Ghosts of the Siege

by Steven Abernathy

  Gracie was not the only real ghost we encountered on our walk. Near the end of the tour at one of the pre-Civil War era buildings on the east end of River Street, the guide was describing the spirit of a seaman who was often seen on the street in front of the building stumping around on his wooden right leg and calling for ‘Willie’ in a mournful tone. The tour group, possibly led by the guide, actually backed away from the street and stood on the sidewalk near the river so they could carefully watch the street for any movement. As we stood and watched, our guide explained that some people had reported seeing the vaporous image of a scruffy dog following the one-legged ghost. “Willie?” I wondered, but the possibility was never mentioned.

  During the guide’s rendition of the story Billy had disappeared in the direction of the river. We began walking eastward, with our leader explaining we would pass the Waving Girl statue and turn south on East Broad Street to continue our journey through Haunted Savannah. As we reached the statue, Billy materialized beside me in a very excited state. He asked me to hold back from the tour so he could tell me a fabulous tale of real ghosts. Naturally I did so, anxious to hear the tale. The tour group moved on, not seeming to notice I was no longer present.

  “The one-legged seaman was a real ghost,” Billy exclaimed without preamble. “He was not on the street near where we stopped, but was near the statue of the girl waving toward the river. In life his name was Edward, and he told me a tale of misery and took me to a place where there were many more trapped spirits, perhaps a hundred or more. Some had been evil men, but many had been good men put hard by. They are trapped in a tunnel that runs south from the river to an old building that was once an ale house, according to the spirit, Edward. According to his story, the ale house was a gathering place for seamen from all nations who did business in Savannah, including not a few pirates. Many of the men who came to the house succumbed to drink and passed out. Ships were always in need of crew, and it became a simple matter to kidnap the drunken sailors and sell them to the master of whatever ship was immediately leaving port and in need of crewmen.

  “To facilitate matters, a tunnel was dug from the ale house to the riverfront. Pirates found they could make a great deal of money selling incapacitated crewmen to captains in immediate need, so they created a brisk trade moving inebriated bodies through the tunnel. According to Edward, thousands were so abducted over many decades. Occasionally, one of the captured sailors proved to be not as drunk as was thought, and they fought for their lives, usually inside the tunnel. The pirates quickly learned that the simplest solution was to kill the captive and go back for another, more complacent one. Bodies of the dead were dragged from the tunnel and thrown unceremoniously into the river, but the spirits were already released in the tunnel.

  “Edward explained to me that he was one of those who had fought the pirates, but that he had been killed at the mouth of the tunnel by the river, allowing his spirit to be released to the riverfront, not trapped underground. The tunnel has been caved in, whether by accident or intention, in many places, but parts of it still survive. Edward took me underground to one of the places where spirits are imprisoned. It is a frightening place, even for one such as me. So much evil trapped within such a small enclosure, it overpowers the good of many spirits in the room. I shall not go back there.”

  Billy’s eyes suddenly brightened. “The old ale house…it stands even to this day!” he said excitedly. Edward led me there and showed me the entrance to the tunnel, which is closed up now. It is not only a house for sailors any more, but is a gathering place for everyone, even for families with children, to visit and eat meals. You call it a restaurant. The sign on the front of the house calls it The Pirates’ House. There are a few spirits wandering within the walls of the house. They seemed sad, in large part, but not intent one projecting any evil on the world of the living. Edward suggested that I not speak to them, so I did not. There was one area of the house that retained a great evil from the past,” my friend said in a very ominous tone.

  “On the second floor was a small room in which a very evil man had died. I know not the circumstance of his death, but I saw his vile spirit. He glared at me through red eyes that might have belonged to the devil himself, but he spoke not a word. I have no doubt that he was a ship’s captain and a pirate. Beyond that I can tell you little other than he was doubtless evil in life, and his malevolent spirit will inhabit that room for as long as the building stands.”

  “I may know who that is!” I interjected. “A famous author from the 19th century, Robert Louis Stevenson, wrote a novel called ‘Treasure Island.’ One of his characters was Captain Flint, an evil pirate captain who buried a great treasure on an island, then killed all of the crewmen who helped him so no one would ever know the location of the treasure except himself. Captain Flint may have been entirely a fictional character, but there have always been rumors that Stevenson based that character on a real pirate captain, named Flint or something else. This evil pirate, whatever his name, is said to have died in one of the upper rooms of the building that is now The Pirate’s House. The evil pirate captain you just described has to be Captain Flint!”

  “Captain Flint,” Billy repeated. “It is as good a name as any, and a likely story. I shall not return to the room and introduce myself in hopes of determining if the name is correct. In fact,” he said brightly, “I have had quite enough of this ghost walk, and am ready to return to the museum and to the battle story I was telling you.”

