USA > Georgia > Chatham County > Savannah > A history of Savannah and South Georgia, Volume I > Part 25
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"And whereas. in consequence of this and other events, doubts have arisen with the several magistrates how far they are authorized to act under the former appointments, and the greatest part of them have absolutely refused to do so, whereby all judicial powers are become totally suspended to the great danger of persons and property ;
"And whereas. before any general system of government can be concluded upon, it is necessary that application be made to the Con- tinental Congress for their advice and directions upon the same; but, nevertheless, in the present state of things, it is indispensably requisite that some temporary expedient be fallen upon to eurb the lawless and protect the peaceable :
"This Congress, therefore, as the representatives of the people, with whom all power originates, and for whose benefit all government is in- tended, deeply impressed with a sense of duty to their constituents. of love to their country. and inviolable attachment to the liberties of America, and seeing how much it will tend to the advantage of each to preserve rules, justice, and order, do take upon them for the present. and until the further order of the Continental Congress, or of this, or any future Provisional Congress, to declare, and they accordingly do declare. order, and direct that the following rules and regulations be adopted in this Provinee-that is to say-
"Ist. There shall be a President and Commander-in-Chief appointed by ballot in this Congress, for six months, or during the time specified above.
"2d. There shall be in like manner, and for the like time, also a Council of Safety, consisting of 13 persons, besides the five delegates to the General Congress. appointed to act in the nature of a Privy Couneil to the said President or Commander-in-Chief.
"3d. That the President shall be invested with all the executive powers of government not inconsistent with what is hereafter mentioned, but shall be bound to consult and follow the advice of the said Council in all cases whatsoever, and any seven of said Committee shall be a quorum for the purpose of advising.
"4th. That all the laws whether common or statute, and aets of Assembly which have formerly been acknowledged to be of force in this Province, and which do not interfere with the proceedings of the Continental or our Provincial Congresses, and also all and singular the resolves and recommendations of the said Continental and Provincial Congress, shall be of full force, validity, and effect until otherwise ordered.
"5th. That there shall be a Chief Justice and two assistant judges, an Attorney-General, a Provost-Marshal, and Clerk of the Court of Sessions, appointed by ballot, to serve during the pleasure of the Con-
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gress. The Court of Sessions, or Over and Terminer, shall be opened and held on the second Tuesday in June and December, and the former rules and methods of proceeding. as nearly as may be, shall be observed in regard to summoning of Juries and all other cases whatsoever.
"6th. That the President or Commander-in-Chief. with the advice of the Council as before mentioned. shall appoint magistrates to aet during pleasure in the several Parishes throughout this Provinee, and such magistrates shall conform themselves, as nearly as may be, to the old established forms and methods of proceedings.
"7th. That all legislative powers shall be reserved to the Con- gress, and no person who holds any place of profit, civil or military, shall be eligible as a member either of the Congress or of the Council of Safety.
"8th. That the following sums shall be allowed as salaries to the respective officers for and during the time they shall serve, over and besides all such perquisites and fees as have been formerly annexed to the said offices respectively :
"To the President and Commander-in-Chief after 'the rate, per annum of. sterling £300
"To the Chief Justice. 100
"To the Attorney-General. 25
"To the Provost-Marshal 60
"To the Clerk of Court. 50"
Under this Constitution Archibald Bulloch was elected as the head of the government with the full title of president and commander-in- chief, John Glen became chief justice. William Stephens was made attorney-general. and James Jackson filled the office of clerk of the court.
This constitution was the code by which the province was governed until the adoption on the 5th of February, 1777. of the first regular constitution made and promulgated by a convention chosen for that purpose, and its provisions were. sustained by the official conduct of Archibald Bulloch who. as chief executive, served the people as faith- fully and conscientiously as well as any man within the confines of this or any other province could have done. For the position he was probably better equipped in every way than any of his associates in the eonven- tion which eleeted him; and beeause of his fitness for such leadership they undoubtedly insisted upon his assuming the position.
