Excerpt
“Our original goal in writing this book was modest. We wanted to document the important military sites associated with the Civil War in and around the city—many of these sites are threatened by development. This includes the inner line of defenses around the city, the river line laid out by Confederate General Robert E. Lee, the western line of 1864, and the rear guard and defensive sites in surrounding counties. Our goal was to photograph these sites in black-and-white and knit them together with text to support a series of “staff drives” for historians, military personnel, and anyone interested in the subject. We looked upon this mission with urgency as urban developers are now plowing under and building over significant historic sites in Chatham and Effingham Preface xi counties faster than we can document them, never mind attempts to preserve them. For some of these sites, the photographs we have taken may be all that’s left for historians in a few years.

“When I saw the first haunting black-and-white photographs taken by my gifted colleague Cindy Wallace, I knew we could not restrict our project to earthworks and battlefields. Armed with her talent, we could do much more. Perhaps, just perhaps, we might be able to photograph and document all of the important Civil War sites in and around the city. Each address has a story to tell and while some are mute, many more are rich with information about the people who lived there in the tumultuous years leading up to and during the Civil War. Although other works—more scholarly than ours—have documented the history and architecture of the city, our goal was different. We sought to document the role these sites played in the years before and during America’s bloodiest conflict: a titanic clash of arms still carefully and reverently referred to in Savannah as the “War Between the States.” We sought to visit for a time with the generation that fought this war, a generation that, in the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes, was ‘touched with fire.’

“Since a third of Savannah’s antebellum population was African American, we felt it important to also tell their story in text and photos as best we could. This meant delving into the intricacies of Savannah’s local slave trade—always a painful subject—while exploring the experience of Savannah’s free persons of color and, especially, the city’s vibrant black churches. Here we have been assisted and guided by our knowledgeable and capable colleague Vaughnette Goode-Walker.

“In all, we labored mightily to exercise objectivity and accuracy. Looking back, this was both a wonderful opportunity and a towering challenge. When researching and cross-referencing several hundred sites against hundreds of individuals, the potential for error is high. We have worked hard to minimize the possibility of errors but accept responsibility for any mistakes or misjudgments in the text. Only time will tell how well we have succeeded in our task—but we put down our work contented with the knowledge that we have done our best with the time and resources at hand. Where our conclusions may turn out to be inadequate, we look to others to build upon or correct our work. For now, this is our contribution.

—Barry Sheehy
Savannah, Georgia
150th Anniversary of the American Civil War