When Sherman captured Savannah at the end of his March to the Sea in December 1864, he wrote to Lincoln and offered the city to him as a Christmas gift. Lincoln accepted, and the city was saved.
The city had been founded and planned by the British in 1750, the same time as Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the twenty two squares that run back from the waterfront in three lines are maintained in all their splendour to this day by a Committee of Appropriateness, concerned citizens who vote on any changes to a property deemed historic.
We started at the riverfront. The old Cotton Exchange is still the most prominent building on the water. The Factor's Walk behind River St is still cobbled with the ballast stones from British ships sent over to collect cotton. Vast fortunes were made and lost at the Exchange as Europeans speculators tried to bet on the harvest.
We walked down through some of the squares to the old cemetery. During the Civil War, the federal soldiers ransacked the graves and slept in them. Knocked over headstones and moved them around so much that the city couldn't put them all back correctly. They were used to build a long high wall that marks the boundary of the site.
On our way through we were accosted by an elderly self-styled preacher man who shook us down for a few bucks and performed a loud and enthusiastic Praise Jesus renewal of our wedding vows. The other tourists scuttled past, relieved.
We recovered in Clary's (made famous in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) eating Georgia honey pecan waffles with a side of bacon.
Walking down each street of the city is a pleasure and a surprise. Tall live oaks curve over the road and meet to create a dome of green shade. Spanish moss drapes down through the leaves and branches. Each house has its own features: a wrought iron railing; different coloured brick work to highlight architectural features, a porthole window or a secret courtyard.
The squares all have a garden in the centre. Azaleas and rose bushes intertwine, and there are benches to sit on. The most famous of these is in Chippewa Square, which is the bench that Forrest Gump sits on when he recounts his tale of life.
Every square has a fountain or a statue of some long lost soldier in the centre. They love to mourn their military dead in Savannah. I didn't see any memorials to the people who made the bricks to build the houses, or who underpinned the economy that created the extraordinary wealth that resulted in this architectural beauty.
We continued on down to the park to find the Canadian made Memorial to the Confederate dead. Commissioned by the wives and sisters of the fallen, it was shipped south on the promise that it would not touch Northern soil on the way down.
A soldier stands on top of a tall slender obelisk. He is facing North, towards his enemy. He looked lonely up there.
It's difficult to put into words how beautiful Savannah is. Despite three fires, it has survived its history with its splendour intact. When you compare it to Halifax, it is easy to see the impact of the cotton industry. But if you took away the brickwork and those live oaks that grow so huge in the Georgia sun, the cities aren't that different.
As we drove back to our campsite on Skidaway Island I had some fun imagining who would sit on a Halifax Committee of Appropriateness. And how much I would hate such a gathering of citizenry.
No comments:
Post a Comment