CONFLICT BETWEEN ROYAL TROOPS AND MILITIA
A conflict between the royal troops and the newly established provin- cial militia was inevitable, and it came early in March. when some vessels with cargoes of rice were ready to sail from Savannah. They amounted to eleven in all. and were the property of loyalists, or, at least, of persons not in sympathy with the American cause but standing ready to violate the resolutions of non-intercourse adopted by congress. Vol. 1-13
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EXPORTATION OF RICE STOPPED
It happened that on the first day of that month the order of the Continental Congress which prohibited the exportation of riee expired. and the Council of Safety, assuming that the war vessels at Tybee would attempt to capture those rice ships, took positive action to prevent it. Indeed, on the last of February the Scarborough, Hinchinbroke, . St. John, and two transports with troops moved up the river as far as "Five Fathom Hole." The aetion of the Council of Safety was in the form of resolutions as follows:
"Resolved that no ships loaded with rice or any other article of produce, in this Province, shall be permitted to sail without leave of the Council of Safety or next Congress, exeept such vessels as are or shall be permitted to sail for the purpose of procuring the necessary -means of defence.
"Resolved that in case any loss shall be sustained by such detention, the Delegates from this Province shall be instructed to apply to the Con- tinental Congress to make the reimbursement for such loss a general charge.
"Ordered that the rudders be unshipped, and that the rigging and sails be taken away and secured from the several vessels now riding in the port of Savannah."
Colonel Lachlan MeIntosh was detailed to see that the order was enforced, and, on the 2d of March, the Council of Safety resolved "for the safety of the Provinee and the good of the United Colonies.
"That the houses in the town of Savannah and the hamlets thereunto belonging, together with the shipping now in port of Savannah the property of or appertaining to the friends of America who have asso- eiated and appeared or who shall appear in the present alarm to defend the same, and also the houses of the widows and orphans, and none others, be forthwith valued and appraised.
"Ordered that Messrs. Joseph Clay, Joseph Reynolds, John McCluer, Joseph Dunlap and John Glen, or any three of them. be a committee for that purpose, and that they make a return of such value and ap- praisement to the Council of Safety to-morrow morning at 9 o'clock or as soon after as possible.
"Resolved That the delegates for this Province shall be instructed to apply to the Continental Congress for an indemnification to sueh persons as shall suffer in the defenee of this town or shipping.
"Resolved That it shall be considered a defection from the cause of America, and a desertion of property in such persons as have left or who shall leave the town of Savannah or the hamlets thereunto belong- ing during the present alarm, and such persons shall be preeluded from any support or countenance towards obtaining an indemnification.
"Resolved, That it be incumbent upon the friends of America in this Province to defend the Metropolis as long as the same shall be tenable.
"Resolved That rather than the same shall be held and occupied by our enemies, or that the shipping now in the port of Savannah should be taken and employed by them, the same shall be burnt and destroyed. "Resolved That orders shall be issued to the commanding officer di- recting him to have the foregoing resolutions put into execution."
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In order that there could be no mistake in the matter the following proclamation was issued in connection with the resolutions:
"In the Council of Safety, Savannah, March 2nd, 1776 .- Whereas many householders in the town of Savannah, and the hamlets thereunto belonging, have basely deserted their habitations sinee the commence- ment of the present alarms :
"And whereas some of them are associates in the great American Union, and, by consequenee, their lives and fortunes bound to support it :
"And whereas there is a number of shipping in the port of Savannah belonging and appertaining to persons resident in this Province :
"And whereas we deem it ineumbent on every person, more especially on those who have associated to defend their property with their lives: "These are therefore to eite and admonish all persons holding any property in the town or hamlets, or shipping aforesaid, forthwith to re- pair to headquarters in Savannah to defend the same. on pain of suffer- ing all the consequences contained in the foregoing resolutions.
"By order of the Council of Safety. "WM. EWEN, President."
