This mentions Francis Marion and describes the Battle of Savannah.
It is provided as a historical overview,
and for some clue as to the variety of troops
that may have been involved in the military operations of the time.
In some of the bloodiest fighting of the Revolutionary War,
American and French troops failed to take Savannah.
By Thomas G. Rodgers
As the fifth year of the American Revolution opened, hopes for colonial
independence were
growing dim. By 1779 British forces still occupied major American cities.
Divisions plagued the
Continental Congress and the rebel army. In the South, bitter civil war
raged between Patriot
and Loyalist Americans.
Georgia, the only American colony to be reconquered by the British, was
just 42 years old
when the war started. Georgia's population was small, with barely 3,000
men of military age.
On December 29, 1778, the colonial capital fell to British troops. The
rebel defenders were
routed, losing 550 captured or killed. Patriot forces were swept from the
state.
Britain's occupation of Savannah was only the first stroke in a strategy
geared to bring Virginia,
the Carolinas and Georgia back under royal control. It was felt that the
large numbers of
Loyalists in the South would flock to the king's cause. With the South
secured, the stubborn
Continentals in the North could be more easily tamed.
In January 1779, British Colonel Archibald Campbell moved up the Savannah
River with 1,044
men and occupied Augusta. There, he invited residents of the surrounding
countryside to come
in and take an oath of loyalty to the king and receive pardons. About 1,400
men complied.
Georgia seemed securely under royal control.
Campbell awaited the arrival of Colonel James Boyd, a Tory agent recently
sent into South
Carolina to recruit 6,000 Loyalist volunteers. Only 600 men were actually
raised. Boyd's failure
to enlist anywhere near the expected numbers of Loyalists revealed the
major flaw in Britain's
southern strategy, that of overestimating American enthusiasm for the royal
cause. Many Tory
recruits joined only out of fear or intimidation.
As Boyd's Tories made their way toward Augusta, 200 South Carolina militia
under Colonel
Andrew Pickens and 140 Georgia militia under Colonel John Dooley pursued
them. Though
badly outnumbered, the little Patriot force hoped to overtake Boyd's 600
Tories. They counted
on pluck and surprise to give them a victory and prevent Boyd from joining
Campbell's British
garrison at Augusta.
The rebels attacked Boyd's command as it was encamped at Kettle Creek,
near present-day
Washington, Ga., on February 14, 1779. They caught the Tories by surprise
as they were killing
cattle and grazing their horses. The battle took only an hour; and the
Tory camp was overrun.
The Loyalists fled in panic, leaving 20 dead, including Boyd himself, and
22 were captured. The
rebels lost seven killed and 15 wounded. Campbell, concerned about a possible
rebel attack on
Augusta, withdrew his troops that same day and moved south toward Savannah.
Encouraged by their badly needed victory at Kettle Creek, the rebels now
planned a
counteroffensive in Georgia. Patriot General John Ashe, with 2,300 troops,
followed Campbell's
retreating army and reached Briar Creek, 60 miles south of Augusta. The
rebels hoped to
reinforce Ashe there and enlarge their army to 8,000 men. Such a force
could then drive the
British back to Savannah and possibly retake the city. The war could be
reversed and Georgia
liberated.
But Campbell, a wary and aggressive commander, anticipated the rebel plan
and launched a
bold counterattack of his own. From his base at Hudson's Ferry, 15 miles
south of Ashe, he
sent a picked force of 900 men up the southern bank of Briar Creek. The
redcoats crossed
upstream and hit Ashe's camp from the rear, trapping the rebel army in
the angle of Briar
Creek and the Savannah River.
Ashe's army was completely surprised. With mounted patrols out and other
units on detached
duty, he had only 800 men to meet the approaching British onslaught. Most
of his troops were
untrained, inexperienced militia, poorly armed and equipped. When the British
attacked at about
4 o'clock in the afternoon on March 3, 1779, the rebel battle line was
just being formed.
Despite a heroic resistance by Colonel Samuel Elbert's 200 Georgia Continentals
and militia
(who stood their ground until nearly all were killed, wounded or captured)
Ashe's North
Carolina militia broke and ran almost immediately, fleeing in confusion
into the Savannah
swamp. A few swam the river and escaped. Others drowned, or were captured
or killed by the
pursuing redcoats. Abandoning his troops, Ashe fled across the river. He
would later face
charges of incompetency and neglect.
