During the siege of Savannah an ingenious enterprise of partisan warfare was executed by Colonel White of the Georgia line. Before the arrival of the French fleet in the Savannah, a British captain with in men had taken post near the river Ogeeche, twenty-five miles from Savannah. At the same place were five British vessels, four of which were armed, the largest with fourteen guns, the least with four, and the vessels were manned with forty sailors. Late at night, on the 30th of September (1779), White, who had only six volunteers, including his own servant, kindled a number of fires in different places so as to exhibit the appearance of a considerable encampment, practiced several other corresponding artifices, and then summoned the captain instantly to surrender. That officer, believing that he was about to be attacked by a superior force and that nothing but immediate submission could save him and his men from destruction, made no defense. The stratagem was carried on with so much address that the prisoners, amounting to 141, were secured and conducted to the American post at Sunbury, twenty-five miles distant. On receiving intelligence of the situation of Lincoln, Congress passed a resolution requesting Washington to order the North Carolina troops, and such others as could be spared from the northern army, to the aid of that in the South and assuring the States of South Carolina and Georgia of the attention of government to their preservation, but requesting them, for their own defense to comply with the recommendations formerly made respecting the completion of their Continental regiments, and the government of their militia while in actual service. Washington had already received (November 1779) intelligence of the disastrous result of D'Estaing and Lincoln's attack on Savannah, and had formed his plans of operation before Congress sent assurances of aid to the South. Giving up all expectation of cooperation from the French fleet, he disbanded the New York and Massachusetts militia and made his arrangements for the winter. He ordered one division of the army under General Heath to the Highlands to protect West Point and the posts in that neighborhood, and with the other division he went into winter quarters near Morristown, the army being quartered in huts, as at Valley Forge. The cavalry were sent to Connecticut. Washington had already penetrated the design of the enemy to make the southern States their principal field of operation, and accordingly he dispatched to Charleston the North Carolina brigade in November, and the whole of the Virginia line in December. On the other hand, Clinton and Cornwallis embarked with a large force in transports convoyed by Admiral Arbuthnot with a fleet of five ships of the line and several frigates, and sailed on the 26th of December 1779, for Savannah. Knyphausen was left in command of the garrison of New York. [3]