ROYALISTS ATTEMPT TO CAPTURE RICE BOATS
When he seeured refuge on board the Searborough Sir James Wright endeavored to seeure supplies for the fleet through the aid of the assem- bly, but a refusal having been given to the request, the royal party re- sorted to the expedient of trying to obtain what was needed by a eapture of the eleven rice boats, and then happened the conflict of which mention has been made. Two of the vessels sailed up Baek river on the 2d of March, it having been found by soundings that it was praetieable to do so, and one of them anchored just opposite the city while the other, in attempting to make a circuit of Hutchinson's island and reach the seene of action from above, went aground at the extreme western point of the island. That night Majors Maitland and Grant marched their troops from the first vessel, and boarded the merchant vessels on the south side of the island, their presenee being discovered by the citizens the next morning. A company of riflemen, led by Maj. John Habersham, attacked the grounded ship and drove every man from deck. The inten- tion of that offieer to seeure the vessel as a prize was thwarted for the want of boats, and she floated off at high tide and eseaped. Colonel MeIntosh, at the head of three hundred men, made a stand at Yamaeraw Bluff, and there threw up breastworks where he stationed three four- pounder guns, and then sent Lieut. Daniel Roberts, of the St. John's Rangers, and Capt. Raymond Demere. of St. Andrew's parish, under a flag of truce, to demand the release of Captain Riee and his boat's erew, who had in the discharge of duty under the order of the Conneil of Safety been detained as prisoners. Roberts and Demere were arrested and held as prisoners, but were subsequently (about March 20th) exchanged for eight loyalists whom the liberty people had seized in retaliation. among them James Edward Powell, Anthony Stokes and Josiah Tattnall,
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three of the royal council. In the meantime, insulting replies having been made to the demand for the release of Rice, Roberts and Demere, two shots were fired from the four-pounders at the vessel, which brought the response that the British would treat with the enemy through two men in whom the greatest confidence could be placed, and accordingly Capt. JJames Sereven, of the St. John's Rangers, and Capt. John Baker, of the St. John's Riflemen, were sent. They took with them twelve men of Baker's company and rowed over to the vessel, demanding the release of the prisoners .. The demand meeting with an insulting reply, Baker fired at a man on the vessel. Small arms and swivels were discharged at the small boat which was nearly sunk, and one man was wounded. Firing upon that boat was kept up as long as it was within range, and the battery on shore opened upon the vessel. This was kept up for about four hours, when the Council of Safety met and resolved that fire be set to the shipping. Volunteers for this service were not wanting, and among those who thus shared in the aet were Capt. Oliver Bowen, John Morel, Lieut. James Jackson, Thomas Hamilton and James Bryan. One vessel, called the Inverness, with a cargo of deer-skins and riee, was set adrift in the river in a state of conflagration, and the incident is at this point well described by William Ewen, president of the Council of Safety, to the body of the same name in South Carolina: "Upon this, the soldiers in the most laughable confusion got ashore in the marsh, while our rifle- men and field-pieces with grape shot were incessantly galling them. The shipping was now also in confusion. Some got up the river under cover of the armed schooner, while others caught the flame, and, as night ap- proached, exhibited a scene as they passed and repassed with the tide, which at any but the present time would be truly horrible, but now a subject only of gratitude and applause. The ships of Captains Inglis and Wardell neither got up the river nor on fire. They were ordered on shore and now are prisoners of Capt. Sereven in the country, and their vessels brought down close into a wharf. They were permitted to write to Captain Barelay in the evening. to inform him of their situation and to request an exchange of prisoners, which the latter peremptorily re- fused."
ONLY TWO VESSELS ESCAPE TO SEA
Nobly did the South Carolina Council of Safety redeem their promise to help the Georgians, and Colonel Bull with 350 militia besides 150 volunteers from Charleston. reached Savannah just in time to unite with their neighbors in bringing the conflict to a close, with the result showing three of the vessels burnt, six dismantled, and two eseaping and going to sea. The British, in making their way back to Tybee, landed a party of marines at Skidaway to collect supplies, but Lieutenant Hext with a company of militia drove them away. and. on the same day, in a skirmish on Cockspur island Lientenants Oates and LaRoche were killed.
Of that incident. Bishop Stevens, in summing up the account, says: "The scenes of that day and night were solemn and terrific. The sudden marshalling of troops. the alarm of the people, the hurried death-volley, and the vessels wrapped in flames. every mast a pinnacle of fire, their loosened sails forming the element which was destroying them, and mak-
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ing the darkness hideous with a lurid glare, combined to form a seene of awful and soul-stirring sublimity. Hitherto, they had but heard of British aggression, but now, their own soil was moist with the blood of their slain ; their quiet homes had been assailed ; their property pillaged ; and their province threatened with desolation and ruin. The erisis had arrived-they met it like heroes." *
The affair was undoubtedly ereditable to the Georgians, but Gov- ernor Wright reported to Lord Dartmouth an exaggerated aecount of it. claiming the capture of " 14 or 15 merchant-ships and vessels of one sort or other, and on board of which there is about 1600 barrels of riee. It was attended with very little loss. I think on the side of the King's troops none are hurt : only four sailors are wounded and three of them very slightly, and on the part of the rebels I believe only one or two are wounded. The rebels burnt a ship, a brig and two small vessels. and have detained three or four more which were so situated that they could not be brought away."
