Guns Did Roar: Revolutionary Georgia Fights to defend Its Waterways, 1776-1779 (New Perspectives in Maritime History and Nautical Archaeology)

During the American Revolution, Georgia, the youngest, smallest, weakest, and most remote colony, was vulnerable to attack from British East Florida, hostile Indians, loyalists to the west and northwest, and from British naval ships and privateers cruising along the Atlantic coast. Defense of Georgia's segment of the Inland Passage and its many rivers was of paramount concern. The state's galleys, four underwritten by the Continental Congress and built by Philadelphia shipwrights in Savannah, constituted the state's principal vessels of its small navy. Stoutly constructed, highly maneuverable in confined waters, and armed with very heavy ordnance, they could outgun many small blue-water sailing vessels. By drawing upon many long-dormant, unpublished British documents, Wood provides the first book written about Revolutionary Georgia's navy and casts new light on the neglected contribution of state navies to the war.