Savannah

by John Jakes

  Among a ragged formation of reporters and sketch artists, Stephen appeared riding Ambrose. He blew a kiss to Sara. She wanted to respond in kind, but her girlhood training kept her from it. She waved with great enthusiasm. If Mr. Wordsworth had a line appropriate to the moment, she was too giddy to recall. Hattie joined her mother in waving until Stephen passed from view. She had no doubt she’d see him again.

  Then Uncle Billy rode by with his staff. He was going as far as the river, and would travel to Beaufort by water. Hattie’s mother had called on the general shortly after New Year’s, old Adam accompanying her. Adam repeated his account of the conversation at Judge Drewgood’s dinner table. Next day Sherman canceled the auction of the rice plantation and ordered General Sensenbrenner to an obscure post in east Tennessee, punishment for his connivance.

  The general recognized Sara, her daughter, and Legrand. His blue coat seemed less shabby—crates of new uniforms had arrived—but his gloves and collar were dingy as ever. He tipped his old slouch hat to the Lesters and Legrand, on his face a curious bemused expression. He squared his shoulders and rode on.

  “What an odd look he gave you,” Sara said to Hattie.

  Legrand said, “I think Uncle Billy met his match.”

  Down where her mother couldn’t see, Hattie slipped her hand into Legrand’s. Christmas was over, the mistletoe put away, but she felt very grown-up, even ardent. Perhaps she’d let him steal a kiss when they said good-bye.

  Before dark, Legrand and Adam helped Sara and Hattie load their belongings into the dilapidated wagon in front of Vee’s house. Sara had given Adam three fifty-cent shinplasters borrowed from Alpheus Winks; Adam had used the Yankee notes to hire an ancient mule. When they’d readied the wagon Adam said, “Feels like going home this time. Never had a real home before.”

  “But now you do, for always,” Sara said.

  Winks and Miss Vee saw them off from the front stairs. Sara took the reins, Hattie beside her, Adam’s mule plodding along behind. Amelia squeezed between mother and daughter, snout wrinkling, as if she already smelled the salt marshes on the road home to Silverglass.

  AFTERWORD

  Writing a story about a Christmas that occurred in the midst of the bloodiest war in American history may be both rash and dangerous. Still, many people encouraged me to go forward, and I was heartened by certain words of the playwright and director Alan Ayckbourn in his recent book on his craft.

  “Without light,” Ayckbourn observes, “how can we possibly create shadow? It’s like a painter rejecting yellow…. The darker the drama the more you need to search for the comedy.” In planning and writing Savannah, I searched for light to contrast with the war’s hours and hours of darkness.

  The novel began as a discussion in the office of my publisher on Hudson Street, New York, one warm May afternoon in 2002. Present were yours truly and four people knowledgeable about publishing: Carole Baron, the head of Dutton, one of those business associates who turns into a friend; Dutton’s editorial director, Brian Tart; my own talented editor, Doug Grad; and my literary representative and legal adviser, Frank R. Curtis Esq.

  It was Carole who suggested a Christmas story done somewhat in the manner of one of my historical novels. Carole didn’t ask for another Civil War novel, but my mind jumped at once to the famous telegram, or telegraph as they said in 1864, from General Sherman to President Lincoln, following the capture of Savannah. Here was an opportunity to write about a city, and a locale, an hour from where I’ve lived for a quarter century. I needed no persuasion. You have read and, I hope, enjoyed the results of that New York meeting.

  Now, a few explanatory notes:

  For purposes of the story, the 81st Indiana regiment is fictitious. Some of Winks’s conversations with civilians have been adapted from contemporary accounts that appear in primary and secondary sources.

  The Union “sleigh” distributing toys and foodstuffs in Savannah on Christmas Day, 1864, may be apocryphal, but it is documented in at least two places. I liked it and used it.

  Sherman and Grant did recommend “Jef” Davis for promotion from brevet major general to regular rank, but promotion was denied. The killing of a superior and the incident at Ebenezer Creek made him suspect at the War Department, where Secretary Stanton was only one among many fervent abolitionists. Davis continued to serve in the regular army in Alaska and the Modoc Indian war. He died in 1879.

  William Tecumseh Sherman lived a long life as a Union hero and notable public figure. He repeatedly turned aside pleas that he enter politics and run for president. His refusal is famous: “If nominated I will not run, if elected I will not serve.”

  Isaiah Fleeg calls Sherman a bigot. It’s one of the few trustworthy statements made by the shifty Mr. Fleeg. Scholars generally regard this view of Sherman as correct, though he was not unlike millions of others of his time. He expressed liking for blacks generally; he loathed slavery and slave owners, but he didn’t believe black men capable of bearing arms as front-line troops, even though, as mentioned in the story, they had already proved themselves, notably in the attack on Battery Wagner during the siege of Charleston in July 1863.

  Yet Sherman can’t be dismissed simply by playing the race card against him; there is much more to him. He was an effective leader, more interested in results than display. By nature or inspiration, he was also a military genius. When he struck out from Atlanta in the autumn of 1864, at age forty-four, he conceived and led a march that is considered a sort of masterpiece in the art of war.

