Within a few days, Brown had approval from General Prevost and offered Williamson his requested rank in the British infantry, knowing that he was actually a lieutenant colonel. The traitor accepted the offer, Augusta was abandoned, and Lieutenant Colonel Brown, with four hundred men, took the town without resistance. Now thirty years old, he had realized his utmost ambition. It was almost exactly five years ago that he had been tarred and feathered. Williamson reported that John Dooly was also ready to surrender his militia troops, and Brown and even the usually pessimistic Governor Wright were convinced that resistance was over. Cornwallis was so sure of Georgia that he sent some of the few remaining troops from Savannah down to St. Augustine.

•  •  •

With the Georgia militia now squeezed into the northwest wilderness area and all possible rebel volunteers marshaled to defend Charles Town, Thomas Brown was free to begin his long-awaited retribution against anyone in north Georgia who might have been associated with his torture and humiliation in Augusta. He was well aware of Governor Wright’s directive concerning humane treatment designed to encourage loyalty to the crown, but claimed that he was seeking the same goal by intimidating the unrelenting revolutionaries.

Brown’s first act as commander of the northern region was to declare that all Whig property be confiscated and to order that anyone who had supported the revolution must leave the state or lose his freedom. He organized raids against all families known to be supporting independence, concentrating especially on those who were supporting Clarke’s militia. The one exception was that the Wrightsborough settlement was still sacrosanct, as it was inhabited mostly by Quakers committed to peace, who had named their village in honor of the governor. James Grierson, however, had a deep hatred for any Georgian who supported the revolution, and it was only with difficulty that Brown was able to restrain his ferocity in attacking them. Grierson sometimes violated his instructions and joined the Indians in their torture and abuse of the wives and children of disloyal settlers, and it was only with reluctance that he spared families who lived in the Wrightsborough settlement.