Savannah, Georgia had been captured in 1778 by a British expeditionary corps under Lieutenant-Colonel Archibald Campbell.
A joint Franco-American besieges Savannah from September 16, 1779 to October 18, 1779.
A major assault against the British siege works fails on October 9, 1779.
General Casimir Pułaski, probing for a weak point in the British lines during a cavalry charge, is wounded in the groin by grapeshot on October 9, 1779.
Carried from the field by several comrades, including Colonel John C. Cooper, he is taken aboard the privateer merchant brigantine Wasp, where two days later, without having regained consciousness, he dies of his wounds.
Pulaski, a Polish noble, had fought as a military commander for the Bar Confederation against Russian domination of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
When this uprising failed, he had emigrated to North America, where he had become a General in the Continental Army, fighting in the American Revolutionary War for the independence of the United States.
A noted cavalryman, Pułaski has played a large role in training Revolutionary troops, with Congress naming him "Commander of the Horse".
He is, however, infamous for his arrogance, and had demanded that his only superior be the commanding general.
Undoubtedly brave, his imperious personality and lack of English had caused him to resign his general command, but late in 1778, through Washington's intervention, he had been allowed by the Continental Congress to organize an independent corps, Pulaski's Legion, one of the few cavalry regiments in the Continental Army.
He had taken part in the Battle of Brandywine.
Known to posterity as the Father of the American Cavalry, Pułaski had demanded much of his men and trained them in tested cavalry tactics.
He used his own personal finances, when money from Congress was scarce, in order to assure his forces of the finest equipment and personal safety.
The Battle of Savannah is much remembered in Haitian history; the Fontages Legion, consisting of over five hundred gens de couleur—free men of color from Saint-Domingue—fight on the French side.
The British are to remain in control of Georgia until July 1782, close to the end of the war.
