“Colonel Clarke, let me leave General Lincoln’s request with you and the other commanders. He would like for you to call for men to come and help defend Charles Town, either to join up with the Continental army or to serve as volunteers. This is the only way we see to keep the British from taking both states. Once they’re able to move in several thousand more troops, the balance will swing in their favor, and they’ll be moving west to take this territory and then north into Virginia.”

Elijah said, “We’ll think on it, and we’ll see if any of our men wants to spend Christmas in Charles Town. They’ll be free to go. In any case, we’ll be helpin’ you if they’s any move ag’in Augusta. You’ll be welcome to Georgia, and so will the troops you’ll bring.”

All the men laughed politely, and Williamson soon departed.

•  •  •

At the same time, Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton was standing on the quarterdeck of General Sir Henry Clinton’s flagship, a formidable man-of-war that he presumed was rolling and tossing less than most of the smaller vessels in the armada.

Nevertheless, he had been violently nauseated for the last two days and was now sitting on a coiled line at the base of one of the masts, with a half-filled bucket of vomit between his knees. He had left his cabin and come topside with hopes that the cold wind and spray in his face would alleviate his malaise, but his ability to look around at the white-capped sea and to anticipate when the next surge of the deck would come had increased the churning in his stomach. At least his relatively secluded place would minimize the number of people who could observe his embarrassing state.

A severe winter storm had greatly delayed the voyage from New York, and they were only just now approaching a landing near Savannah, almost three weeks later than they had anticipated. The captain of the ship had informed them that the barometer was rising, so the miserable army personnel were waiting impatiently for the seas to calm. Their thoughts had not been on the future military engagements, but on their present personal plight. It had seemed almost impossible that the ships could survive, and they were amazed at the self-assured manner of the naval officers and men, who went about their tasks as though the vile weather was of no concern. During brief times of visual clarity, messages had been sent to ensure that the ships were not permanently separated, and the fleet’s common destination had helped to maintain them in a reasonably compact array. The most serious news to Tarleton was that most of his cavalry horses had been lost, with their legs or necks broken as they were tossed about in the holds of the cargo ships or washed overboard if tethered on the upper decks.