Independence - The Southern Strategy

American Political History · Jul 4, 2025 · 26m

In December 1778, a British army took Savannah in an afternoon — guided around the American line by an enslaved man betting on which side would make him free. It was the opening move of Britain’s new plan: the South was said to be full of Loyalists who would rise if the army gave them cover, so take the ports, arm the King’s friends, and roll the rebellion up from Georgia. For a year and a half, it worked. This is the story of how the war moved south — the bloody failed attempt to retake Savannah where Casimir Pulaski fell, and then the great prize, Charleston, where General Benjamin Lincoln…