The Savannah Siege II

We were trying to get into position as best as we could. I couldn’t do a lot with the entrenchment, I was too small to do the work of the men but I did my share I think. We were also attacked a couple of times while we were entrenching ourselves. It made me mad to see how the enemy was fighting us while we were just digging in. We could have taken the city by now if we had wanted to, I knew that and I wasn’t anything but a drummer boy. The British were messing up our works wherever and whenever they could, and I couldn’t help wondering why we weren’t doing the same back at them.

One of these attacks by the British on our lines caused an unfortunate incident that I was involved in. We were all under a lot of stress, the British had attacked our lines only a few days before and we were all still tense after that. This time when the British attacked, our nerves already frayed, some of our troops started firing at everything that moved. It was already dark and that led to an unfortunate accident. When our troops, I mean the French troops were firing, there was no way for us to know where the American troops were. That went for them as well. It was only after five minutes or so of total confusion that everything was sorted out and I won’t lie, some men died that night from friendly fire and still others were injured. It was the first time that I was ever directly in the line of fire of battle. I wasn’t hurt, but I am not going to say I enjoyed it. I grew very scared but it was good preparation for what was to come. I can’t imagine what might have happened if I had gone into a true battle not having been under fire ever before. I think I would have died.

Some British forces going to relieve the fort were finally captured but it was done by the Americans, so those of us in the French camp couldn’t celebrate a lot. Still it was nice for something good to happen for a change. I don’t hear a lot of good things about the Americans from the others, I hear they eat horrible and are untrained. That might be so but they are good at tricks. That’s how they captured the British this time, Captain French and his men were captured by a much smaller American force and I have to admire them for that. I have been paying a lot of mind to how the Americans fight, it isn’t at all like how we are trained to fight, it’s trickier and more unpredictable.

We managed to get our cannons on land, most of the cannons belong to us French troops. The Americans don’t have enough ammunition even without us. I would be able to brag more if we had gotten the cannons ashore sooner. My unit is infantry so we didn’t have anything to do with the cannons but I could hear them blasting through the day and night. Not only that but I heard stories about them. I don’t think much of the men who deal with canons, they seem to get drunk more then our soldiers, I heard they weren’t aiming right because of rum.

A lot of our soldiers made cruel joke about what must be happening in the city because of our bombardment. Soldiers I found to be very casual about life, I not being a true soldier yet found them heartless. I knew there to be women and children in the city yet, none of them having been allowed to leave before we lay siege and our commanders refusing to allow them to leave now. Our cannons must have done horrible damage to the buildings and streets and the thought of women running to cellars to escape us wasn’t a pleasant thought to me, though many of the men around me didn’t seem to mind.

To be continued...