Book contains information on pension, land, loyalist records, military accounts, petitions and other information about the citizens of Georgia that served in the Continental Army. Georgia was the only one of the thirteen colonies that was completely conquered by the British and restored to the status of a colony. Only some forty percent of the families living there before the war remained after the fighting was over.
Mrs. McCall's roster of Georgia soldiers in the Revolution was compiled over many years. The work as a whole is cumulative, with only slight, albeit significant, differences in the kinds of information which may be found in one volume versus another. This volume (Volume III) is the longest of the work and contains records of officers and soldiers. The majority of the entries are for Georgia officers and soldiers, although some material relates to other states. Clearfield Company also publishes Volumes I and II of this monumental work. Volume I ocontains the records of hundreds of Revolutionary War soldiers and officers of Georgia, with genealogies of their families, and lists of soldiers buried in Georgia whose graves have been located. The arrangement of Volume II is similar; however, it contains records of officers and soldiers not only from Georgia but also from other states, many of whose descendants later came to Georgia because of liberal land grants. This is an extremely rich work, covering several thousand Revolutionary soldiers and referring to as many as 20,000 persons overall, each of whom is easily found in the name index at the back of each volume.
This history of the American Revolution in Georgia offers a thorough examination of how landownership issues complicated and challenged colonists’ loyalties. Despite underdevelopment and isolation, eighteenth-century Georgia was an alluring place, for it promised settlers of all social classes the prospect of affordable land--and the status that went with ownership. Then came the Revolution and its many threats to the orderly systems by which property was acquired and protected. As rebel and royal leaders vied for the support of Georgia’s citizens, says Leslie Hall, allegiance became a prime commodity, with property and the preservation of owners’ rights the requisite currency for securing it. As Hall shows, however, the war’s progress in Georgia was indeterminate; in fact, Georgia was the only colony in which British civil government was reestablished during the war. In the face of continued uncertainties--plundering, confiscation, and evacuation--many landowners’ desires for a strong, consistent civil authority ultimately transcended whatever political leanings they might have had. The historical irony here, Hall’s study shows, is that the most successful regime of Georgia’s Revolutionary period was arguably that of royalist governor James Wright. Land and Allegiance in Revolutionary Georgia is a revealing study of the self-interest and practical motivations in competition with a period’s idealism and rhetoric.
Patriots in Georgia Revolutionary War Engagements 1776-1782 serves a foundational resource that presents the Patriots who fought in Revolutionary War battles in Georgia where men were killed, wounded or captured. This book is the result of researching thousands of Revolutionary War pension applications and books and documents from other states. The names of Patriots, their officers, other patriots with which they associated, the Georgia engagements in which they participated along with other information has been collected and compiled into a comprehensive research tool. The information has been presented in two ways: structured by engagement; and by individual Patriot. This structure provides a complete picture of the engagement and a listing of the Patriots that participated in each and a profile of each individual Patriot and his actions across multiple engagements. The book is extensively indexed and contains information related to 42 Georgia Revolutionary War engagements and over 2,000 Patriots. All information is annotated with detailed source data allowing the researcher to quickly identify National Archives film rolls, publications and documents from which the information was obtained in order to further their research.
The American Revolution in Georgia explores the political, economic, and social impacts of the American Revolution throughout the state of Georgia. In this detailed historical study, Kenneth Coleman describes the events leading up to the Revolution, the fighting years of war, and the years of readjustment after independence became a reality for the United States. Coleman investigates how these events impacted Georgia’s history forever, from the rise of discontent between 1764 and 1774 to the fighting after the siege in Savannah between 1779 and 1782 and changes in interstate affairs between 1782 to 1789, and more. The American Revolution in Georgia contributes to the complicated history of the American Revolution and its impacts on the South. The Georgia Open History Library has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this collection, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
