Savannah

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Beautiful in itself, beautiful in its surroundings,{96} Savannah is an ideal city for a summer lounge, with its pleasant shady promenades and myriad miniature parks, thronged with people who are always well dressed but never loud in their attire; there is a quiet refinement and dignity about them which savours of old world conservatism.
A host of good fairies seem to have been hovering round at the birth of Savannah. In 1733 the city consisted of only a few tents pitched under the pine trees between what is now Bull and Whitaker Streets, now it is one of the most thriving cities of the South ”

“ 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 ”

“ But I like Savannah. I find here a more vigorous spiritual life, a more free and unprejudiced looking at things and circumstances, in particular at the great question of slavery, than in Charleston, and I have here become acquainted with some excellent, true people—people who will look the question directly and fairly in the face; who, themselves slave holders from the more remote times, are yet labouring for the instruction of the slave, for emancipation and free colonisation. ”

“ Taking our lives in our hands, a second escape was effected, and on December twenty-third, but two days after Sherman's occupancy of the [Pg 475] city, Savannah proved itself, indeed, a city of refuge. Union troops welcomed us with open arms, and we were soon despatched northward.
The traveler who visits Savannah to-day will view it under very different auspices. The white wings of peace have brooded over it for more than half a generation, loyalty has taken the place of treason in the hearts of her people, and prosperity is visible on her streets and wharves. ”

“ SAVANNAH, GEORGIA.
The city of Savannah, with its balmy air, its far famed Bonaventure Cemetery, its pretty parks, broad streets and many natural attractions (acknowledged to be one of the most attractive Southern cities) , was long avoided by many pleasure tourists, because it had no hotel worthy of a city claiming fifty thousand inhabitants and doing a business of over one hundred and thirty millions of dollars annually.
Savannah is the greatest cotton port in the world—New Orleans excepted. Savannah has deep water and good docks. ”

“ We went pretty nearly all over Savannah that afternoon and the next day. It's a beautiful city. There is a little public square at nearly every corner, and one of the wide streets has a double row of big trees running right down the middle of it, with grass under them, and, what seemed stranger yet, the trees were all in leaf, little children were playing on the grass, and the weather was warm and splendid. The gardens in front of the houses were full of roses and all sorts of flowers in blossom, and Rectus wanted to buy a straw hat and get his linen trousers out of his trunk. ”

“ One morning a large ship arrived in Savannah from Boston, with a choice crew, consisting of the boatswain and ten fine-looking, athletic young men. After the ship was made fast at the wharf, and the decks cleared up, the crew received permission to go ashore; and, neatly rigged and headed by the boatswain, a splendid looking, symmetrically built native of Connecticut, who stood six feet two inches in his stockings, and wore a feather in his hat like a Highland chieftain, they paraded through several of the streets of Savannah, singing, laughing, and cheering, bent on a regular frolic. ”

“ 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. ”

“ After three days pretty constant riding after my horse's nose, he brought me to the banks of the Savannah, at a little miserable-looking town, or village, called Purysburg. Here I found a steamboat just about to depart for Savannah. I immediately engaged passage for myself, servant, and two horses (one of which is yours; confound him, I say, for betraying me) . I amused myself by shooting at the alligators, as we glided along the water, and had kept up the sport some time, when a mellow distant sound came along the surface of the water, like an exquisitely played Kent bugle. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In Savannah he has taken refuge in a line constructed behind swamps and overflowed rice-fields, extending from a point on the Savannah River about three miles above the city, around by a branch of the Little Ogeechee, which stream is impassable from its salt-marshes and boggy swamps, crossed only by narrow causeways or common corduroy-roads.
There must be twenty-five thousand citizens, men, women, and children, in Savannah, that must also be fed, and how he is to feed them beyond a few days I cannot imagine. ”

“ There is no scarcity of news here from the interior, but Savannah is, as yet, a focus which receives all these diverse rays of intelligence and reflects none back again. The town is full of black and white refugees from all parts of Georgia; both races are daily coming in large numbers, some for supplies, some to find what the policy of the Government is likely to be, some to go North. ”

“ The King’s pilot was detailed to conduct the “Anne” into Port Royal harbor. Thence the colonists were conveyed in small craft to Beaufort-town, where they landed and refreshed themselves; while their leader, accompanied by Colonel William Bull, proceeded to the Savannah River and made choice of a spot for the settlement. Ascending that stream as far as Yamacraw Bluff, and deeming it an eligible situation, he went on shore and marked out the site of a town which, from the river flowing by, he named Savannah. ”

“ Some of these foraging parties had encounters with the enemy which would in ordinary times rank as respectable battles. The behavior of our troops in Savannah has been so manly, so quiet, so perfect, that I take it as the best evidence of discipline and true courage. Never was a hostile city, filled with women and children, occupied by a large army with less disorder, or more system, order, and good government. ”

“ I left, with a feeling of regret, the agreeable society of Savannah. The steamboat took us to St. Mary's, through passages between the sea-islands and the main-land, similar to those by which we had arrived at Savannah. In the course of the day, we passed a channel in which we saw several huge alligators basking on the bank. The grim creatures slid slowly into the water at our approach. We passed St. Mary's in the night, and in the morning we were in the main ocean, approaching the St. John's, where we saw a row of pelicans standing, like creatures who had nothing to do, on the sand. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Being within the influence of the Gulf Stream it enjoys all the mildness of the tropics in winter, while the summers are less oppressive than at New York or Washington. It is a favorite resort for northern invalids, being comparatively free from malarious fevers and pulmonary diseases.
Colored people abound in Savannah, constituting about three-eighths of the entire population. They do most of the menial work of the city, being laborers, waiters in the hotels and public houses, and stevedores upon the wharves. ”

“ An hour's industrious work with a half-canteen would take any one outside, or if a boy was too lazy to dig his own tunnel, he could have the use of one of the hundred others that had been dug.
But escaping was only begun when the Stockade was passed. The site of Savannah is virtually an island. On the north is the Savannah River; to the east, southeast and south, are the two Ogeechee rivers, and a chain of sounds and lagoons connecting with the Atlantic Ocean. To the west is a canal connecting the Savannah and Big Ogeechee Rivers. ”

“ There is no foreign or mill population to contend with, and no cheap sports throwing their coin. At the little roadhouses and inns on the way to town everything is well handled and we saw many little parties of two or three ladies together having supper without escort. Savannah is out and out the most attractive place we have yet seen.
Turned out one morning at 3 a.m. to twist Mascot around on beach for rudder repairs. These beaches, so-called, are not real beaches at all but huge mud banks covered several feet deep with oyster shells through which the brown clay mud oozes at every step. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In Savannah we see a church growing under the labors of George Liele, then we find Liele and Amos in the British West Indies, leading large congregations of Negro Baptists. Once more we turn our eyes homeward, and we are attracted to the church at Silver Bluff, South Carolina, to the church at Augusta, Georgia, and the church at Savannah, which, having endured the severest trials, rejoices in recognition and peace—the church of today. ”

“ I spent five years in Savannah, devoting my whole time to the colored people. Savannah claims 30,000 inhabitants, of whom about 15,000 are colored. Topeka has 16,000 inhabitants, 5,000 of whom are colored. Physical wants can be more easily supplied in Savannah than in Topeka. In nearly all of the South the bare necessities of life are more easily secured than at the North. ”

“ 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. ”