Briar Creek was the worst rebel disaster of the war in the South so far.
One hundred and fifty
rebel soldiers died. Twenty-eight rebel officers and 200 enlisted men were
captured. Ashe lost
seven field pieces, 1,000 small arms, ammunition, equipment, supplies and
baggage. British
losses were five killed and 11 wounded.
In Savannah, royal governor Sir James Wright formally reestablished British
control in July,
while a fledgling Patriot government in exile tried to carry on in Augusta.
With the exception of
the back country, where skirmishes between Patriots and Tories continued,
Georgia was firmly
in British hands.
Now, Patriot hopes had to look to another source: the rebel alliance with
France, signed in
February 1778.
In the summer of 1779, French Admiral Count Charles-Hector Theodat d'Estaing
captured St.
Vincent and Grenada in the British West Indies, tipping the balance there
in favor of French
naval superiority. D'Estaing's powerful fleet was available for a joint
operation with the
Americans. The count soon received a flurry of letters from French diplomats
and Maj. Gen.
Benjamin Lincoln, Continental commander in the South, urging him to bring
his fleet northward
for a campaign against Savannah.
D'Estaing was enthusiastic about the proposal. The 50-year-old aristocrat
was eager to make
up for a failed allied operation against Newport, R.I., that had to be
aborted the previous year
because of poor cooperation and poor weather.
The count arrived off the Georgia coast on September 1 with 37 ships, including
22 ships of the
line, and 4,000 troops detached from duty in the West Indies. The formidable
French fleet
surprised and captured several British vessels near the mouth of the Savannah
River.
The fleet anchored off Savannah Bar as the British ships withdrew upriver.
The small garrison
at Fort Tybee, on Great Tybee Island, guarding the entrance to the river,
fired on the French
ships with their two guns without effect. That night a French detachment
occupied the fort,
which they found abandoned.
On September 12, a vanguard of 1,200 French troops landed unopposed at
Beaulieu beach on
Ossabaw Sound, a few miles south of Savannah. The bulk of the French army
disembarked,
and a camp was established three miles from the city.
On September 16, d'Estaing arrogantly sent a formal demand to the British
General Augustine
Prevost that he surrender Savannah "to the arms of his Majesty the King
of France." He
reminded Prevost that he had captured Grenada with a far smaller force,
and he held Prevost
"personally answerable" for what might happen should siege operations drag
on.
To the Americans' chagrin, d'Estaing added, "I have not been able to refuse
the Army of the
United States uniting itself with that of the King. The junction will probably
be effected this day.
If I have not an answer therefore immediately, you must confer in future
with General Lincoln
and me."
Prevost asked for a 24-hour truce to allow him to confer with civil authorities
in Savannah; and
d'Estaing foolishly agreed to his request. He could have captured Savannah
by direct assault,
since the British garrison was unprepared for an attack. Instead, he allowed
Prevost to stall for
time and strengthen the town's defenses. The allies would regret losing
their best opportunity to
take Savannah.
Prevost was a veteran of many years' service in the British army. The Swiss-born
officer had
been wounded at Fontenoy in 1745. At the capture of Quebec from the French
in 1759, he
received a wound which had left a circular scar on his temple and led to
his being nicknamed
"Old Bullet Head." He complained of poor health and was not regarded as
an aggressive
commander. Colonel Campbell wrote that "Prevost seems a worthy man, but
too old and
inactive for this service."
Old Bullet Head used the delay wrested from d'Estaing to put soldiers,
townspeople and several
hundred black slaves to work around the clock to finish the city's fortifications.
He also sent an
urgent message to Lt. Col. John Maitland to bring his 800 troops down from
Beaufort, S.C., to
reinforce the Savannah garrison.
Maitland, commander of the Highland 71st Regiment, was from a distinguished
Scottish family.
The resourceful 47-year-old veteran, who had lost his right hand in combat
at Lagos Bay in
1759, was respected both by his own men and by the Americans.
Maitland had contracted a fever (in fact, he had just a little over a month
to live); yet he
force-marched his men to the Savannah River. With the help of black fishermen
as guides, he
crossed upriver from Savannah, and he and his reinforcements arrived in
the besieged town on
September 17. With Maitland's troops in place and his defenses strengthened,
Prevost finally
sent his reply to d'Estaing: No surrender!
