The siege of Savannah lasted from September 16 to October 18, 1779, and essentially ended on October 9 when a joint French-American assault on a fortified British position ended in disaster, claiming among others, the Polish general Casimir Pulaski. The French forces included some 500 Haitian volunteers from Saint-Domingue. A monument in Savannah memorializes this contribution.
Though still under French authority at this time, the Les Chasseurs Volontaires de Saint Domingue were free men who fought on the American side. It provides a contrast to the ambivalence, if not original hostility, of Washington to allowing slaves or freed slaves to fight in the Continental Army.l
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