It is entirely creditable to James Edward Oglethorpe that he should have refused to take control of the British armies against the American people. The great soldier, who had fought under Prince Eugene of Savoy and John of Argyle, declined to draw his sword to strike down the young colonies he had done so much to build up. If England was his mother, Georgia he considered his offspring. He had founded it and protected it, and from the ramparts of Frederica had beaten back the invading Spaniards at “Bloody Marsh.” He had sought no reward. The highest philanthropy brought him to these shores to share the lot of the emigrant. The friend of Hannah More, the companion of Pope, the patron of Sothern, Dr. Johnson wished to write his life, and Edmund Burke regarded him as the most extraordinary person of whom he had ever read. There is no specific monument to Oglethorpe in Georgia. Why should there be? A tablet in Cranham Church in England proclaims his excellence; but here, in the language of Chas. C. Jones, “The Savannah repeats to the Altamaha the stories of his virtues and his valor.” [Illustration: GENERAL OGLETHORPE.] Savannah during the Revolution recalls a story of blood and suffering. If her people delayed in severing the bonds which united them to the mother country, they struck promptly and boldly when the issue came, and were zealous throughout their long period of captivity in opposing the forces of his Majesty’s government. After the colonists had seized the powder from the royal magazine, and had erected the liberty pole on King George’s birthday, they went actively to work in fortifying the city against the British troops. In February, 1776, when the English war-ships and transports sailed up the river, they were met by the patriots with a galling volley, and their fleet was afterwards scattered by a fire-ship set adrift from the American shore, communicating the flames to the British boats and sending their men and sailors through the marshes in flight. On the 29th of December, 1778, General Howe, the commander of the Americans, was defeated by Colonel Campbell. The English and Hessian soldiers marched through a small path in the swamp, and fell suddenly upon the flank and rear of the Americans, consisting of but nine hundred men, while Colonel Campbell’s forces, which had been landed at Tybee Island, numbered three thousand five hundred. The remainder of General Howe’s army escaped into South Carolina, and the British took possession of Savannah, which they held for three years and a half. In October, 1779, a bloody battle was fought at Savannah, but the British again triumphed over the allied forces of the French and Americans. Count D’Estaing arrived off Tybee with thirty-five ships and five thousand men. General Lachlan McIntosh and Count Casimir Pulaski marched down from Augusta and formed a junction with D’Estaing. The engagement took place at Spring Hill redoubt, now the site of the Georgia Railway. Count D’Estaing was shot,