Wayne, Anthony, Continental General

Autograph letter signed ("Anthy Wayne"), 4 pages, 4to (9 x 7 1/8 in.; 229 x 182 mm), Walthon's, 5 miles below Ebenezer, Georgia, 22 January 1782, to General John Barnwell, instructing him to draw supplies of rice and Indian corn from South Carolina and transport them by water and land to Ebenezer; minor fold separations, some discoloration along folds.

Lawrence Sanders Rowland, Alexander Moore, George C. Rogers, History of Beaufort County, South Carolina (1996), pp. 238, 240

Re-establishing a strategic outpost in the defense of Savannah.  "I returned here last evening after reconnoitering the enemy and exploring the country in the vicinity of their lines and between the Savannah and great Ogeeche, and find it a perfect desert except that within these posts so that all our supplies for the present must be drawn from Carolina. I must therefore request you ... to send in as much clean and rough rice and Indian corn as possible to the Sisters ferry from whence it will be conveyed by water to Ebeneser which we must make our first post." Even though the war had technically ended with the British surrender at Yorktown in October 1781, Washington sent Wayne to Georgia in January 1782 to assume command of the Continental forces there and drive the British from Savannah; and Nathaniel Greene, commander of the Southern Department,  had ordered General John Barnwell to mobilize the Beaufort Brigade of militia to assist Wayne in liberating Georgia.

In closing, Wayne also asks Barnwell for a return of the number of troops under the latter's command and when could they join him. Although the British outnumbered Wayne's forces by about two to one, Wayne was able to control the hinterland and cut off the outlying posts, particularly at Ebenezer. "The enemy occupy a part at Mulbury Grove & another at Mr. Gibbon's, six miles from Savannah which are of important service to them, as they include all the Country that affords any supplies. However they are not invulnerable." In February 1782 Wayne ordered  Barnwell to move the Beaufort regiment against a large and prized quantity of rice stored on Hutchinson Island opposite Savannah to prevent it from being used by the British (perhaps the rice he had requested in this letter). Barnwell gathered boats at Beaufort but they were destroyed by the British before they could be deployed. Barnwell's brother Edward did lead elements of the Beaufort District militia against Hutchinson Island but a sharp exchange of fire with the British forced his retreat.