We got ouve Bot. byther caper of light sigantin and Gen? Enpan's brigade with their baggage, Isa last evening. It has Raind here all the fore part of this day, which has prevented some of the Genzin Continental and Artillery from getting they will be all over this evening, with the Commissaigs Waggons with Meal & Flour, and march from this, at day break to=

wer

I

hope to

over, Kons

No Intelligence since I wrote you
terbal express sent by the Whigs of

In form me that the Florida

Bürk konnte, to Jn form.

Cengers core in pursuit of thou people in Kat County in order to apprehend and and board the prison Ships at Savannah.

LETTER TO MAJOR-GENERAL BENJAMIN LINCOLN FROM GENERAL JOHN ASHE, REGARDING MOVEMENTS OF THE TROOPS IN GEORGIA,

DATED FEBRUARY 21, 1779

(From original in the New York Public Library, Emmet Collection)

invaded Georgia, took Sunbury, and assumed the com- 1 779 mand at Savannah, while Campbell captured Augusta.

At the request

of southern delegates, congress had appointed

General Lincoln and his Militia

General Lincoln
to the southern
command. He
arrived at Charles-
ton on the sixth
of December.
Gathering a force
of about thirty-six
hundred ill-disci-
plined men with
troublesome no-
tions of personal
independence,
Lincoln advanced
to the Savannah
River. Most of
these men were
militia who, when
militia operations went awry, fled to the swamps and
woods and carried on a murderous and predatory warfare
against neighbors who were on the other side, a partisan
conflict that had no equal in any other part of the country.
In February, the British attempted to effect a lodgment
on Port Royal Island but were driven off by Colonel February 2
Moultrie, and a body of about eight hundred loyalist
banditti under Colonel Boyd were scattered by a force
gathered by Colonel Andrew Pickens. Seventy of
Boyd's Tories were captured and five of them were
hung for treason against the state of South Carolina.
Early in March, Lincoln began a movement upon
Augusta, but the enemy fell upon a detachment of about
fifteen hundred under General Ashe at Briar Creek
and routed it so completely that only about four

Campbell's Letter to Lincoln relative to Exchange of
Prisoners, dated January 9, 1779

1

INVASION OF THE CAROLINAS

Compiled by Lieutenant Joseph A. Baer, U. S. Army, Military Academy,
West Point, N. Y., and David Maydole Matteson, A. M.,