Benjamin Lincoln and his Continental officers were upset that the count
had moved on
Savannah without them, as if the operation were purely a French exercise.
They feared
d'Estaing might take the town and hold it for the French king--fear that
did not bode well for
cooperation between the allied armies.
Lincoln joined d'Estaing on September 23. His 3,000 troops included Georgia
and South
Carolina Continentals and militia. With d'Estaing's 4,000 French regulars,
the allies now had
7,000 men with which to take Savannah. Opposing them in the town were 2,500
British and
Loyalist troops under Prevost.
General Benjamin Lincoln--a New Englander who neither drank nor cursed--was
a patient and
cautious commander. D'Estaing seemed unimpressed by him, describing him
as a brave man
but "extremely indifferent" with "no opinion of his own." The count was
astounded at the
phlegmatic Lincoln's habit of falling asleep in his chair, even when dictating
correspondence.
The French had a low opinion of the Americans. Baron Curt von Stedingk,
a Swedish officer in
the French army, wrote that the rebels were "so badly armed, so badly clothed,
and I must say
so badly commanded, that we could never turn them to much account." The
American militia,
d'Estaing wrote, would run or take cover "just because some cannon balls
came close." A
grenadier captain wrote that the militia "are supposedly quite good, at
least they say they are."
Higher marks were given to the Continental regulars, who, according to
another officer,
"conducted themselves in a superior manner at all times."
Rebel cuisine also failed to impress the count. D'Estaing complained of
the meager fare at
Lincoln's table, "a massive cake of rice and corn cooked under the ashes
of an iron platter" and
"a mixture of sugar, water, and fermented molasses which makes up the Nectar
the Americans
call grog."
Delays plagued the allies. Lack of horses and artillery carriages prevented
them from landing
heavy artillery, which was not in place until October 4. Siege entrenchments
were begun on
September 24, but progress was slow, and the British exploited every opportunity
to disrupt the
work. British sorties against the siege lines on September 24 and September
27 confounded the
allies. The second sortie provoked an accidental exchange of fire in the
darkness between
French and American troops; and several soldiers were killed.
On the night of October 1, the rebels prevented a detachment of 111 British
troops from
reaching Savannah. The British, under Captain French, had camped on the
Ogeechee River.
Colonel John White, a Georgia Continental, with only two officers, a sergeant
and three
privates, tricked French into thinking that the camp was surrounded by
a larger force by lighting
fires in the woods around the camp, as if a whole army was bivouacked there;
White
demanded the detachment surrender, and the whole British command was taken
prisoner.
At midnight on October 3, French artillery opened fire on Savannah. But
according to one
officer, "The cannoneers being still under the influence of rum, their
excitement did not allow
them to direct their pieces with proper care." On October 4, 53 heavy cannon
and 14 mortars
began a five-day bombardment of the town.
The bombardment failed to crack the defenses but caused considerable damage
inside the
town. An American officer wrote, "The poor women and children have suffered
beyond
description. A number of them in Savannah have already been put to death
by our bombs and
cannon." One of Prevost's aides commented, "Many poor creatures were killed
trying to get to
their cellars, or hide themselves under the bluff of the Savannah River."
Loyalist Chief Justice Anthony Stokes described one night of the shelling
and its effects: "At
five I was awakened with a very heavy cannonade from a French frigate to
the north of the
town, and with a bombardment which soon hurried me out of bed; and before
I could get my
clothes on, an eighteen-pounder entered the house, stuck in the middle
partition, and drove the
plastering all about....Whilst we were in the cellar, two shells burst
not far from the door, and
many others fell in the neighborhood all around us. In this situation a
number of us continued in
a damp cellar, until the cannonade and bombardment almost ceased, for the
French to cool their
artillery; and then we ascended to breakfast."
On October 6, Prevost asked that the women and children be allowed to leave
Savannah and
take refuge in the ships anchored in the river. D'Estaing and Lincoln refused,
fearing another
delaying tactic.
Time was running out for d'Estaing. A month had been spent in front of
Savannah, and the
British position seemed no weaker than when operations had begun. The admiral
had other
worries as well. Hurricanes were a serious concern. And, if a British naval
force should
suddenly appear, d'Estaing might be cut off from his supply base in the
West Indies.
