Dear Gregory:

Thank you for your comments. I’ve read several accounts about the “Les Chasseurs-Royaux." What is missing from the articles is the true motivation of these men to fight at the Battle of Savannah. Also many lack the profiles of these men.

Since then I’ve discovered the following:

Dr. Gwen Midlo Hall disproves the myth that the Saint-Domingues militia was truly “volunteers” in the Battle of Savannah. In “Saint Domingue” and her book “Social Control in Slave Plantation Societies: A Comparison of St. Domingue and Cuba”, she describes one of their jobs was to “pursue fugitive slaves,” p. 117. Midlo Hall writes that the Les Chasseurs Voluntaires de Gens de Couleur de Saint Domingue were ordered to join the military in 1780. All were blacks, mulattoes and free colored men between fifteen and sixteen years of age were ordered to serve one year in the Compagnies…”

John Garrigus echoes Midlo Hall in his article, “Catalyst or Catastrophe? Saint-Domingue’s Free Men of Color and the Battle of Savannah, 1779-1782.” Could some of these soldiers have remained in Georgia?

Please click on the link below to read the Garrigus essay.

K Wyer Lane