Since almost every militiaman despised Grierson and Brown as despicable criminals, the reward went unclaimed, and within a few days Grierson’s confession was delivered to James Jackson, but both Lee and Pickens refused to accept it and ordered Jackson not to share its contents with others. A later embarrassment for the patriot force was that all the slaves and presents for Indians were entrusted to a rebel captain named John Burnet for safekeeping, and it was later learned that he marched them over the mountains, through Kentucky to the Ohio, and down the Mississippi to Natchez, where he sold them all and disappeared.

Within a few days, Lee and Pickens were ordered to join Greene near Charles Town, and James Jackson was left in command of the forces in Augusta. The men were not surprised when Sophronia Cowan accompanied Colonel Lee to his new post. The British now held only Ebenezer, Charles Town, Savannah, and the coastal regions between there and Florida. Within three months Jackson’s troops surrounded and occupied Ebenezer, with few casualties on either side. The Alexander brothers soon rejoined Jackson’s troops, and Ethan Pratt and the other Georgians treated them as heroes.

When Brown reached Savannah as a parolee, he went to Charles Town and negotiated a swap for a patriot of similar rank so he could continue fighting. He was also able to secure the exchange of Warrant Officer Alonzo Baker, who had always been his preeminent confidant and advisor. While there, he learned that Cruger’s orders to help him had been intercepted, that several hundred Creeks had been just forty miles away when he surrendered Augusta, and that the British had now decided to abandon Ninety Six without a fight.

His spirits were boosted when he returned to Savannah and Governor Wright told him that the emperor of Austria and the empress of Russia had offered to mediate the end of the war. A legal principle known as uti possidetis might result in Georgia and South Carolina joining Florida as British colonies if a peace agreement was reached with Savannah and Charles Town still in British hands. Wright had demanded that British forces retake Augusta so that the entire state might remain with Britain, but they now decided to concentrate on holding the port cities as adequate proof of Britain’s claim on the states. Optimistic as always, Wright maintained that there were 7,800 inhabitants in the state, almost all of them either presently or potentially loyal to the crown. Brown knew better but did not express his contrary views when he received orders to continue fighting against rebels along the frontier and was given £10,740 to support his Rangers.