Conditions on board the ships anchored off the coast were described by
a French naval officer,
who wrote: "The navy is suffering everything, anchored on an open coast
and liable to be driven
ashore by the southeast winds. Seven of our ships have been injured in
their rudders, several
have lost their anchors, and most of them have been greatly endamaged in
their rigging. The
scurvy rages with such severity that we throw daily into the sea about
thirty-five men....The
bread which we possessed, having been two years in store, was so much decayed
and
worm-eaten, and was so disagreeable to the taste, that even the domestic
animals on board
would not eat it."
On the morning of October 8, Major Pierce Charles L'Enfant, future architect
of Washington,
D.C., with a handful of troops, tried to set fire to the abatis of felled
trees in front of the British
lines; but the wood was too damp and did not catch fire. D'Estaing's engineers
told him they
would need at least 10 more days before they could penetrate the British
works.
The count decided that the only option left was a direct assault on the
town. Otherwise, the
siege must be lifted. He proposed a predawn assault on October 9. Lincoln
agreed; and the
allies prepared for one of the bloodiest attacks in the war.
D'Estaing hoped to exploit a weak point in Savannah's defenses. Although
the town was
protected on the north by the Savannah River and shielded on the west by
a wooded swamp, a
narrow depression along the edge of the swamp afforded a way for the allies
to move their
troops near the British defenses under cover of night before launching
the attack. The allies
decided to use this approach route to strike the enemy's right flank.
Prevost knew of the terrain west of town, however, and anticipated an attack
there. A rebel
deserter warned him of the allied plans, so "Old Bullet Head" strengthened
his defenses on his
right flank and put the skillful Maitland in command there.
Three forts or redoubts protected the British right flank. The most exposed
one, Spring Hill
Redoubt, was defended by South Carolina Loyalist troops led by Captain
Thomas Tawse and
the vengeful Lt. Col. Thomas Brown, who once had been tarred and feathered
by Georgia
rebels. The other redoubts on the right also were held by Loyalist troops.
Thus, the bloodiest
part of the battle would pit Americans against Americans.
Farther on the British right, Prevost had placed a naval battery of 9-pounders
near the river.
Another naval battery lay to the east of the Spring Hill Redoubt, supported
by British marines
and grenadiers of the 16th Foot, to be used to reinforce the redoubt if
the allies attacked there.
The allied plan called for a vanguard of 250 French grenadiers to rush
the Spring Hill Redoubt,
while two strong French assault columns, led by d'Estaing himself and by
Colonel Stedingk,
attacked the other two forts on the British right. Two American assault
columns, under Colonel
John Laurens and Brig. Gen. Lachlan McIntosh, would support the French.
The French planned diversionary attacks west of the town near the river
and from their
trenches near the British center. Brigadier General Isaac Huger, with 500
South Carolina and
Georgia militia, would conduct a feint east of the town.
D'Estaing's 3,500 assault troops were drafted for temporary duty from regiments
garrisoning
the island colonies in the West Indies: Martinique, Guadeloupe and St.
Dominique. They
included several hundred free black troops, among them young Henri Christophe,
future dictator
of Haiti. Formed into provisional units at Savannah, the troops and their
officers had never
served together before in combat. Now they were to carry out a difficult
assault against a
forewarned enemy. So far, nearly everything else had gone wrong.
Delays doomed the allied plan. Volunteers who were to guide the troops
through the
treacherous swamp in the darkness proved unreliable. A French officer wrote
that his guide
"did not know the road and at the first musket shot disappeared." Assault
forces were not in
position until after daybreak and lost the advantage of the pre-dawn surprise
attack. D'Estaing
confessed to having a "very poor opinion of this attack."
Anxious to begin the attack, French assault troops waited at the edge of
the swamp. From the
direction of the Spring Hill Redoubt 500 yards away the eerie wail of Scottish
bagpipes drifted
toward them through the heavy pre-dawn fog. This "most sad and most remarkable"
music,
d'Estaing wrote, made "a very great impression" on the French soldiers;
it was as if the enemy
"wanted us to know their best troops were waiting for us."
At about 5:30, d'Estaing's troops heard firing from the British lines and
realized the diversionary
attack by their troops in front of the enemy center had finally begun.
A few minutes later,
British sentries spotted the assault troops and fired several rounds. Not
all the allied troops
were in place yet.
