Siege of Savannah

Siege of Savannah
Part of the American Revolutionary War
Attack on Savannah by A. I. Keller
Date September 16 – October 20, 1779 Location Savannah, Georgia 32°03′03″N 81°06′14″W / 32.05083°N 81.10389°W / 32.05083; -81.10389Coordinates: 32°03′03″N 81°06′14″W / 32.05083°N 81.10389°W / 32.05083; -81.10389 Result British victory
Belligerents
United States  France	Great Britain
Commanders and leaders
Benjamin Lincoln Lachlan McIntosh Comte d'Estaing Casimir Pulaski  † Curt von Stedingk Count Benyovszky	Augustin Prevost John Maitland
Strength
Land: 5,050 infantry, sailors, militia, unknown artillery Sea: 42 ships	3,200 infantry, militia, unknown artillery
Casualties and losses
244 killed, 584 wounded, 120 prisoners Total: 948	40 killed, 63 wounded, 52 missing Total: 155

The Siege of Savannah or the Second Battle of Savannah was an encounter of the American Revolutionary War in 1779. The year before, the city of Savannah, Georgia, had been captured by a British expeditionary corps under Lieutenant-Colonel Archibald Campbell. The siege itself consisted of a joint Franco-American attempt to retake Savannah, from September 16 to October 18, 1779. On October 9 a major assault against the British siege works failed. During the attack, Polish nobleman Count Casimir Pułaski, leading the combined cavalry forces on the American side, was mortally wounded. With the failure of the joint American-French attack, the siege failed, and the British remained in control of Savannah until July 1782, near the end of the war.

In 1779, more than 500 recruits from Saint-Domingue (France's colony which later became Haiti), under the overall command of French nobleman Charles Hector, Comte d'Estaing, fought alongside American colonial troops against the British Army during the siege of Savannah. This was one of the most significant foreign contributions to the American Revolutionary War. This French-colonial force had been established six months earlier and included hundreds of soldiers of color in addition to white soldiers and some black slaves.

Following the failures of military campaigns in the northern United States earlier in the American Revolutionary War, British military planners decided to embark on a southern strategy to conquer the rebellious colonies, with the support of Loyalists in the South. Their first step was to gain control of the southern ports of Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina. An expedition in December 1778 took Savannah with modest resistance from ineffective militia and Continental Army defenses.

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