Ghosts of the Siege

by Steven Abernathy

  “Grandfather, on the other hand, had come from England and still felt loyalty to the Throne. His version of the conflict was that the King provided protection to the colonists as well as governance and supplies of commodities the colonies were not prepared to manufacture on their own. For that, he believed the American colonies should remain loyal to the King.” He stopped for a moment, considering the internal conflict created within his own family. “Father and Grandfather argued at first, but finally put their differences aside and agreed that love of family should come first. They agreed not to speak of the war at all. Many other families were not so understanding, and were torn apart by divided loyalties. It is understandable. People who scratch for a day-to-day living have no time to think of a king,” he paused, “or a president, who might rule over them. If they gave it any thought at all, I suppose to many it was something of a comfort to know that someone far above them was in charge of armies, trade, shipping, and other things of which the common laborer knew little or nothing. To many the thought of self-rule or self-governance was both foreign and frightening.

  “When in Charles Town I read in a newspaper that there was great enmity between Benjamin Franklin, who was a staunch patriot, and his only son, William, who was a Loyalist. The irreconcilable break between them was notable only because of their fame, but many other families suffered the same fate.

  “Returning to Zebulon, or Zeb, as I called him, his family was one of those torn asunder by the war. When I knew him in Carolina, his father and older brother were both Loyalists, but Zeb ran away to join the militia and fight for the patriots. His father and brother tracked him down and forced him to join with the redcoats regardless of his beliefs. About the time General Lincoln was assembling his army at Cherry Hill, just north of the city, Zeb was able to escape from Savannah and worked his way west through the swamps to find the American army. He was wearing a British uniform, and was quickly captured by a forward patrol of Count Pulaski’s cavalry. Brought directly to General Lincoln, he was telling the story of how he came to be with the British when I happened to walk by the General’s tent. Recognizing Zeb at once, I rushed into the tent and corroborated his story.

  “General Lincoln was often considered to be too kind and trusting to command an army, but in this case his trust was well-founded. He thought about Zeb’s predicament for a short while, and asked him if he would consider returning to the British before he was missed, and function as a spy for the American army. Without belaboring the tale, Zeb agreed and was rushed back to sneak through the lines and assume his former position.”

  “General McIntosh called me to his headquarters on the sixth of October. The bombardment of Savannah was severe at that point, and there were reports of many civilians being killed in the city. I had not known before he told me, but the McIntosh family lived in Savannah, and the general’s wife and younger children had not been able to evacuate before the bombardment began in earnest. He knew I traveled around to our various camps encircling the British defenses, and knew of my friend, Zeb, who was back in Savannah in British uniform. ‘Is there any way you could get word to my family,’ he asked with worry in his eyes. ‘Our house is in the city’s center, and as much of our cannon fire seems to fall there I fear for their lives.’ He showed me an area on his map where there was housing in the northeast part of the city that was not a target of the bombardment. ‘I will be eternally grateful,’ he said, ‘if you can get word to them to move to that part of the city for their safety.’

  “I could probably have contacted Zeb and delivered the message through him, but I was…still am…fourteen years old, adventurous, and invincible, so decided to sneak into Savannah and deliver the message personally. Zeb was posted here, on this very spot, to guard this portion of the perimeter. Guards were few since no attack was expected in this area. A cold mist usually drifted into this area from the river in the evenings, obscuring vision to more than a few yards. I signaled Zeb with a prearranged sound, and moved up until he could see me through the fog. He passed me into the city, and I was able to find Mrs. McIntosh and deliver the message. She quickly gathered a few belongings and her children, and I helped her move to the outskirts of the city, beyond the intended targets of the batteries. It was my first, and only, visit to the city proper, but as it was dark and the mist was heavy, I saw little.” He caused me to smile as a large truck whisked by on the near lane, causing my hair to fly up and throwing fine sand into my face. “One thing I do know about that first visit to the city…there were no contrivances such as that to knock us about as we walked the streets!”

  I smiled of my own volition at one of his rare attempts at humor, and moved to cross MLK and walk east on Bay Street. A short walk on the north side of the street brought us to a small park and canopy with a historic marker announcing ‘Washington’s Guns.’ The two cannons were presented to the Chatham Artillery by President Washington himself after a visit to the city in 1791. Billy read the plaque in its entirety, then read it once more.

  “Here is that title again,” he said. “President George Washington. I knew of him

  only as General Washington. Will you explain that to me once more?”

  I suggested we sit on a nearby bench in hopes of being able to complete this explanation without distraction. A sudden realization dawned on me. Billy didn’t even know how the war turned out. I started there. “The patriots won the war, Billy,” I said, and could feel excitement and pride build in his spirit. “We defeated the English, won our freedom and the right to govern ourselves. General Washington was instrumental both in defeating the British and in setting in motion the means to fairly govern this new nation as a nation of free men who could determine their own destiny. Our leaders were to be elected by a vote of free men. General Washington was elected to be our first leader, our first president. He was not a king or a czar, but was chosen to be our leader for a specific time only…four years…after which he could be reelected by the people to another term or replaced with another elected national leader. Since his time there have been many presidents, some good and some not so good, but the people of the nation always have had the right to keep the president in office by re-election or get rid of them as they saw fit.”

