Ghosts of the Siege by Steven Abernathy

Author:Steven Abernathy [Abernathy, Steven]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Destin Arts Press
Published: 2015-10-07T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Ice cream in hand, we trudged unsteadily over the uneven ballast stone road leading up to Bay Street and proceeded south on the much smoother surfaced sidewalks adjacent to Bull Street. As we approached Johnson Square I asked Billy if he was familiar with Nathaniel Greene. I felt his surprise at the question. “General Greene?” he asked, then continued, “Of course I am familiar with him. He was a major general and a close friend and associate of General Washington. Why do you ask? Is this square named for him? Do his bones lie here? The sign says Johnson Square.”

I laughed as I answered, “Billy, have you intertwined so tightly around my psyche that you now find the need to ask multiple questions just as I do?” I laughed even more, then realized it was Billy who was laughing, or, maybe, adding his laughter to my own.

“You are right, of course,” he said while we chuckled, “but the question still stands.”

We walked to the center of the square, where stood a tall monument to General Nathaniel Greene. “Your General Greene is buried here, beneath this monument. He fought with Washington in the north, but lived in Savannah and died here long after the American Revolution. The city built this monument as tribute to him.

Billy said nothing, but I felt a sensation akin to awe emanating from is spirit as we stared at the monument. I experienced a slightly unsettling vertigo for an instant as my ghostly inhabitant untangled his spirit from my own and departed my body. It was daylight, but as he passed through shadows cast by the large old oaks in the square I could catch glimpses of my friend as he moved around the monument. After circling the obelisk several times, Billy disappeared into the structure and was gone for several minutes. He suddenly reappeared beside me in a state of excitement that reminded me of a typical fourteen-year-old boy who had wonderful news to tell.

“You are right! General Greene is here…and one of his sons as well.” I could tell that if Billy were within my body I would be panting with excitement and the desire to get the story out as quickly as possible. “I spoke with them. They have an interesting story to tell. Do you know how the general came to be buried here?” I had no idea and said as much, prompting my enthusiastic friend to begin the tale.

“General Greene died of heat stroke while working on his plantation near Savannah in 1786. His body was interred in a crypt in Colonial Park Cemetery. Only a few years later the general’s son, George Washington Greene, drowned in the Savannah River when he was only eighteen years old. He was buried in the same crypt.

“Several decades later, during your American Civil War, troops who fought for the Union Army (I did not ask the general’s spirit to explain the war, or its sides, to me.) camped within the walls of the cemetery and caused great vandalism and destruction to the monuments and headstones.

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