A sampling of some of the Revolutionary War fighting during 1779.
JANUARY 6th – Marching from northern Florida, a combined force of over 2,000 British Regulars, Colonial Loyalists to Britain and Native American allies of the British surrounded U.S. Forts Sunbury and Morris in Georgia.
JANUARY 9th – After 3 days of siege operations including bombardment, American Major Joseph Lane surrenders Forts Sunbury and Morris along with his 200-250 soldiers and at least 24 cannon to the British forces under General Augustine Prevost. Prevost renames Fort Morris to Fort George in honor of insane King George III and uses Fort Sunbury to hold American POWs.
JAUARY 10th – In France, American naval hero John Paul Jones is given a ship that he repairs and names the Bonhomme Richard after Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac.
JANUARY 29th – Augusta, GA falls to General Prevost.
FEBRUARY 3rd – Prevost and his forces attack Port Royal, SC but the Americans repulse the attack and drive them away.
FEBRUARY 14th – American Colonel Andrew Pickens defeats Loyalist soldiers at Kettle Creek, GA as part of the larger American attempt to retake Augusta.
APRIL 1st-30th – In Tennessee, American Colonel Evan Shelby leads a successful campaign to shut down all raiding by England’s Chickamauga allies.
MAY 1st – In the Western Theater of the war British forces try to retake American-held Cahokia in what is now Illinois. The rebels repulse the Brits with heavy losses.
MAY 10th – A British squadron raids and burns Norfolk and Portsmouth, VA
MAY 31st – British General Henry Clinton sends his forces up New York’s Hudson River to try taking the fort at West Point but they are halted by Americans at Stony Point.
JULY 15th – American General “Mad Anthony” Wayne leads his men in a fierce battle that retakes Stony Point from the British.
JULY 19th-AUGUST 16th – America’s largest combined land and sea campaign of the war rages against the section of Maine that the British have occupied and renamed New Ireland. FULL DETAILS DAY-BY-DAY HERE.
AUGUST 19th – American forces drive the British out of Paulus Hook, NJ.
AUGUST 29th – General John Sullivan’s American troops defeat the Loyalist forces under Sir John Johnson and British Mohawk ally Joseph Brant near Elmira, NY, ending organized Loyalist and Joseph Brant opposition in the state.
SEPT 1st-15th – General Sullivan now leads a series of reprisal attacks on England’s allies, the Seneca and Cayuga for their atrocities against non-combatants.
SEPTEMBER 3rd-28th – Rebel General Benjamin Lincoln and Polish American General Casimir Pulaski besiege British-held Savannah, GA in coordination with French ships under Admiral d’Estaing but ultimately fail to retake the city. For a fuller breakdown click HERE.
OCTOBER 11th – British General Henry Clinton is driven from Newport, RI.
OCTOBER 17th – American Commander-in-Chief General George Washington and his troops settle into winter quarters at Morristown, NJ, for what turns out to be an even worse winter ordeal than Valley Forge.
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