A Revolutionary Moment for St. Simons Island

by

History

While the remains of Fort Frederica and historical markers for Fort St. Simons and the Bloody Marsh battle site clearly indicate that soldiers and military presence played a big role in St. Simons Island history, those days were mostly before and after the Revolutionary War. In fact, the most significant military confrontation between British and American troops in Georgia was the Siege of Savannah in 1779.

However, each year, on the Saturday closest to April 19th, members of the Sons of the American Revolution, Daughters of the American Revolution, other civic organizations and local residents—many wearing colonial attire and the uniforms of soldiers from days long past—gather in The Village on St. Simons Island to mark “Georgia Patriot’s Day.” A parade of patriots and ceremony commemorate not only the anniversary of “the shot heard round the world” at Lexington and Concord in 1776, but also the Frederica Naval Action in 1778—St. Simons’ shining moment in the Revolutionary War.

On July 4, 1776, mere months after that fateful day at Lexington and Concord, representatives of the Thirteen Colonies met as members of the Second Continental Congress at the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall) in Philadelphia to formally approve the Declaration of Independence. There to represent Georgia were Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, and George Walton. While debate has ensued about who was present at the gathering and whether August 2 was the actual date of the signing, it is clear that the July meeting and this historical declaration marked the birth of our nation.

Georgia was the youngest of the Thirteen Colonies, with only 43 years having passed since being founded by General James Oglethorpe in 1733. The final colony established by Britain in North America, Georgia was intended mostly to be a buffer zone to protect the southern colonies from Spanish invasions out of Florida. The young colony was initially founded and ruled by a Board of Trustees based in London, England, and had no governor or governing body within the colony until 1752. At the time of the outbreak of the Revolutionary War in 1775, threats of Spanish incursion had ended and the forts along the coast had mostly been abandoned. Georgia was scarcely populated and steadily establishing a coastal plantation economy based on exports of rice and Sea Island cotton.

Sir James Wright was serving as the royally appointed governor in 1776 when the Revolutionary movement spurred by the 1765 Stamp Act escalated into armed conflict. As a newer colony Georgia had been mostly on the outskirts of Revolutionary War politics and wartime action due to its small population and minimal development. Though Georgians resisted British trade regulation, there were many who sympathized with British interests because royal rule had brought them prosperity and the presence of British troops protected them from Indian attacks. Despite existing Loyalist tendencies, Georgia rebels arrested Wright in January 1776, but he managed to flee to London on a British warship. He then lobbied heavily for a full-scale British invasion of Georgia, which eventually happened in late 1778. In the meantime, Glynn County was established in February of 1777, and was named in honor of John Glynn, a British Parliamentarian who staunchly supported the American colonies.

It was on April 19 of 1778 that St. Simons Island had its shining Revolutionary moment. Three years to the day after British soldiers fired on American patriots at Lexington and Concord to begin the Revolutionary War, the Georgia Continental Navy captured three British ships in the Frederica River near St. Simons Island. 

The British navy had positioned three warships, Hichinbrooke, Hatter, and Rebecca in the Frederica River with the intent of interrupting trade by capturing American merchant vessels off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia. In response, commander of the Georgia militia Colonel Samuel Elbert ordered American galleys Washington, Lee, and Bulloch to engage and capture the British ships. During the April 19 morning attack, the smaller, better outfitted, and more easily maneuverable American galleys forced Hinchinbrooke and Rebecca to run aground. The Hatter was able to retreat from the attack, but the British abandoned the disabled ships—a decisive victory for the Americans and tremendous morale boost for the people of Georgia. 

Not only did the victory put out of commission the two large British ships that had “spread terror” on the coast, but it also deterred additional naval attacks and delayed for more than eight months a major movement by the British to capture Fort Morris and Sunbury. The Frederica Naval Action further boosted confidence in the strength of America’s defense by effectively demonstrating the ability of the smaller, heavily armed galleys to succeed in battle against the larger, but considerably less maneuverable British ships in the confined waters of inland naval battles. And it happened here, right in our waters. 

The Tall Ship Lynx, a historic replica schooner participating in Sail 250 celebrating America’s semiquincentennial, took to those same waters and fired its cannons to commemorate this Revolutionary moment in St. Simons history during Georgia Patriot’s Day festivities. Loud huzzahs from the deck echoed those that must have rang out after the victory in our battle for independence more than two centuries ago.