  Capturing Savannah, he treated the city relatively gently. The record shows that he enjoyed himself there. Children did like him, and called on him, as did wives and relatives of Confederates, who were his battlefield foes. We can speculate that the Christmas season had much to do with it.

  In South Carolina, Sherman willingly returned to his role of “the new Attila,” climaxing his rampage across the state with the great Columbia fire, which Southern partisans accuse Sherman’s men of setting. Those on the other side blame troops of the retreating Wade Hampton. Whatever the truth, Sherman is largely excoriated in the modern South, although this doesn’t prevent his familiar bearded face from being used freely to advertise many a commercial tour in Savannah and elsewhere in Georgia.

  Sherman rose to the rank of full general in 1869, and succeeded Grant as commander of the army. He continued in this post for fourteen years. In that time, ironically, new postwar regiments of black cavalry on the Western plains, the so-called buffalo soldiers, distinguished themselves not only for their courage and fighting ability, but also for their discipline, statistically the best in the Army then and for years afterwards.

  The Negro regiments were commanded by white officers, many of whom resented the duty. One who didn’t, and proudly acknowledged it with his nickname, was Gen. John “Black Jack” Pershing. I dealt at some length with the buffalo soldiers in Heaven and Hell, the final volume of the North and South Trilogy.

  Sherman’s Memoirs were published in New York in 1891, the year of his death. The book remains in print today; the Library of America publishes a fine edition of the text. Of course Sherman looms large in every major work about the Civil War, but several shorter books are devoted to “the march” as it has come to be called. Both Burke Davis and Lee Kennett have written good accounts of the campaign. Richard Wheeler covers the same ground with a documentary approach utilizing statements and writings of participants. Equally valuable, especially for those who want to revisit sites of the march, is To the Sea by Jim Miles, a combined history and travel guide.

  Language is constantly in flux, as anyone trying to decipher contemporary adolescent slang will recognize. It was so in the nineteenth century too, and I hope I can be forgiven the use of a few now-obsolete words that delight me: slantindicular (“slanted or distorted”), snollygoster (“a term of opprobrium frequently applied to politicians”), and my favorite, sockdologer (“a particularly lethal punch”).

  In the spring of 2003, my wife and
I explored the fascinating waterways and abandoned rice fields of the Ogeechee and Little Ogeechee Rivers, as well as the many canals dug between small, lush islands in the streams. Our flat-bottom boat came from the University of Georgia Marine Extension Service in Savannah. John A. Crawford of that service, as good an ecologist as he is an historian, piloted the boat. Our company included the man who had arranged the trip, Capt. Rusty Fleetwood of WGB Marine, Tybee Island, Georgia. Rusty is a boat builder, charter captain, and author of his own encyclopedic book on watercraft of the Southeast coast. With the help of Rusty and John, I found a likely location for Silverglass. I thank them both, as well as our hosts at Coffee Bluff Marina, Harold and Rochelle Javetz.

  Maj. Len Riedel, executive director of the Blue-Gray Education Society, provided specialized information for the story, as did my longtime friend and former Hilton Head Island resident John Lawless, an organist and musicologist without peer. (He also knows where to buy the best wines.)

  For generously sharing his expertise on Civil War wounds, I am indebted to Richard W. Hertle, M.D., head of ophthalmology at the Children’s Hospital, Ohio State University.

  Very special thanks are reserved and hereby rendered to Dr. Stan Deaton, the unfailingly helpful director of publications for the Georgia Historical Society, which is headquartered in a marvelous old building opposite Forsyth Park. It was Stan who introduced me to Rusty Fleetwood and provided facts large and small whenever I asked (probably too often). I am also indebted to Roger Smith, Stan’s colleague at the Society, for valuable help.

  Of course, none of the people thanked is in any way responsible for the use I made of the information they so generously provided.

  As I have done many times before, I thank my always-supportive friend and adviser, Frank Curtis, and my wife, Rachel, who manages to live through each of these novels with enthusiasm, encouragement, and unfailing affection.

  Lastly, I thank you, the reader, and wish you happy holidays, this year and for many years to come. We must not forget the lesson of the Savannah Christmas: Regardless of our many differences, we are all members of one family.

  John Jakes

  Hilton Head Island, South Carolina;

  Greenwich, Connecticut; Savannah, Georgia

  December 1, 2003

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  ALSO BY JOHN JAKES

  CHARLESTON

  ON SECRET SERVICE

  CALIFORNIA GOLD

  THE BOLD FRONTIER

  The Crown Family Saga

  AMERICAN DREAMS

  HOMELAND

  The North and South Trilogy

  NORTH AND SOUTH

  LOVE AND WAR

  HEAVEN AND HELL

  The Kent Family Chronicles

  THE BASTARD

  THE REBELS

  THE SEEKERS

  THE FURIES

  THE TITANS

  THE WARRIORS

  THE LAWLESS

  THE AMERICANS