Website Designed by Michael Irving
Savannah During the American Revolution
-
1765: Savannah protests the Stamp Act, although not to the degree of most other colonies. South Carolina firebrands belittle Georgians, questioning their patriotism and calling them the colonial equivalent of girlie-men.
-
1768: Benjamin Franklin agrees to become Georgia's representative to England. He also represented Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Savannah will repay the debt by renaming a square for this founding father.
-
1770: James Wright, Georgia's colonial governor, dissolves the colonial assembly after long-running friction between the two. In Massachusetts, the Boston Massacre takes place.
-
1773: The Boston Tea Party excites patriots and infuriates loyalists across the colonies.
-
1774: The Intolerable Acts close Boston Harbor and anger many in the colonies. The Liberty Boys in Savannah hold their first organized meeting. The First Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia (no delegates from Georgia make the trip).
-
1775: The battles of Lexington and Concord move the argument between the crown and its colonists from bitter words to open warfare. In Savannah, patriots raid the royal powder magazine on Reynolds Square and divide the powder with revolutionaries from South Carolina.
-
1776: In January, a group of patriots storm the governor's mansion on St. James (now Telfair) Square and arrest Wright. The governor leaves the colony the next month. That summer, three delegates from Georgia - George Walton, Lyman Hall and Button Gwinnett - attend the Continental Congress and sign the Declaration of Independence.
-
1777: On Feb. 5, Archibald Bulloch becomes Georgia's first elected governor, but he dies after only a month in office. Gwinnett steps in as acting governor. His term is short also. Gen. Lachlan McIntosh fatally wounds Gwinnett in a duel on May 16. Later that year, George Washington and the Continental Army winter at Valley Forge.
-
1778: In late December, the Continental Army guarding Savannah offers almost no resistance to an attack, leaving the city again in British hands.
-
1779: In January, British forces capture Augusta. Soon, Wright returns as governor of Georgia. From Sept. 8 until Oct. 9, French and American forces surround and threaten Savannah, but are unable to break through British defenses.
-
1780: The British turn their attention to the South and win key battles at Charleston and Camden. But the Americans win a vital decision at King's Mountain in the Carolinas. Washington names Nathanael Greene as commander of Continental forces in the South.
-
1781: Colonial forces take control of Augusta in June. Lord Cornwallis finds himself trapped in Yorktown, with Washington on the land side and a French fleet blocking any escape by water. The British surrender in October effectively ends the war.
-
1782: The British evacuate Savannah on July 11. Georgian James Jackson and his troops are allowed to enter the city first among Continental forces.
-
1783: The United States and Great Britain sign the Treaty of Paris, the official end to the conflict.
-
Sources: "Savannah: A History of Her People Since 1733," by Preston Russell and Barbara Hines; "Angel in the Whirlwind: The Triumph of the American Revolution," by Benson Bobrick; and the New Georgia Encyclopedia.
-Compiled by Chuck Mobley
Battlefield Protection grants for 2007
The National Park Service's American Battlefield Protection Program awarded 19 grants in 2007. The awards totaled $492,184, and they are intended to assist in the protection and preservation of sites in several states, including Battlefield Park in downtown Savannah.
The program has co-sponsored 328 projects in 37 states since 1990.
The 2007 projects, excepting the one in Savannah, were:
Alabama Historical Commission; $37,800; assess condition of masonry at Fort Morgan, a Civil War-era stronghold in Mobile Bay.
Branchburg (N.J.) Historical Society; $6,750; conduct an archeological survey at the site of the Revolutionary War Battle of Two Bridges.
Buckland (Va.) Preservation Society; $40,100; develop a preservation plan for the site of the Battle of Buckland Mills.
Burlington (Vermont) Community & Economic Development Office; $43,982; conduct a cultural landscape inventory of Burlington's sites associated with the War of 1812.
Central Virginia Battlefields Trust Inc.; $4,100; fund brochures and wayside exhibit panels to interpret the 1864 Battle of Harris Farm.
Citizens for Fauquier County; $25,100; identify and document battle sites at Auburn, part of the 1863 Bristoe Station Campaign.
Western Missouri Civil War Round Table; $4,000; fund preparation of a National Register of Historic Places nomination for the Little Blue River Civil War battlefield.
Fauquier County Government; $18,100; fund a series of public seminars to build public support to start preservation planning for Fauquier County's 12 Civil War battlefields.
Guilford (N.C.) Battleground Company; $21,000; fund a community-based campaign to promote battlefield preservation in central North Carolina.
Heidelberg (Mich.) College Center for Historic and Military; $21,500; document and seek to preserve newly identified War of 1812 battlefield areas at River Raisin.
Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center (Conn.); $27,000; fund a survey of areas now outside the National Register boundary of the 1637 Battle of Mystic Fort, and develop a long-range plan to protect them.
Nevada County (Ark.) Industrial Development Corp.; $28,097; fund the preparation of a preservation plan for the Civil War battlefields of Elkin's Ferry and Prairie D'Ane.
Preservation Society for the American Revolution (Mich.); $9,500; fund the establishment of a Web site for this new non-profit organization.
Radford (Va.) University; $61,841; fund a preservation and management plan for the Civil War battlefield sites at Saltville.
Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project; $31,000; fund a preservation and management plan for Fort Butts, a Revolutionary War earthwork at Portsmouth.
Rutherford County (N.C.) Board of Commissioners; $18,707; fund the identification of cultural and archaeological resources at Gilbert Town, a key site in several Revolutionary War campaigns.
South Carolina State Park Service; $43,000; fund a regional battlefield preservation plan for eight Revolutionary War battlefields and numerous associated historic sites within the Charlotte, N.C.-Atlanta corridor.
War Memorial Museum of Virginia Foundation; $12,750; fund a cultural resource survey to access the condition of specific portions of the Williamsburg Civil War battlefield.
- Compiled by Chuck Mobley
On the Web
For the following Web extras, go to this story at know.savannahnow.com:
Study a graphic that explains the Siege of Savannah, a complicated struggle that began on Sept. 9, 1779, and ended with a bloody repulse of American and French forces on Oct. 9, 1779.
Listen to Coastal Heritage Society archaeologist Rita Elliott describe what she will be searching for in several prominent libraries and repositories that contain Revolutionary War artifacts and documents.
Read about other battlefield protection grants that have been awarded for 2007.
The Grant Plan:
The Coastal Heritage Society has received a $37,857 grant from the National Park Service's American Battlefield Protection Program. Its effort to protect and document the battlefield, and eventually get it placed on the National Register of Historic Places, will be undertaken in two phases.
Phase I: With the recently discovered Spring Hill Redoubt as a reference point, the CHS will combine GIS (geographic information system) mapping technology, primary document research and limited archaeological investigations in an effort to determine the locations of key defense points in the 1779 Siege of Savannah. It will also include public outreach in the form of presentations to community groups, a brochure about project results, a technical report and additions to the current Revolutionary War exhibit in the Savannah History Museum.
Phase II: If approved, this portion of the plan would feature further research, including archaeological digs on parts of the battlefield that are private property (if the owners approve), and culminate with an application to get the site listed on the National Register of Historic Places.