It does not lie within the compass of this sketch to recount the operations of the allied armies under Count D’Estaing and General Lincoln which culminated in that bloody and disastrous repulse on the morning of the 9th of October, 1779. Suffice it to say that Sunbury had her patriotic representatives among the troops commanded by General Lachlan McIntosh, both during the progress of the siege and in the final assault. Two of them at least attested with their lives their supreme devotion to the patriot cause:—Major John Jones who had been for some years a resident of Sunbury, and who was at the time an aid to General McIntosh; and Charles Price, formerly a practising Attorney at Sunbury, and a young gentleman of promise in his profession.[217] Upon the repulse of the allied armies, and after the departure of Count D’Estaing, and the retreat of General Lincoln into Carolina, the condition of the sea-coast of Georgia was more pitiable than ever. Exasperated by the formidable demonstration, and rendered more arrogant and exacting, the Loyalists set out in every direction upon missions of insult, pillage, and inhumanity. Plundering banditti roved about unrestrained, seizing negroes, stock, furniture, wearing apparel, plate, jewels, and anything they coveted. Children were severely beaten to compel a revelation of the places where valuable property and money were concealed. In the language of Captain McCall,[218] “The militia who had been under the protection of the British, not allowing themselves to doubt of the success of the allied forces, cheerfully participated in a measure which promised the recovery of the State to the union. Future protection was not to be expected, and nothing remained for them but the halter and confiscation from the British or exile for themselves, and poverty and ill-treatment by an insolent enemy for their wives and children who were ordered forthwith to depart the country without the means for travelling or any other means but a reliance on charity for subsistence on their way. “The obscene language which was used, and personal insults which were offered to the tender sex, soon rendered a residence in the country insupportable. Having neither funds nor means of conveyance for themselves and children, they were obliged to abandon the country under the most deplorable circumstances and seek a dependent residence in the adjoining States at the most inclement season of the year. Numbers whose former condition enabled them to make their neighboring visits in carriages, were obliged to travel on foot; many of them without shoes, through muddy roads and deep swamps.” Prominent among these raiding Tories was the renegade McGirth.