Savannah River

“ The river at Savannah is as broad as the Thames at Gravesend, and resembles that stream very much in the color of its waters and the level natures of its shores. Rice-fields bound it on either side, as far down as the influence of the fresh water extends, and the eye wanders over a flat expanse of mud and water and green oziers and rushes, till its search is arrested on the horizon by the unfailing line of forest. In the fields here and there are the whitewashed, square, wooden huts in which the slaves dwell, looking very like the beginnings of the camp in the Crimea. ”

“ Savannah never had a habit of going across the seas for hotel names. It boasts of no Victoria, no Buckingham, no Imperial, but it has a Screven, named after a prominent Georgia family; a Pulaski, named for a military hero, and now a De Soto, in honor of the discoverer of the Mississippi river. Savannah is nothing if not patriotic. It has a Monterey square, a Forsyth park, and among its monuments are the noble columns erected to perpetuate the memory of three revolutionary heroes—Jasper, Green and Pulaski. ”

“ The city extends upon a level sandy plain, stretching back from the bluff shore along the river, has broad streets crossing at right angles, with small parks at the intersections, and many trees border the streets and fill the parks, so that it is fairly embowered in foliage, thus presenting an attractive and novel appearance. This adornment makes Savannah the most beautiful city of the coast—the oak, palmetto and magnolia, with the holly, orange, creeping ivy and clustering vines, setting the buildings in a framework of delicious green. ”

“ On the day when the earth opened its maternal breast and produced all the various trees and flowers of the earth, Savannah, with its red-brown water, was a river newly sprung from chaos, and rich with its essence, nor yet had had time to settle itself and clear its water, when the green plants of earth sprang forth in wild luxuriance ”

“ Oglethorpe left the colonists at Beaufort and, in company with Colonel William Bull, proceeded to the Savannah River. He went up this stream as far as Yamacraw Bluff, which he selected as the site of the settlement he was about to make. He marked out the town, and named it Savannah. The site was a beautiful one in Oglethorpe's day, and it is still more beautiful now. The little settlement that the founder of the colony marked out has grown into a flourishing city, and art has added its advantages to those of nature to make Savannah one of the most beautiful cities in the United States.... ”

“ Savannah. A city and port of Georgia, U. S., on the right bank of the Savannah River, 18 miles from its mouth. The city is surrounded by marshes and islands, and was defended by Fort Pulaski and Fort Jackson. Savannah was founded in 1733, by the English general Oglethorpe. In 1776 a British fleet, attempting to take the town, was repulsed after a severe action; but it was taken in 1778, and held in 1779 against the combined French and American forces. In the war of Secession, after many unsuccessful attacks by sea, it was taken by Gen. Sherman in February, 1865. ”

“ Its upper course is rapid, and the river carries a great deal of silt, which is deposited near its mouth in low islands and spits, dividing the river into narrow channels. The entrance is being extensively improved by means of jetties, and a 26-foot channel will be secured to the city of Savannah, 18 miles from the sea. ”

“ Aiken, however, sixteen miles before you reach the Savannah river, has a pleasant aspect. It is situated on a comparatively high tract of country, sandy and barren, but healthy, and hither the planters resort in the hot months from their homes in the less salubrious districts. Pretty cottages stand dispersed among the oaks and pines, and immediately west of the place the country descends in pleasant undulations towards the valley of the Savannah. ”

“ The country between our lines and those of the enemy was a big rice plantation, which overflowed at every high tide, and which could be kept under water by closing the flood-gates. The only means of access to the city were the narrow causeways built through this swamp. At the point where we were located, the Savannah River is divided by Argyle Island into two channels, the main or navigable one being near the Georgia shore. The island is about ten miles long, and at our end something like a mile wide. ”

“ It is in substance as follows: Many generations ago it so happened that several famous hunters, who had wandered from the West towards what is now the Savannah river, in search of game, never returned to their camping grounds. In process of time the curiosity as well as the fears of the nation were excited, and an effort was made to ascertain the cause of their singular disappearance. Whereupon a party of medicine-men were deputed to make a pilgrimage towards the great river. ”