Wishing to avoid the cramped quarters on board the vessels and to enjoy the comforts of home as far as possible, the officers of the war-ships and the refugee governor oceupied, whenever they so desired, the houses then standing on Tybee island. Considering it a little more in the way of comfort than their enemies deserved, the Council of Safety deemed it a most proper aet on their part to have those houses removed, and under the orders of that body an expedition was formed with their destruetion in view, and the president, Archibald Bulloeh, personally led that party, burning every house except one occupied by a siek mother and her chil- dren. This was done while the destroying foree worked under a eon- stant fire from the man-of-war Cherokee and an armed sloop, in spite of which not a man was killed, while two marines and a Tory were killed on the island and one marine and several Tories were captured by Bulloeh's troops.
COUNCIL OF SAFETY TAKES HEROIC MEASURES
The Council of Safety not only direeted that the buildings on Tybee island be destroyed to prevent their oeenpaney by Sir James Wright and the other loyalists, but on the 2d of March, 1776, they took similar steps in reference to the houses in Savannah in the event that the town should at any time have to be evacuated, resolving "That rather than the same shall be held and occupied by our enemies, or the shipping now in the port of Savannah taken and employed by them, that the same shall be burnt and destroyed." Commenting on that aetion, Hugh McCall, the historian, says ( History of Georgia, Vol. 2, p. 60, Savannah, 1816) : "There are many instances of conflagration by order of a monareh 'who can do no wrong,' but there are few instances upon record where the patri- otism of the citizen has urged him on to the destruction of his own prop- erty to prevent it becoming an asylum to the enemies of his country." This incident is one of many which might be cited in proof of the un- selfish spirit of the Americans in the trying times of the Revolution ;
* Collections of the Georgia Historical Society, Vol. II, p. 31.
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but we will here mention only one of which we are reminded at this point -that of Mrs. Motte, of South Carolina. The story is briefly told by Alexander Garden in his "Aneedotes of the Revolutionary War," and his own words will answer our purpose: "The patriotie enthusiasm of Mrs. Jacob Motte demands particular notice. When, compelled by pain- ful duty, Lieutenant Colonel Lee informed her 'that in order to ae- complish the immediate surrender of the British garrison occupying her elegant mansion, its destruction was indispensable,' she instantly replied, 'the sacrifice of my property is nothing. and I shall view its destruction with delight, if it shall in any degree contribute to the good of my country.' In proof of her sincerity she immediately presented the arrows by which combustible matter was to be conveyed to the building."
Grandly did South Carolina come to the aid of the Georgians in this first confliet. Under Col. Stephen Bull and Major Bourquin these people, to the number of 450, hastened to render such assistance as they could give, and, according to Drayton, the various detachments were sta- tioned in such way as to protect the interests of Georgia in every way. At Ebenezer forty acted as guards to the publie records and the gun- powder which being more that requisite for the occasion had been removed to that point. The adjutant. Thomas Rutledge, certified on the 15th of March that the following troops served during that erisis : the Charleston Volunteers, Charleston Rangers, Charleston Light In- fantry, Charleston Fuzileers. Beaufort Light Infantry, St. Helena Vol- unteers, Enhaw Volunteers, Huspa Volunteers, Light Horse or Pocotaligo Hunters, detachments from Oakety Creek. St. Peter's Black Swamp, Pipe Creek, Boggy Gut, New Windsor and Upper Three Runs, and the Beaufort Artillery.
CONGRESS THANKS COLONIAL MILITIA
Eight vessels, unhurt and escaping capture in the confliet, were left at or near their moorings, and, in order to assure their keeping the Council of Safety decreed that their rigging should be removed and taken to land. and their rudders unhung. That duty was entrusted to Colonel Bull, but it was rumored that "the Carolinians had taken pos- session of Savannah," and that officer therefore turned the matter over to Lieutenant Stirk who did what was necessary in good order, assisted by forty men detailed from the Georgia militia. The troops from South Carolina then departed, and the Georgia provincial congress, on the 24th of March. adopted a resolution "That the thanks of the Congress be returned to Stephen Bull. Esqr., of Sheldon, Colonel of the Granville County regiment of militia. for his important services in command of the Colony forees in Savannah; and that he be desired to signify their thanks to the officers and men then under his command." It is proper to state here that the cost of this relief expedition to Georgia paid by South Carolina amounted to £6.213.7s.6d.
