Siege of Savannah - Siege

Siege

D'Estaing began landing troops below the city on September 12. By September 16 he was moving in on the city. Confident of victory, and believing that Maitland would be prevented from reaching Savannah by Lincoln, he offered Prevost the opportunity to surrender. Prevost temporized and asked for 24 hours of truce. Owing to miscommunication about who was responsible for preventing Maitland's movements, the waterways separating Hilton Head Island from the mainland were unguarded, and Maitland was able to reach Savannah hours before the truce ended. Prevost's response to d'Estaing's offer was a polite rejection, even though Lincoln had also arrived outside the city.

The French commander, rejecting the idea of assaulting the British defenses, unloaded cannons from his ships and began a bombardment of the city. The city, rather than the entrenched defenses, bore the brunt of this bombardment, which lasted from October 3 to 8. "The appearance of the town afforded a melancholy prospect, for there was hardely a house that had not been shot through", wrote one British observer.

When the bombardment failed to have the desired effect, d'Estaing changed his mind, and decided it was time to try an assault. He was motivated in part by the desire to finish the operation quickly, as scurvy and dysentery were becoming problems on his ships, and some of his supplies were running low. While a traditional siege operation would likely have succeeded eventually, it would have taken longer than d'Estaing was prepared to stay.