The allied diversionary attacks failed. D'Estaing and Lincoln would have
to carry the Spring Hill
Redoubt with no support. D'Estaing considered canceling the attack, but
his pride prevented
him from showing hesitation in front of the Americans. "My indecision,"
he said, "would have
made me a laughingstock." He ordered the attack to commence.
Surging forward with a cry of "Vive le Roi!" the French vanguard advanced
on Spring Hill
Redoubt at the double quick. The British and Loyalist troops in the fort
opened up on them with
a vicious cross-fire of muskets and cannons. The white-coated grenadiers
cleared the abatis in
front of the fort; then in the smoke and fog and under heavy fire, they
thrust their way up the
parapet. But the supporting French column was slow in following them. By
the time they
arrived to reinforce the vanguard, enemy fire had driven the grenadiers
back.
Leading his troops forward, d'Estaing was wounded in the arm just before
he reached the
redoubt. The fighting became intense. The attackers were sprayed with musket
fire and
grapeshot--pieces of scrap iron, nails, bolts, steel blades, and chain.
Fire also came from a
British galley in the river. A British soldier at one of the guns said,
"Believe me, I never was
happier in my Life than upon this Occasion."
D'Estaing's troops were thrown back on the second French assault column
led by Stedingk.
The columns became entangled, lost formation, and were cast into "utter
confusion," as one
French officer wrote. Stedingk's column was shoved back into the swampy
ground on the
French left, where more than half were killed or left "stuck fast in the
mud." "Those who lost
only their shoes," another officer said, "were the most fortunate."
D'Estaing urged his troops forward, crying, "Advance, my brave grenadiers,
kill the wretches"
while British and Loyalist troops from the redoubt bellowed, "Kill the
rascal French dogs," and
"God save the King!"
For a moment the sheer fury and determination of the French attack nearly
overwhelmed the
defenders, and the French managed to raise their flag over the parapet.
Stedingk later wrote:
"My doubts were all gone. I believed the day was our own."
But the defenders were determined, too. Despite three brave assaults on
the fort, the French
could not stand up to their firepower, and d'Estaing reluctantly ordered
a retreat. As the French
fell back, British troops rose up from the parapet and delivered a point-blank
volley. D'Estaing
was wounded for a second time, in the thigh, and was nearly left for dead.
Continental light infantry under John Laurens, former aide to General George
Washington, now
arrived, and then the second column under Lachlan McIntosh, whose wife
and children were in
Savannah. McIntosh already had weathered a political storm after killing
his rival, Button
Gwinnett, in a duel.
The Patriots arrived near the Spring Hill Redoubt at the height of the
battle's confusion, as the
wounded d'Estaing tried to re-form his troops. McIntosh's troops, thrust
far to the left in the
swamp, were exposed to British naval fire from the river, as well as heavy
grapeshot from the
fort. Major John Jones, the General's aide, was within paces of an enemy
cannon embrasure
when he was cut in two by a cannon shot. McIntosh was driven back under
heavy enemy fire
in the allied retreat.
Continentals of the 2nd South Carolina, led by the future partisan hero
Francis
Marion,
succeeded in reaching the redoubt; in brutal hand-to-hand combat on the
parapet Captain
Tawse, the Loyalist commander, died after striking down three of the attackers
with his sword.
Sergeant William Jasper placed the 2nd South Carolina's colors on the ramparts
but was shot
down. Jasper already was a hero because of his actions in 1776 at Fort
Sullivan near
Charleston, where he raised his regiment's flag in defiance of the British
naval assault. Now, as
he lay dying, he passed the colors to Lieutenant John Bush, who also fell.
As fighting raged for control of the parapet, Maitland committed his reserves.
British marines
and grenadiers launched a devastating bayonet charge that drove the attackers
back from the
ramparts and into the ditch below. Allied assault troops, helpless and
exposed to deadly musket
and artillery cross-fire, were butchered in the ditch. "The moment of retreat,"
Stedingk wrote,
"with the cries of our dying comrades piercing my heart was the bitterest
of my life." A British
officer described the scene: "Their assault was a furious as ever I saw;
The Ditch was choke
full of their Dead."
Full daylight now revealed dead and dying French and American soldiers,
many of them
impaled on the abatis, for 50 yards in front of the ditch. Mangled grapeshot
victims littered the
field for 100 yards beyond. At the sight of them, John Laurens threw down
his sword in disgust.
