My First Impression of Southern History
A Ghostly Battlefield

After my incredible day at the Hilton Head rentals learning about the attractions of a Hilton Head vacation, I hopped in the car and headed south to my motel by way of Savannah.

Passing west of the city I was lured from the freeway by a history marker and pulled off onto the road heading East toward downtown. I had picked up the scent of southern history and was hot on the trail.

I’m a sucker for history markers. Jane and the kids usually try to distract my attention when they see one up ahead, but it rarely works. I’ve got an unerring sixth sense for the history marker – more accurate than a cop with a radar gun.

When I finally wheeled into the parking lot of the museum of Southern history I was disappointed to find out it was locked up tight. Irritated I tugged on the door in disbelief, but it did not budge. I glanced at my watch: Duh – it was after 5 pm.

There was still light enough, but the evening shadows were starting to fall. I turned away disappointed, but noticed some explanatory narrative on the history marker out front. Historic people and historic events are too often defined by American wars.

I soaked in the story posted in front of the old brick building and realized that I was standing in the epi-center of an ancient battlefield. British fighting somebody else. There I was, gawking with irreverent academic curiosity over a patch on which men had struggled and bled and died. I was intruding on hallowed ground. Suddenly the historic events materialized and I became a spectator.

There were screams and crack of the rifles. The tide of battle yet undecided, flowed first this way and then that, to and fro, back and forth. Men locked in mortal combat. Another dimension of space and time enveloped me. The action swept around and through me. For a moment the place was haunted. Retreating to the car I pulled onto Oglethorpe Avenue. I realized that I had just experienced in my mind’s eye a fleeting taste of our military heritage. The American wars that molded our freedom and define so much of what we are today. Two great conflicts over the right of a people to chart their own course. One won, one lost.

It occurred to me that Southern history and the American Civil War are keys to understanding contemporary America. But the past does not yield its secrets casually to the secular American.

I pressed on in search of further revelations in Southern culture and history. I owed at least this much to the dead – to learn from their sacrifice that it might not be in vain. Surely Old Savannah. herself would divulge more places to see as I pursued my quest for understanding of Southern history.

Return From Southern History to Sell This Old House