BATTLE OF BRIAR CREEK
Near Sylvania, Georgia, 3 March 1779
After winning a victory over Loyalists at Kettle Creek, General John Ashe established a rendezvous point at the mouth of Briar Creek. There he expected to be joined by reinforcements led by William Moultrie and Griffith Rutherford.
Before the patriot reinforcements could arrive, however, the defeated British Army under Colonel Archibald Campbell received reinforcements from Savannah led by Lieutenant Colonel Mark Prevost. They sprang a surprise attack on Ashe's camp at Briar Creek.
The patriots had no choice but to flee the larger British Army that attacked them. Only Colonel Samuel Elbert's Georgia militiamen remained behind to delay pursuit. They made up the bulk of the four hundred patriot lives lost that day (compared to only five Loyalists).
Among those who escaped with their lives was my ancestor John Cox.
Some have suggested the American defeat at Briar Creek helped the overall patriot cause. Although it reversed the gains made at Kettle Creek and left the region firmly in British control, it also encouraged Lord Cornwallis to foolishly pursue the new "Southern Strategy" that led to his surrender at Yorktown just two years later.
References:
John Cox, Revolutionary War pension file #S6778.
Dixon Hollingsworth, The History of Screven County, Georgia, Curtis Media Corp, 1989. Pages 12-15.
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