  Chapter 14

  We were several blocks across town from the visitors’ center, so rather than accomplish nothing on the long walk back I encouraged Billy to continue the battle story during our walk.

  “You were telling me of how you made Count Pulaski feel better after his encounter with the evil spirit on the battlefield. You told him of a similar encounter your father had while hunting with a Cherokee Indian party. If I remember correctly, your stomach was growling and you were about to go to the camp cook for a meal.

  “I remember,” my companion agreed, apparently as ready to tell the story as I was to listen. “The cook was in a generous mood, and provided me with a lavish meal of fried pork, hot boiled rice, and a biscuit fresh and steaming from his oven. Captain Boone had once told me of an extended period of hunger he had endured. He said, ‘My belly had decided my throat must have been cut.’ My own recent hunger had created the same thought in my mind, but the cook made certain that hunger was sated for the first time in several days. When the he had turned his back turned to me while stirring one of his great cauldrons with a wooden spoon at least three feet long, I pilfered two more hot biscuits and shoved them into my pocket before heading back to my makeshift camp.

  “The French camps were less than a mile away, so rather than ride there and have the worry of finding a place to picket the horse, I decided to take the steed back to General Lincoln’s corral and walk. The French had within their number a few defectors from the British lines, some of whom were militiamen like myself, not dressed in British or Highlander uniform. They looked much like me and, while not fully trusted by the French troops, were tolerated among them and often given the most menial tasks…such as digging trenches. Falling in with a few of them, I made my way throughout most of the trench system, making mental notes of its design along the way and planning to draw a new and more accurate map to present to General Lincoln. By midafternoon I was at the site of greatest activity within the trench. On the extreme northeast side of the construction was a channel that ran parallel to the British fortifications, which were a scant three hundred yards to the north. The French had orders to lengthen the trench to a point that the western end would be directly in front of the Central Redoubt, a position that would allow the cannons to shower grapeshot into the protected center of the fort. When I arrived they were frantically digging in that direction, hoping to extend most of the necessary length before darkness arrived. I grabbed a basket and began moving the dirt dislodged by the shovels onto a berm on the no
rth side of the trench, which served as added protection for the troops moving about in front of the British muskets. We worked steadily at a rapid pace, and were not as attentive to the defense of our position as we should have been.

  “I was almost killed that day…September 24. I remember telling you a bit of that story when we were in what you called,” he paused for a moment, remembering the name, “Forsythe Park.

  “The British could not see us because of the forest, but the noise of hundreds of workers digging and moving dirt could doubtless be heard by their sentries. If I had been the British commander, I should have sent scouts into the woods to see what we were about and determine our numbers and defensive posture. I have no doubt that General Prevost, their commander, did the same.”

  Billy stopped speaking and beamed a great smile as he mentioned the British general’s name. “I should tell you a short story about Prevost,” he said through a chuckle. “I never met the man, but always wanted to see him. General Pulaski told me during one of our journeys to meet with D’Estaing that the French commander was not the only one who was thought of in derisive terms by the troops he commanded. He said General Prevost had been seriously wounded during a campaign in Quebec many years before. A bullet had struck the front of his skull, knocking him unconscious. Doctors were able to revive him some hours later, but were never able to repair the deep dent the bullet made in his skull. It was a very distinctive feature that drew attention from all who met the man throughout his career. He is doubtless a brave man,” Billy said with sincerity before beginning to laugh once more, “but his troops have always referred to him as Old Bullet Head! I have laughed to myself many times since learning of that apt but tactless sobriquet, and would really have enjoyed meeting the man, just to gaze upon the famous dent.

  “But I deviate from my tale,” Billy said, guiding us back onto the tracks of his story. “I told you in the park of how the British attacked us while we were digging in the trench. We were trapped, and the Redcoats poured musket fire into us with no mercy. What I felt while musket balls struck already dead bodies all around me with a sickening thud was something in a realm far beyond fear. Several times during the onslaught I thought to leap from the death trench and run, even though I knew somewhere in the recesses of my mind that to do so would mean certain death. What saved me was the movement of French troops as they ran far up the trench. Movement always catches the eye, and all was death around my position. There was no movement. I was lucky to have survived.” He stopped for a moment, think while he stared at me intently. “With the possible exception of your Captain Flint, I have never directly encountered an evil spirit such as my father or General Pulaski described, but as I fell in the trench and had a brief glance at the Redcoats standing above us and firing relentlessly on men who were armed only with shovels and baskets, I saw evil in its purest form. What was happening was murder, not combat. The muskets were in the hands of men not much older than myself, but the look in their eyes bespoke possession by a spirit as evil as any that ever existed. When I returned later to the French camp, I learned that over one hundred French soldiers had been killed or wounded along with more than a dozen officers. If the British suffered any casualties at all, I did not notice.