  I stopped there, and could feel that Billy was evaluating what I had said, first with lack of understanding, then with a sense of enlightenment as the value of such a system of government began to show promise to him. After a long silence as he evaluated the idea, my friend said, “It is a good idea, this government of yours, and it is fitting that General…President Washington was your first leader. He was a great man.” Billy looked all around us, finally asking, “Does he have a park, or square, or street named in his honor?”

  I laughed at the question. “I’m pretty certain he has all three,” I replied, and could tell Billy was pleased with the answer.

  A cloud suddenly came over his mood, and Billy caused us to stand. He looked slowly around until finally staring toward the river, which was not visible from where we stood due to structures in the way. “The missing part of my skull,” he said slowly, cautiously. “I sense it is, or at least has been, in that direction, not too far away.”

  We stumbled down one of the steep ballast stone roads that led to River Street, and he was once more amazed at the variety of shops and foot traffic that crowded the riverfront. We moved in an easterly direction on the sidewalk when the crowd permitted, and on the street when necessary, guided by some force unknown to me but tuned in as a compass to my spirit inhabitant.

  “What is ice cream?” he asked as we passed a large sign in a shop window. I wasn’t certain how to explain the frozen treat, but could tell he was distracted with other thoughts and probably wouldn’t listen anyway. We passed several more restaurants and shops before stopping at one of the tourist emporiums that sold everything from T-shirts to alligator heads to supposed antiques and works of art. I tentatively entered the crowded shop and shouldered my way as gently as possible through the crowd un
til Billy stopped me. We stood before a colorful but tacky pirate lamp, the centerpiece of which was a portion of a skull, with most of the skull cap intact along with the bony orbit of the left eye, most of the cheek bone on that side, and a small portion of the nose. The skull was mounted on a wooden base and there was a narrow brass post extending through a hole in the top of the head. At the top of the pole was a lampshade in the shape of a pirate’s hat complete with skull and crossbones insignia. Mounted on the rectangular wood base beside the skull was a black pirate flag on one side and a brightly colored parrot on the other.

  The skull was not a bad replica, but on close inspection it was easy to tell it was made of plastic. I could feel disappointment wash through my companion. “This is me,” he moaned, “but it is not. Why should I be so strongly attracted to this object that is not a part of me?”

  The shopkeeper noticed my interest and came quickly over. “Pretty good, eh?” she said. “We had ten of those copies made, and this is the only one left.”

  “Copies?” I asked, and could feel Billy’s excitement.

  “Yeah,” the lady said with something like remorse in her tone. “I had the original not long ago. A real ancient skull, probably from a river pirate, but maybe an Indian. Bought it from one of the SCAD students who had found it and painted it black and silver and mounted it with a pirate hat. It gave me the idea for the lamp, so I had one of my suppliers copy it and I designed the piece of art you see before you.” She exuded pride while I fought not to frown as I considered what kind of person would place this incredibly ugly lamp in their living room. She continued her story. “I had in mind to keep the original here in the shop, just as a curiosity, but as often happens, a tourist was taken with it and offered me a good price. Cash is king!” she said with a broad smile.

  At Billy’s prompting I asked, “Do you know who bought it? That sounds like something we, I mean I, would like to see.”

  She frowned as she considered for a moment, finally answering, “No, sorry hon’. It was several weeks ago, and it was a cash deal as I remember.” Offering a sheepish smile she needlessly continued, “One of those ‘under-the-table sales that don’t necessarily get reported, you know.”

  We left the shop with Billy feeling dejected. He and I jointly decided to head back to head back toward Turner House and consider what our next course of action should be.

  As we retraced our steps along River Street I thought about my conversation with the shopkeeper. She had admitted to tax fraud in her under-the-table deal and to selling a genuine human skull. Surely there was enough illegality there to interest the proper authorities, but what I really wanted was the name of the person who had purchased the skull. Would it be possible to threaten the lady with legal action and frighten her just enough to give up the buyer’s name without actually unleashing the unrelenting force of government enforcers on her for what sounded like quite minor infractions of the law? I considered my question for only a brief moment before a simple solution became apparent. I knew how to do it!

  We stopped at a shop with a line of a dozen or more people extending out the door onto the sidewalk. Taking a position at the back of the line, I said, “Billy, let me introduce you to ice cream.” Two scoops on a waffle cone later, my spirit friend was a big fan of mint chocolate chip.

  Chapter 10

  Ice cream in hand, we trudged unsteadily over the uneven ballast stone road leading up to Bay Street and proceeded south on the much smoother surfaced sidewalks adjacent to Bull Street. As we approached Johnson Square I asked Billy if he was familiar with Nathaniel Greene. I felt his surprise at the question. “General Greene?” he asked, then continued, “Of course I am familiar with him. He was a major general and a close friend and associate of General Washington. Why do you ask? Is this square named for him? Do his bones lie here? The sign says Johnson Square.”

