Capture of Savannah

The Capture of Savannah on December 29, 1778 opened the British Southern Campaign and began two years of intense fighting in the Carolinas and Georgia. Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell landed near Savannah with about 3,500 men and confronted General Robert Howe's smaller American force of about 850 men defending the approaches to the city.

Campbell found a path through a swamp on the American flank through the intelligence of a local enslaved man named Quamino Dolly — one of many instances during the war in which enslaved people provided crucial intelligence to both sides in exchange for promises of freedom. The flanking column appeared in the rear of Howe's position simultaneously with a frontal assault.

The American defense collapsed immediately. About 83 Americans were killed and 453 captured. Howe escaped with only a small portion of his force. Savannah fell with stunning rapidity. Campbell wrote that he had taken a Rebel capital with less than 100 casualties. The fall of Savannah opened all of Georgia to British occupation and allowed the British to begin their campaign to systematically reconquer the South, beginning the most intense phase of the Revolutionary War's southern theater.