“ In Newfoundland they encountered the Beothukan family, consisting of but a single tribe. A portion of the Shawnee at some early period had separated from the main body of the tribe in central Tennessee and pushed their way down to the Savannah River in South Carolina, where, known as Savannahs, they carried on destructive wars with the surrounding tribes until about the beginning of the eighteenth century they were finally driven out and joined the Delaware in the north. ”

“ Savannah river.For removing obstructions in the Savannah river, below the city of Savannah, in Georgia, being a balance of appropriations carried to the surplus fund on the thirty-first of December, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight, twenty-four thousand four hundred and ninety dollars. ”

“ Savannah—derived from the Spanish word sabana, a "meadow or plain"—is known popularly as the "Forest City," and is built upon a bluff along the river shore, eighteen miles from the sea. It has fifty thousand people and a large export trade in naval stores, rice, timber and cotton, in the latter export being second only to New Orleans. It received great impetus after the Civil War, owing to its excellent railway connections with the interior, and is now the chief port of the Southern Atlantic coast. ”

“ He called the settlement Savannah from the Indian name of the river on which it stands.
The people of Charleston, South Carolina, were glad to have some English neighbors south of them that would help them fight the Spaniards of Florida, who hated the English, and wanted to drive them out. They gave the newcomers a hundred head of cattle, a drove of hogs, and twenty barrels of rice.
The emigrants set to work with a will, cutting down the forest trees, building houses, and planting gardens. There were no idlers to be seen at Savannah: even the children found something to do that was helpful. ”

“ By this cession they made a grant to the Trustees of the lands upon Savannah river as far as the river Ogechee, and all the lands along the sea-coast between Savannah and Alatamaha rivers, extending west as high as the tide flows, and including all the islands; the Indians reserving to themselves the islands of Ossabaw, Sapeloe, and St. ”

“ After the Tugalo makes its junction with the Seneca, the stream takes the name of Savannah, or as the mountaineers call it—the Sav-a-naw. Below the mouth of the Seneca, the river rapidly widens, and the water assumes a yellowish or muddy color, and it is full of wild and dangerous shoals. The bottoms, on either side, are wide and well cultivated; but on account of the fearful freshets, caused by the rising of the mountain streams [344] above, there are no houses built near the river—they generally being from two to three miles back, and sometimes even farther than that ”

“ Often hear shouting on the road as if cattle [150] were being driven along toward Savannah. Once in a while we hear guns fired off, but it is no doubt hogs being killed. We also hear folks going up and down the river, but cannot see them. After dark we have no fire as that would expose us, it is so much plainer to be seen in the night. The river is wide; should think a third of a mile, as we can view it from away up the stream. The cane that grows in the river is the same as we have for fish poles at the North, and are shipped from the South. ”

“ Depots.—The Central Railroad depot is in the southwestern part of the city, corner of Liberty and E. Broad Streets. The railroad from Charleston has its terminus here. The Atlantic and Gulf Railroad is in the south-eastern part of the city, corner of Liberty and E. Broad Streets.
Savannah is situated in Chatham county, Ga., on a bluff, about forty feet high, seven miles above the mouth of the river of the same name, on its right bank. Its present population is estimated at 40,000. ”

“ The most expeditious and economical route to Florida is that by which the traveler takes passage direct from New-York to Savannah, where he will be received by{69} the steamer, with his baggage, and brought into Florida and landed within eighteen miles of St. Augustine; the distance to which, from Savannah, is 218 miles.
The passage from Savannah, especially over the waters of the noble river of the St. John’s, is pleasant and instructive. The lover of nature—the curious stranger—may each be gratified. ”

