inside the redoubt.
Realizing the crisis and impatient to act, Pulaski left his cavalry under cover in the woods and rode forward to investigate the field. As he did so, word reached him that d'Estaing had been cut down with his men and was possibly dead. Pulaski, accompanied by his aide, Captain Paul Bentalou, rode forward to see the ground for himself. As he did so, grapeshot from either the Sailors' Battery or the Germain—it is uncertain which—hit Pulaski in the groin, causing a mortal wound. Back at the woodline, his troops realized that a charge against the British defenses would be futile and began a retreat. As they moved into the swamp, the horsemen swept away part of Laurens's command, causing Laurens to lose control of his scattered and disorganized units.
Aftermath of the Siege
Continental senior officer Thomas Pinckney returned to General Lincoln with the report that not one allied soldier was left standing in front of Spring Hill. The French withdrew to Causton's Bluff and Thunderbolt, where they returned to their ships in the Savannah River and sailed away. Lincoln had no option but to withdraw to Charleston, South Carolina. The militiamen melted away.
The Whig allies lost about 1,094 killed, including about 650 French troops. In addition, Prevost returned to their commands some 116 wounded allies, most of them having received mortal wounds. British losses, according to General Henry Clinton, were 16 killed and 39 wounded. However, other sources claim that these figures include "King's troops" only and do not count their Loyalist or German auxiliaries. Most authorities accept the figure of about 40 killed and 63 wounded. General Clinton declared that the defeat of the allied assault on Savannah was "the greatest event that has happened in the whole war."
The immediate results of the siege of Savannah included a humiliating defeat for the French, the hardening of British policy against rebellious Americans in the South, and the realization by Georgia Loyalists and their British protectors that resistance in the upcountry must be crushed without mercy. Long-term results included the restoration of Georgia to colonial status. From this vantage, the British were able to expand their control north into the Carolinas and Virginia. Further, large numbers of Americans who had been somewhat indifferent to the conflict began to flock to the British standard, believing that the revolutionary enterprise was doomed to failure.
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/siege-savannah