CHATHAM COUNTY

 

Chatham County encompasses Georgia's northernmost coastal area at the mouth of the Savannah River.  It was there on Yamacraw Bluff that General James Oglethorpe landed in 1733 and established the Georgia Colony which had been chartered in 1732, the year George Washington was born.

 

Chatham became the third county organized after the break with England.  It was made up of all of Christ Church Parish and part of St. Phillips, dating from 1777.  It was named for one of England's most illustrious prime ministers, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, in honor of his support of the colonial cause in Parliament. 

Savannah, the county seat, was a name derived from the Spanish term for grassy plain.  From Savannah, in what is now Chatham County, the English under Oglethorpe made forays inland and along the coast to discourage Spanish intrusion northward from Florida.

 

As early as 1774 Georgia's Patriots began holding rallies in Savannah. In 1775 Savannah Patriots seized a Royal powder magazine and with other hostile acts toward the British Crown attempted to help the Philadelphia Patriots who were then the focus of oppression from England.

 

A full six months before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Georgians put their colonial governor under house arrest and initiated home rule.

 

The Revolutionary War years were eventful for residents of Chatham County.  The English captured merchant ships off Tybee Island.  In the last days of 1778, Savannah was attacked by a force of 2,500 English soldiers.  The following year, American and French units moved to retake the city which the English had now fortified.  After a month-long siege, Americans and their allies attacked the Spring Hill Redoubt (the  site became the Central of Georgia Depot) in some of the bloodiest fighting of the war.  The attack failed, and the Americans pulled out, not to regain the city until 1782.

 

During the Civil War, Savannah's vital port was blockaded and its commerce crippled.  On Christmas Day in 1864, Sherman completed his march through Georgia to the sea and captured the city.  Destruction was more limited in Savannah than it had been on the march to Savannah.