44. LOYALISTS IN SAVANNAH REQUEST REINFORCEMENTS A fascinating draft manuscript document, 2pp. 4to., [Savannah, Ga., c. summer 1780?], a set of amendments probably to a petition from either a British officer or Loyalist resident of Savannah to an unnamed British General (William Cornwallis?) requesting reinforcements to rid the countryside of rebels. Despite the fact that Colonel Archibald Campbell (1739-1791) had managed to expel rebel forces and repelled a combined French and American siege, the countryside was still in rebel hands and British authority only extended as far as the fortified posts. The petitioner(s) request a troop of light dragoons to complete the task. The document reads in most part [corrections omitted]: "The Depredations and Plunders almost daily committed by Parties of Rebels, are attended with such fatal Consequences, that nothing but the putting an immediate Stop to them can prevent the total Ruin of this Province. Your Excellency might be advised we would take this Matter into our most serious Consideration, was it not that in the present exhausted State of this Country, we too plainly see, nothing can be done by us and do therefore thank your Excellency for representing to Sir Henry Clinton our alarming & distressful Situation and from whose known zeal for his Majesty's Service, we have the firmest confidence but that he will allow us every requisite assistance. It gives us infinite Concern to reflect that after the Rebels had in a great Measure been driven from this Province by the Gallantry of his majesty's Troops [illeg.] under colonel Campbell and the Town afterwards Defended against the combined Forces of France & America, yet excepting where the few military posts are actually Established, the whole Country is open to the Depredations of a rebel Banditti, who are lately become so daring as to infest our publick Roads and plunder at Noon day within Six Miles of the Lines of this Town." The next three lines are deleted by the writer, but another hand continues where the other left off: "We therefore sincerely wish a corps of Light Dragoons was employed by His Ex[cellency]. the Commander in Chief as the most Effectual Means to secure this Prov[inc]e against the Incursions of plunderers. and we doubt not but your Excellency will again take the earliest opportunity of recommending that measure." After Savannah and much of Georgia had been captured by the British, Henry Clinton followed that success with the capture of Charleston, South Carolina in the spring of 1780. Following the capture, Clinton returned to New York leaving Charles Cornwallis the task of subduing the rest of the South. To assert control over Georgia and South Carolina, Cornwallis established a series of forts in the backcountry, but as this letter from Savannah attests, British control rarely extended outside the fortifications. Despite his failures in the following two years, both Savannah and Charleston would remain under British occupation until 1782. Fold separations repaired with archival tape, otherwise very good. $500-700