  I laughed as I answered, “Billy, have you intertwined so tightly around my psyche that you now find the need to ask multiple questions just as I do?” I laughed even more, then realized it was Billy who was laughing, or, maybe, adding his laughter to my own.

  “You are right, of course,” he said while we chuckled, “but the question still stands.”

  We walked to the center of the square, where stood a tall monument to General Nathaniel Greene. “Your General Greene is buried here, beneath this monument. He fought with Washington in the north, but lived in Savannah and died here long after the American Revolution. The city built this monument as tribute to him.

  Billy said nothing, but I felt a sensation akin to awe emanating from is spirit as we stared at the monument. I experienced a slightly unsettling vertigo for an instant as my ghostly inhabitant untangled his spirit from my own and departed my body. It was daylight, but as he passed through shadows cast by the large old oaks in the square I could catch glimpses of my friend as he moved around the monument. After circling the obelisk several times, Billy disappeared into the structure and was gone for several minutes. He suddenly reappeared beside me in a state of excitement that reminded me of a typical fourteen-year-old boy who had wonderful news to tell.

  “You are right! General Greene is here…and one of his sons as well.” I could tell that if Billy were within my body I would be panting with excitement and the desire to get the story out as quickly as possible. “I spoke with them. They have an interesting story to tell. Do you know how the general came to be buried here?” I had no idea and said as much, prompting my enthusiastic friend to begin the tale.

  “General Greene died of heat stroke while working on his plantation near Savannah in 1786. His body was interred in a crypt in Colonial Park Cemetery. Only a few years later the general’s son, George Washington Greene, drowned in the Savannah River when he was only eighteen years old. He was buried in the same crypt.

  “Several decades later, during your American Civil War, troops who fought for the Union Army (I did not ask the general’s spirit to explain the war, or its sides, to me.) camped within the walls of the cemetery and caused great vandalism and destruction to the monuments and headstones. During their destruction, the marker for the graves of General Greene and his son was lost. When the war ended and the Union Army went home destruction of the cemetery was so great that no one knew, or possibly even cared, where the general was buried. The location of his grave was lost for over one hundred years.

  “In your year 1901, a group from the state of Rhode Island, the general’s original home, commissioned a team to go to Savannah and search for the lost grave. They broke into several crypts before finding a decayed coffin containing the bones of General Greene and his son. Not long after the remains were positively identified, they were interred here, in Johnson Square.”

  “I’ve lived here all of my life and have never heard that story, Billy,” I answered when he had finished. “It’s one of those historical tidbits that would make history far more interesting when it is taught in school instead of just memorizing names and dates from our past.”

  Billy nodded in agreement. “I understand,” he said. “It was the same with my lessons. I learned bland facts about the reign of Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, Henry VIII and many others, but nothing really of interest about them, nothing that made them seem human or interesting in any way.” He looked up into the tops of the massive oaks that populated the park. “There is something else they told me,” he said with what I could only describe as a wry grin. “Look up into the trees. Do you find anything that strikes you as unusual?”

  I looked all around, but saw nothing but the great oak trees for which Savannah was famous. “No, Billy,” I answered, “The trees are the same kind found all over town. Are they special in some way?”

  “The Spanish Moss,” he said with excitement in his tone.

  After looking around for another moment, I answered, “I don’t see any Spanish Moss, Billy. I seem to be missing your point.”

  “That is exactly my point!” he said excitedly. “There is no Spanish Moss anywhere in
this park! Your Henry Ford would have been disappointed had he looked for the moss in this park. There was none with which to pad the seats of his automobiles.”

  I looked up once more, scrutinizing the tree tops throughout the square. Billy was right. There was no Spanish Moss to be found anywhere. How odd, I thought to myself. The stuff was found hanging from trees all over town. Why was it not here?

  “Would you like to know why there is no Spanish Moss to be found here?” Billy asked, obviously about to explode with excitement over the answer. “General Greene explained it to me. You will be enthralled with the story.”

  Without waiting for an answer he began, “There were many yellow fever epidemics in the city, sometimes causing the deaths of hundreds of people before the disease ran its course. No one knew the cause, and treatment for the fever was only palliative in nature. When he returned to Savannah from the war, General Green took it upon himself to study the condition and determine if there were any preventative measures local residents could take to eliminate the fever. After a few years of considering the problem, he discovered that the greatest concentration of victims of yellow fever seemed to live or work in close proximity to giant oak trees laden with Spanish Moss. While the general had no scientific means to ascertain the exact cause, he concluded that something in the moss, or possibly the plant itself, was the cause of the deadly disease.

  “He embarked on a city wide campaign to eradicate Spanish Moss, and for several years tried to gain corroboration for his theory from area physicians. He petitioned the city leaders to organize crews from every Savannah neighborhood to climb into the trees to remove and burn the moss. The general assumed whatever it was within the moss that caused yellow fever must be inhaled from the plant, so he devised masks made of finely woven wool to be worn by all who worked to eliminate the moss. His plan was for the moss to be loaded into wagons with covers made from the same cloth and carried to areas outside the city to be burned.