The histories of all military units catalogue with pride the wars and campaigns in which such corps served. Few histories, however, deal with civil disturbance service. Most often, civil disturbance actions are dirty, disorganized, emotional confrontations against one's own countrymen. Such history is usually deemed best unwritten and quickly forgotten. Such has heretofore been the case with the history of the Republican Blues of the First Regiment at Savannah. History recalls only a whisper of the first civil disturbance service at Savannah, when daggers of American seamen crossed with the poignards of French privateersmen from November 12-15, 1811. Gordon Smith
It began the day after Independence Day, 1811. A French ship sailed into the port of Savannah and dropped anchor. It was the LaVengeance, a privateer schooner under command of Captain Charles Lomine three months out of Charleston on a voyage to South America.
The schooner was in port to refit. It was a common practice that caused no complaints except among some of the Scots and Englishmen of Savannah. A privateer was a privately owned vessel licensed by a government during wartime to attack and capture enemy ships. The French were at war with England in 1811, a war that would include America the following year.
The LaVengeance remained in port and was soon joined by a second French vessel, LaFrancise. It too was a privateer under the command of Captain John Chevallier. It had formerly been known as L'Agile, a devil-may-care ship which had fired upon an American gunboat a short time earlier. Both French ships settled into the waters of Savannah's port for an unusually long stay.
Summer passed, but the French ships remained in the harbor. Their captains insisted that they were waiting for French sailors to come from Charleston, but it became apparent that these men were actively recruiting sailors from Savannah to sail with them. By November, 34 Americans had signed up as privateers to sail under the French flag.
On November 12, a Tuesday night, one young recruit dropped in at a local to have few before sailing with his new mates. Soon he was in good spirits and the liquor had well lubricated his tongue.
He announced that he had signed on with one of the French crews and added that he intended to "win the horse or lose the saddle." Privateering, like piracy, could be quite profitable for those who made a commitment and took the chances.
Several Americans in the place took offense at this bold revelation and told the young man so.
An argument erupted. The man had no business fighting in a war that didn't concern him, especially as a mercenary, a crowd of drinkers told him.
Things got hotter and soon blossomed into a full-fledged riot and spilled out into the street. Some citizens ran for help and soon returned with a local official, the county coroner, to restore the peace.
The coroner waded into the thick of the battle with nothing but his title to protect him. It was not enough. He was so badly beaten that he had to be carried home. It was good he survived. He would be needed in his official capacity during the days to come.
On Thursday, a group of French and Italian sailors were whooping it up in a local bawdy house on the upper end of Savannah when six American seamen came through the open door. They said they were there to "dance" with the ladies, but 20 privateersmen called for the first waltz.
Armed with daggers, sabres and clubs, the privateersmen surrounded the Americans who had to fight their way back out the door. Jacob Taylor, eighteen-year-old second mate of the brig Hetty out of Philadelphia, was struck with a blow from a sabre and then repeatedly stabbed with a dagger. His body was left to "welter in its blood" in one of Savannah's public squares.
John Collins, an Irish-born zigger with the Hetty, was carried to the home of a Mrs. Driscol, where he would die the following day.
One of the Frenchmen, Pierre Scipion, 23, would die at the home of Maria Louisa Charrie where he was taken for medical attention after the brawl.
Before Taylor's blood was cold on the city's streets, Samuel Rahn, a member of the Republican Blues had carried the details of the fights to city alderman Michael Hughs, acting commander of the Blues. Hughs had alerted the mayor who had immediately called out the militia.
The Blues joined the City Guard and went directly to the waterfront and searched the two French vessels for men who looked like they had been in a fight. Tbirty-four men were arrested as suspects and taken straight to jail.
The Republican Blues then took to the streets to patrol the troubled area and search houses suspected of harboring refugees from the brothel riots. Several more wounded sailors were found before the day was through.
The mayor spent most of Friday morning questioning those who had been arrested the day before. Seven of the men were committed to trial and the rest were released.
As the freed men walked back to the waterfront, their anger festered until the group was embroiled in rage. They had barely reached the wharf when they spied two American sailors who became the target of assault by this group of screaming Frenchmen.
The Americans screamed too, on being attacked, and were heard by a group of nearby sailors who happened to be from the brig Hetty and a New York brig, the Champlin. The group ran to the aid of their countrymen lead by none other than William Fountain, captain of the Hetty and friend of the dead first mate, Jacob Taylor.
It was four o'clock in the afternoon, the end of the business day at the wharf, as the small group of irate sailors ran yelling down toward the fight scene, one man carrying an American flag. They ran straight into a trap.
Earlier that day, anticipating trouble, some of the privateersmen had hidden guns and ammunition in an abandoned warehouse on Anciaux's wharf. As the Americans rushed past, the upper windows of the warehouse blazed with gunfire, making a widow of an innocent dock worker's wife and giving one of the seamen a crippled foot.
One bullet hit Captain Zebulon Miller of the Champlin, taking out one of his eyes, breaking his nose and damaging his other eye. At the sound of gunfire and screams from the wounded, a general alarm bell was sounded and every militiaman within earshot jumped to his arms.
The Georgia Foresters drew their muskets and assembled at their parade ground as did the Chatham Rangers and the Chatham Troop of Light Dragoons. Members of the Chatham Artillery immediately hauled one of their cannons to a bluff overlooking the wharf area.
The ambush was quickly quelled, but feelings continued to run high and in the final act of the incident at Anciaux's Wharf, both French vessels were set ablaze in the Savannah harbor.