The province then rested entirely in the keeping of Archibald Bul- loeh as president and commander-in-chief, the military being under the immediate command of Col. Lachlan MeIntosh.
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WRIGHT GOES TO ENGLAND AND RETURNS TO SAVANNAH
Before his arrest Governor Wright had applied for and obtained leave of absence, and he acknowledged to the Earl of Dartmouth, in a letter dated December 11, 1775, the permission given him to return to England, in these words: "Two days ago I had the honor to receive the duplicate of your Lordship's letter of the second of August concern- ing the leave of absence which his Majesty has been most graciously pleased to give me, and of which I retain a grateful sense, and return your Lordship my best thanks." After his capture and the events thus far recorded in this chapter he availed himself of the consent to leave, and, after making the ship Scarborough practically his home until the end of March, 1776, he sailed for Halifax which place he reached on the 21st of April. From that place he procceded to England where he remained until the early summer of 1779 when he was directed to return to Savannah, that place having been taken from the Americans by the British under command of Sir Archibald Campbell in December, 1778. Sir James Wright reached Savannah on the 14th of June, 1779.
JOHN GRAHAM AND THUNDERBOLT
With the members of the council at this time this history is not particularly concerned, but a few words just here in connection with one of them, John Graham, may not be considered untimely. The date of his appointment nowhere appears, but, in a letter of November 3, 1775, he is mentioned as one of the number by Sir James Wright. During his confinement, on the Scarborough the royal governor further wrote of that councillor, that he had "suffered an exceeding great loss" "by the burning of the ship Inverness by the rebels." John Graham had lived in Georgia many years, and we find that he made application to the council on the 5th of June, 1759, for a piece of marsh containing 250 acres adjoining "two farm lots known by the numbers one and two at Thunderbolt purchased by the petitioner from Isaac Young, and surrounded by Thunderbolt Creek." He also secured a deed to a tract of land on the Savannah river afterwards known as Mulberry grove and confiscated by the state of Georgia at the end of the Revolutionary war and presented to Gen. Nathanael Greene. This matter we will treat of, more at large later on in this history. The first time we find the place Thunderbolt mentioned is in a list of effects received from Georgia for the benefit of the colony, when, under date March 13, 1733, acknowl- edgment is made of the receipt of a gift "by Mr. Samuel Baker, mer- chant" of "a cask of Pot Ash made at Thunderbolt in Georgia." We next hear of it through General Oglethorpe when writing to the trustees on the 27th of February, 1735-6, he mentioned the purchase by himself from a sloop of a cargo of provisions "on condition that she should go up and deliver them on St. Simon, and the Capt. of these two ships went up in her to sound the Bar, and I went within land, and having passed by Skidaway and Thunderbolt both which are in a very good situation, I arrived at St. Simon the 18th." Elsewhere it is related that the place was so called "from the fall of a Thunderbolt and a spring
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thereupon arose in that place which still smells of the bolt .* " It is doubtless true that a sulphur spring formerly sent forth its waters at that spot, and that the tradition thus mentioned had its origin in that fact. Artesian wells recently bored in that neighborhood produce a flow of water strongly impregnated with sulphur.
From the time of the incident of the conflict opposite the city in connection with the shipping in the harbor, until the news of the formal withdrawal of the thirteen colonies from the control of the English government was received, Savannah was virtually without excitement or disturbance of any kind. The troops within the limits of the province were so stationed as to keep the people well-guarded .against surprise or attack from any quarter. To prevent the stealing of cattle the line marking the Florida boundary was watched by a force of sixty mounted men, while all danger from an onslaught by way of the west from the Indians was averted by the posting in that quarter of a troop of cavalry ; but it was not an easy matter to guard the sea-coast, and the people had to rely entirely upon the fighting qualities of the male inhabitants in a hand to hand fight with such of the enemy's troops as might at any time land on the soil. There was not a vessel in the harbor which would serve as protection against an English fleet or even one armed ship of war. Truly it was fortunate that at that particular time no trouble in the nature of an invasion occurred to mar the serenity of the Geor- gians in a time when they could not afford to make a very stout resistance or to stand the loss from their little military force of even one man. An attack at that time would have resulted not only in disaster to their resources both of men and stores, but would have disheartened them at the very time when their spirits should have been enthused over the rapturous news of the important action of the Continental Congress.
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