“ The road from Savannah to New Inverness in the Darien settlement which, in 1736, in obedience to Mr. Oglethorpe’s orders, was located by Captain Hugh MacKay, Jr., with his company of Rangers, and Indian guides furnished by Tomo-chi-chi, had been completed. Various settlements on the Savannah, Vernon, and Great Ogeechee rivers, and also on St. Simons island and the Alatamaha river having been confirmed, between 1740 and 1750 planters with their families and servants began to move in and occupy desirable localities intermediate the Great Ogeechee and Alatamaha rivers. ”

“ The design of transferring the Capital of the Colony from Savannah to Hardwick, conceived by Governor Reynolds, was adhered to by his successor, Governor Ellis. “The depth of water in the river, its more central position, its greater distance from Charleston—the proximity to which, he argued, restricted the commerce of Savannah—the convenience of its harbour as a naval station, and the fertility of its adjacent lands, were the principal motives which operated with him to enforce the plan suggested by his predecessor. ”

“ At Savannah the river is navigable and within the ebb and flow of the tide. Opposite the city is Hutchinson's island, a strip of which on the side towards the city was owned by the claimant. He there conducted a plant for repairing vessels. Among his facilities used in the business were a marine railway and a wharf. The former extended into the river and was protected by sheet piling 'where in the water.' A substantial portion of it lay below the mean high-water line, and the wharf seems also to have been below that line, although its location is not precisely stated. ”

“ His associations were with cultured people, and his refined tastes would be subjected to some crucial tests by the rude scenes in the wilderness, and his association with unlettered men. But he was not a man to shirk responsibility, and promptly determined to share the privations, hardships, and dangers of his colony.
“With one hundred and twenty emigrants, in January, 1735, he safely reached the coast, proceeded up the river, and selected, for the site of his first settlement, the high bluff on which Savannah was built. ”

“ She was bought by Scarborough and Isaacs of Savannah, and her machinery, with a ninety horse power engine, having forty-inch cylinders, and a five foot stroke, was put in under the supervision of Capt. Rogers. Besides the Eagle he had already commanded the steamboat Fulton on the Hudson river, and the Phenix on the Delaware river. A picture of the Savannah, a copy of which I have seen, represents her as a vessel of fine model, with round stern, a medium clipper bow, and a graceful, easy shear. ”

“ By a straight line Savannah is seven miles below Pittsburg Landing. Hamburg is four miles above this landing, on the same side of the river and above the mouth of Lick Creek. Shiloh Church, a log structure about two and a half miles from the river, gave the name to the battle.
We left Buell's army at Nashville. It remained there from February 25 to March 15, 1862, when his cavalry started for Savannah, where the Army of the Tennessee was then partially assembled under General C. F. Smith. ”

“ The most northern branch or stream of the river Savannah, from the sea or mouth of such stream to the fork or confluence of the rivers now called Tugoloo and Keowee, and from thence, the most northern branch or stream of the said river Tugoloo till it intersects the northern boundary-line of South Carolina, if the said branch or stream extends so far north, reserving all the islands in the said rivers Tugoloo and Savannah to Georgia ”

“ Although elevated forty feet above the level of the river, the situation of Savannah is unhealthy; 65an autumn seldom passes without the yellow fever making cruel ravages. Commerce is notwithstanding very active there; its port, which can admit vessels drawing forty feet, annually exports more than six millions of dollars worth of cotton. Its population is 7523 inhabitants, divided thus: 3,557 white individuals, 582 free people of colour, and 3,075 slaves. The number of persons employed in the manufactories nearly equals that of those occupied in commerce, which is about six hundred. ”

“ There is a profound mournfulness too hovering around these silent, solitary avenues, where groups of sombre giant trees stand brooding and wrapped in their grey moss mantles, with drooping arms, and hoary heads bent low together, as though they were whispering mysteries, holding a solemn council, and pronouncing the eternal sentence on the dead below.
There is nothing prosaic or commonplace about Savannah; it is a perfectly idyllic city, primitive and simple in its ways, with no stir of frivolous worldly gaieties to rouse it from its sublime repose. ”