As we all know, through the failure of General Lee to concentrate the requisite men and munitions, the contemplated movement from which so much was anticipated never took place; and when, on the 20th of September, he went North to assume the command to which he had been appointed, he ordered the troops in the neighborhood of Sunbury to follow him. This project was renewed by General Robert Howe, who advanced as far as Fort Tonyn. There, however, a council of war decided a further prosecution of the enterprise unadvisable. The sick and convalescent,—of whom there was a considerable number,—in gallies and such boats as could be procured were, under the command of Colonel C. C. Pinckney, conducted by the inland passage to Sunbury where, for a time, they were allowed to rest and recruit. They were subsequently transferred to Charleston by the way of Port Royal.[202] Colonel John McIntosh was left in command of Sunbury with one hundred and twenty-seven men. The remnants of Elbert’s and White’s regiments proceeded to Savannah.[203] So far, Sunbury had suffered no molestation at the hands of the King’s forces. Lord George Germain’s plan for the Southern campaign in 1778 was prepared with “minuteness of detail.” The reduction of Savannah was resolved upon. As a diversion, and with a view to distracting the attention of General Howe and the American forces concentrated for the protection of the then capital of Georgia, General Augustine Prevost was ordered to dispatch from St. Augustine two expeditions, one, by sea, to operate directly against Sunbury, and the other, by land, to march through and harrass the lower portions of Georgia, and, at Sunbury, form a junction with the former.