General Prevost, now occupying Savannah and serving as acting governor, seemed to have little interest in Augusta. Knowing of Brown’s intense interest in the area, however, he directed that the Florida Rangers refrain from any movements northward along the Savannah River, and Brown was forced to comply. This meant, in effect, that few if any Creeks or Cherokees were available to join the British in the region, despite the earlier arrangements that had been made with Emistisiguo and even John Stuart. All British efforts would now be focused on Charles Town. Deprived of any dependable assistance except for his own troops, it was clear that Colonel Campbell and his five hundred men would be hard-pressed to hold Augusta against a concerted attack from the west.

•  •  •

Colonel Clarke was eager to retake Augusta but realized that Georgia’s combined militia were not adequate. He sent Aaron Hart with a request to General Lincoln for assistance. The predictable reply was that holding Charles Town was his preeminent goal, which would require all available troops when the time came for its defense. However, he recognized the tactical importance of Augusta as a staging area from which the British would surely move by land toward the South Carolina coast, and promised to send 1,200 troops from Charles Town toward the Georgia city, commanded by a general named John Ashe, from North Carolina. The general was inexperienced but politically influential in his home state, and eager to demonstrate his military effectiveness.

These plans had to be delayed when British Lieutenant Colonel John Boyd moved from Carolina into north Georgia with seven hundred men, reported his presence to Colonel Campbell, and began to terrorize Whig families in the area. The written intelligence report to General Lincoln stated: “Like plundering banditti, they appropriate every species of property to their own use, abuse the inhabitants, and wantonly butcher anyone who opposes their rapacious demands.”

Lincoln sent orders to Clarke to rally all the Georgians possible, and sent South Carolina’s Colonel Andrew Pickens to help the Georgians defend themselves against Boyd’s predatory troops.