While the desperate allied gamble played itself out in the bloody ditch
in front of Spring Hill,
Brig. Gen. Kazimierz Pulaski, with the rebel cavalry, led a bold but reckless
attempt to breach
the British lines between the redoubts. Riding at the head of his 200 horsemen,
Pulaski reached
the abatis but was struck down by enemy canister fire. Exposed to deadly
fire and demoralized
by the loss of Pulaski, the allied cavalry withdrew in confusion. The attempt
to capture
Savannah was over.
The contest lasted less than an hour. When it was apparent even to d'Estaing
and Lincoln that it
was useless to continue, they withdrew their devastated troops and counted
losses.
The two sides observed a four-hour truce to collect and bury the dead and
to retrieve the
wounded. The French listed 151 killed and 370 wounded, while the Patriots
lost 231 killed and
wounded, nearly all Continentals. British losses were only 18 killed and
39 wounded. For the
allies, Savannah was the bloodiest battle of the war, a Bunker Hill in
reverse.
Once more, d'Estaing fell back on siege operations. But his officers warned
him that further
delay in the face of possible hurricanes off the Georgia coast might jeopardize
the fleet.
Squabbling between the allies soon set in. A French naval lieutenant described
the Savannah
operation as an "ill-conceived enterprise without anything in it for France,"
while a young
French artillery officer blamed the Patriots for the defeat at Spring Hill
Redoubt. The "rout
began with the rebels," he wrote, "they took flight first...like a crowd
leaving church." D'Estaing
blamed Lincoln, saying the rebels "promised much and delivered little."
Lincoln criticized the
count for not taking Savannah when he first had the chance.
Over Lincoln's objections, d'Estaing reluctantly prepared to pull out.
He marched his troops
back to the French ships, loaded his guns and equipment aboard, and set
sail for France,
dispatching some of the ships to the West Indies.
One of his officers described d'Estaing as "A true grenadier in this affair
but a poor general....It
is not the fault of the troops that Savannah was not taken, but rather
of those who commanded
us." The count, who wrote both prose and poetry, was intelligent, courageous
and bold. He also
was arrogant, ambitious and, in the words of another officer, "covetous
of glory." Before being
executed in 1794 during the French Revolution, he said, "When you cut off
my head, send it to
the English, they will pay you well for it!"
The siege was over. On October 19, the last of Lincoln's weary and disillusioned
rebel troops
withdrew to Charleston.
Maitland, the old Scottish warrior who worked so hard to defend Savannah,
died on October
26. Three days later, Governor Wright proclaimed a day of thanksgiving
for the British victory.
A golden opportunity to retake Savannah and alter the course of the war
had been lost. Two
more devastating defeats for the Patriots lay ahead. On May 12, 1780, British
forces captured
Lincoln's entire army of 5,400 at Charleston; and on August 16, 1780, General
Horatio Gates'
entire American army of 3,000 was destroyed at Camden, S.C. Georgia remained
in British
hands until the end of the war; and Savannah was not reoccupied by the
Patriots until the
British withdrew in 1782.
Two years after the Allied debacle at Savannah, a fresh opportunity for
a Franco-American
operation presented itself. General George Washington's Continentals, in
cooperation with
French regulars under Count Rochambeau and the French fleet under Admiral
DeGrasse,
besieged General Charles Cornwallis' British army at Yorktown, Va. This
time there were
more favorable battle conditions, better coordination, and wiser command
decisions. On
October 19, 1781, exactly two years after the rebel withdrawal from Savannah,
Yorktown's
8,000-man British garrison surrendered. Benjamin Lincoln was given the
honor of accepting the
defeated British general's sword.
The defeat at Yorktown prompted Britain to open peace talks with the American
rebels, and in
early 1783 the Treaty of Paris recognized the United States as an independent
nation.
Thomas G. Rodgers teaches history at Gilmer High School in Ellijay, Ga.,
at Reinhart
College in Waleska, Ga., and at Truett-McConnell College, Epworth, Ga.
He is the
author of a number of articles on American military history. For further
reading:
Alexander A. Lawrence's Storm Over Savannah; or Henry Lumpkin's Savannah
to
Yorktown: The American Revolution in the South.