year, when the second major attempt at Franco-American cooperation, an attempt to retake Savannah, failed with heavy casualties. British southern strategy The winter of 1779–80 was one of the coldest in recorded colonial history. New York Harbor froze over, and the winter camps of the Continental Army were deluged with snow, resulting in hardships exceeding those experienced at Valley Forge. The war was declining in popularity, and the inflationary issuance of paper currency by Congress and the states alike harmed the economy, and the ability to provision the army. The paper currency also hit the army's morale, since it was how the troops were paid. Congress fixed the rate between paper and gold dollars at 40-to-1 in March 1780, but many merchants refused to accept the Continental currency at the official exchange rate. One Loyalist wrote, "Mock-money and mock-states shall melt away // And the mock troops disband for want of pay." The British in late 1779 embarked on a new strategy based on the assumption that most Southerners were Loyalists at heart. General Clinton withdrew the British garrison from Newport, and marshalled a force of more than 10,000 men that in the first half of 1780 successfully besieged Charleston, South Carolina. In June 1780 he captured over 5,000 Continental soldiers and militia in the single worst defeat of the war for the Americans. Washington had at the end of March pessimistically dispatched several regiments troops southward from his army, hoping they might have some effect in what he saw as a looming disaster. He also ordered troops stationed in Virginia and North Carolina south, but these were either captured at Charleston, or scattered later at Waxhaws and Camden. Camden saw the ignominious defeat of General Gates, who had been appointed to the southern command by Congress without Washington's advice or knowledge beforehand. Gates famously abandoned his army and retreated by horse after his battle lines were broken. The debacle ended Gates' career as a field officer, but he eluded formal inquiries into his behavior because of his political connections. Washington's army suffered from numerous problems in 1780: it was undermanned, underfunded, and underequipped. Because of these shortcomings Washington resisted calls for major expeditions, preferring to remain focused on the principal British presence in New York. Knowledge of discontent within the ranks in New Jersey prompted the British in New York to make two attempts to reach the principal army