Savannah Besieged - Savannah, GA - Georgia Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

Savannah Besieged

For most of the Revolutionary War, Savannah was an armed camp. With the approach of an allied French and American army in the fall of 1779, the British defenders of Savannah began improving and constructing a series of fourteen redoubts outside the town and a similar number of cannon emplacements.

This earth fortification, called a redoubt, was constructed in 2006 to remind us of the sacrifices made here during a bloody battle for possession of the British-controlled royal capital of Georgia.

Not only did the walls of earth protect the men inside, but the musket and cannon fire of the defenders made the space between the redoubts deadly to many attackers. Should a breakthrough occur, hundreds of combat-hardened British infantry placed to the rear would charge and drive back the attackers.

In front of you are 800 stones arranged as an attacking column of soldiers. Five such columns attacked the area around the actual Spring Hill redoubt.

The attacking columns were beaten back one after the other with vicious hand-to-hand fighting on the walls of the Spring Hill redoubt. Cut down by artillery and small arms fire, the dead and dying covered the space leading up to the Spring Hill redoubt. Approximately 800 soldiers were killed or wounded.

London rejoiced when news of the victory reached England. The war would continue another four years.

This modern reconstruction of a redoubt, designed in part from a British field manual of the era, symbolizes the original Spring Hill redoubt. Archaeologists discovered the actual location of the Spring Hill redoubt, ahead to your right. It is now represented by the small berm.