April 1779 requesting a truce for the northwest frontier that he refused to refer to as Wilkes County. Gov. John Rutledge of South Carolina adamantly declined the offer. Williamson did send sixty men to bolster Dooly's command. He sought to discourage the people of the county from moving to the safety of North Carolina and Virginia while encouraging other frontier families to flee with them. Maj. Burwell Smith arrived in the camp of Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, commander of the southern department, to present John Dooly's pleas for money for the Georgia militia. The general advanced $8,295.70 to cover the expenses of the Georgia militiamen from January 1 to March 1, 1779, and $1,000 to Dooly, although he demanded the return of notarized vouchers justifying the disbursement of the money. The situation had not improved by August, however, when General McIntosh wrote to Lincoln from the Georgia frontier that "the few Militia in this area to stick yet to their Integrity & have not Joined the Enemy or Shamefully left us altogether to ourselves do not exceed Six hundred men, are much scattered & chiefly pinned up in little Forts to Secure their Families from the Savages to whom they are exposed & harass them continually, Loath to Leave them upon any Emergency, are now almost tired out & despairing to see any effective assistance come to them, are Selling off, and leaving us also."(n45) Hard Fighting Despite such a grim situation, Dooly committed himself to using the new frontier self-empowerment for driving the British from Savannah and thus ending any hopes of returning the South to colonial rule. He left Elijah Clarke to defend the frontier while he and Burwell Smith led a series of campaigns against a British army that they did not perceive as liberators or protectors. In the summer of 1779, Dooly marched with his militiamen to the mouth of Briar Creek, in Burke County, Georgia, Dooly had the dead from the Basttle of Briar Creek buried and recovered a cannon. (n46) Most of the British forces in Georgia invaded South Carolina, General Lincoln pleaded with the Georgians to launch a diversionary campaign to retake Savannah. Dooly gathered four hundred Georgia militiamen at Augusta and sent a request to Lincoln for supplies, arms, medicine, and money, even though he had failed, as Lincoln noted, to send receipts for the money already advanced to him. After an angry