The skirmish at Lexington became known in Savannah on the 10th of May, and added Georgia to the union. At that time she had about 17,000 white inhabitants and 15,000 Africans. Her militia was not less than 3,000. {3225} Her frontier, which extended from Augusta to St. Mary's, was threatened by the Creeks, with 4,000 warriors; the Chickasas, with 450; the Cherokees, with 3,000; the Choctas, with 2,500. But danger could not make her people hesitate. On the night of the 11th, Noble Wimberley Jones, Joseph Habersham, Edward Telfair, and others, broke open the king's magazine in the eastern part of the city, and took from it over 500 pounds of powder. To the Boston wanderers they sent 63 barrels of rice and £122 in specie; and they kept the king's birthday by raising a liberty-pole." _G. Bancroft, History of the United States (Author's last revision), volume 4, chapter 11._ ALSO IN: _T. Jones, History of New York during the Revolution, volume 1, chapter 2._ _W. Wirt, Life of Patrick Henry, section 5._ _W. B. Stevens, History of Georgia, book 4, chapter 1 (volume 2)._ _Proceedings of New York Provincial Congress (New York State Archives, volume 1)._ _W. H. Egle, History of Pennsylvania, chapter 8._ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (May). The surprising of Ticonderoga and Crown Point. "Early in the year 1775, as soon as it was made manifest by the attitude assumed on the part of the British government against the colonies, and by the conduct of General Gage in Boston, that open hostilities must inevitably commence in a short time, it began to be secretly whispered among the principal politicians in New England that the capture of Ticonderoga was an object demanding the first attention. In the month of March, Samuel Adams and Dr. Joseph Warren, as members of the Committee of Correspondence in Boston, sent an agent privately into Canada, on a political mission, with instructions to ascertain the feelings of the people there in regard to the approaching contest, and to make such reports as his observations should warrant. … This agent sent back intelligence from Montreal, and among other things advised, that by all means the garrison of Ticonderoga should be seized as quickly as possible after the breaking out of hostilities, adding that the people of the New Hampshire Grants had already agreed to undertake the task, and that they were the most proper persons to be employed in it. This hint was given three weeks anterior to the battle of Lexington, and how far it influenced future designs may not be known; but it is certain that, eight days after that event, several gentlemen at that time attending the Assembly in Hartford, Connecticut, concerted a plan for surprising Ticonderoga and seizing the