  “A few days later, an incident almost as bad happened in the same area of the trench. More than one hundred fifty yards of the previous excavation had been destroyed in the first British attack. General D’Estaing was adamant that it be dug out once more to allow placement of twelve pounders… those were cannons,” he stopped to make certain I understood, “as close to the central redoubt as possible. I was not working with this second group of men digging the trench, but heard later reports of what happened. The French had a company of armed men accompanying the diggers, men whose sole purpose was to protect the workers and trenches from another attack. The digging continued into the night at a feverish pace with the trench lighted only with an occasional dim lantern. A regiment of Scottish Highlanders attacked during the night with little effect. They fired from the cover of the trees and were reportedly surprised when the French infantry drove them back with heavy return fire. The event would have been over, but in the dark of night the French continued firing on their own workers, thinking they were part of the British attack force. Official reports from the French camp the next morning named seventeen soldiers killed or wounded by fire from their own countrymen. I spoke later with some of the workers who were present that night, and their estimates were closer to fifty men killed or wounded by French musket balls.

  “Such things happen in war, I suppose,” my friend said with great remorse in his tone, “but that does not diminish the tragedy of such an event.

  “Little happened during the next few days other than continued reinforcement of earthworks and trenches on both sides. The French continued the slow process of moving their guns from ships anchored near Beaulieu for placement within the siege trenches. By the way,” he said, as if an afterthought, “after the attack by the Highlanders, General D’Estaing gave up on the idea of extending the trench in which I had worked. With more guns coming from his ships he was able to place twelve cannons in a trench just to the southeast of that illfated position. They were positioned with a wide range of fire that would cover most of the area upon which he had hoped to fire from the destroyed trench, albeit with slightly less accuracy.

  “My hours were filled during those days with travel between the French and American camps, reporting events as ordered to both sides but continuing to act as General Lincoln’s spy to keep him abreast of D’Estaing’s moods and intentions, which were susceptible to change at any given moment. Occasionally I rode with General Pulaski to survey the far right and left of the British defenses. His assessment, as well as those of Lincoln and D’Estaing, was that the allied and British forces were quite evenly matched, and our primary hope of success was secrecy. The British knew we were going to attack…they just did not know when, or where.

  “Because of my duties and the fact that most of my interactions were with officers and senior sergeants, all of whom were much older than myself, I tended to forget at times that I am…was…just a boy. I was usually excluded from the meetings of the senior staff, and more pointedly so during those early days of October. I should not have been offended, but I was, even though I understood the reasons. Aside from the fact that I was a fourteen-year-old boy and would have no reason for input within a meeting of generals, I was also aware that defections were still common on both sides. I do not believe they considered me one who would abandon his country, but both sides still regularly sent out patrols to capture prisoners in an effort to learn all possible about enemy troop positions and intentions. As one so young, no matter how brave or strong I thought myself to be, none of the officers believed I could stand up long to torture by the enemy before telling all I knew, which was much.” My friend stopped for a moment, then spoke slowly, as if considering that thought. Finally he said through a slight smirk on his lips, “Their reasoning was sound, but I am still offended.

  “Rumors were the currency of those days,” he quickly changed the subject. “Each day, each hour, something new was in the air. I heard the British were about to surrender due to fear of the coming siege. Soon after, I heard we were about to surrender because our officers had determined the Redcoats outgunned us two to one, making any attack impossible. One morning it was rumored that the French had sighted twenty of their ships on the horizon bring additional troops and cannons. By afternoon, we heard the French were packing up and leaving due to a hurricane that was headed to the Georgia coast and threatened to destroy their navy. General D’Estaing was said to have collapsed from yellow fever, and was unfit to command. General Pulaski fell from his horse and broke his neck. General Lincoln had ordered our rations to be cut in half, believing troops fought better on an empty stomach.” He stopped for a second, assuming a broad smile. “Best of all, General Prevost, the British commander, was said to have left the city in secret and tra
veled south to Florida, where a Seminole shaman had cured the dent in his head.”

  We laughed together for a few minutes before his mood darkened. “Tension in those days was more palpable than the thick morning mist. Battle was coming, and even the common soldiers knew from the strength of the British fortifications that many would die. We went about our work, laughed and relaxed whenever possible, but always in the back of our minds was the wonder of who would not survive the charge.

  “Are you familiar with siege warfare?” Billy suddenly asked. I had only a vague idea, so I shook my head, encouraging him to explain. Siege warfare has been around since the Romans, possibly even the Chinese dynasties. The siege was used as a tactic when, for any number of reasons, a direct assault on an enemy was either not possible or did not result in their rapid surrender. In its simplest form, the siege amounted to surrounding an enemy fortress or town to prevent the influx of any new resources, such as food, water, weapons, or other necessities. The siege effectively isolated the enemy from the outside, forcing them to depend on their own immediate resources for as long as possible.