Photo of the Day: William Washington Gordon Monument, Savannah, GA

By now, Faithful Reader, you have figured out that I am utterly enthralled by the city Savannah. Just about every one of its squares is filled with beauty, history and mystery. One excellent example downtown is Wright Square, which contains the unusual monument in the attached photo that I took over a year and a half ago, when I made a short dash into the city

Does the name William Washington Gordon ring a bell? If you think you vaguely recall it, I’ll give you a stronger hint; the phrase “Girl Scouts.”

Yes, Gordon was the grandfather of Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts in America. But he meant a great deal more to Georgia in the antebellum period: its first West Point graduate, a prominent lawyer, state legislator, mayor of Savannah, and president of the Central Railroad and Banking Company, the state’s first railroad.

That last position consumed so much energy in the last six years of his life that he died exhausted in 1842, at only age 46. The Central Railroad had a monument erected in his honor 40 years later. That cenotaph, designed by the Boston firm Van Brunt and Howe, contains four red granite columns with Corinthian capitals supporting four winged figures that hold a globe. The four figures—agriculture, manufacturing, commerce and art—symbolize the fruits of the kind of prosperity hoped for in the railroad.

But placing this tribute in Wright Square meant displacing someone perhaps more essential to the very foundation and survival of Savannah. Chief Tomo-Chi-Chi had been a crucial ally of James Oglethorpe when the Englishman founded the colony in 1733, helping to establish a military outpost against Spanish invasion and assuring peace with the other tribes in the area.  He had been buried in the center of Wright Square with a pyramid of rocks formed over his grave.

Gordon’s daughter-in-law, Nellie Kinzie Gordon, an admirer of the chief, was annoyed when the railroad placed the cenotaph directly over the Native American’s grave. She pushed to erect a large piece of Georgia granite in Wright Square, explaining Tomo-Chi-Chi’s significance. It was the first act of public service by the organization she founded, the Georgia Society of the Colonial Dames of America.

Photo of the Day: Lafayette McLaws Bust, Forsyth Park, Savannah, GA

If you want to experience the urban South at its most beautiful, you will want to take at least a stroll—and probably more—in Forsyth Park in Savannah. If you want to understand not merely the fierce persistence of the Civil War in the South, but its centrality in the region’s memories and myths, you’ll want to stop at Forsyth Park, too.

Along the park’s north-south axis towers the Confederate Monument to the city’s war dead. On one side of the monument is a bust dedicated to the memory of Col. Francis Bartow, who lost his life at the First Battle of Manassas on July 21, 1861. On the other is a similar bust paying tribute to Major Gen. Lafayette McLaws, a divisional commander of mixed achievement during the war—and one who, after Appomattox, found as much esteem as he would ever achieve by contributing to the South’s ongoing narrative of sacrifice. I took the photo seen here in November 2014, when I visited the park.

Graduating in the West Point class of 1842 at 48th out of 56, McLaws—born on this date in 1821—confirmed during the Civil War that he was a soldier of limited ability, best used when he could be carefully monitored. Robert E. Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, Douglas Southall Freeman, described McLaws as a “professional soldier, careful of details and not lacking in soldierly qualities, but there was nothing daring, brilliant or aggressive in his character.”

Acquitting himself reasonably well in the Battle of the Seven Days and Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign, he proved more dilatory at Chancellorsville and, out west, at James Longstreet’s Knoxville campaign. His performance in the latter role led Longstreet, a classmate years before, to remove him from command, resulting in a court martial for McLaws. (Although McLaws came to Longstreet’s defense when the corps commander became a scapegoat for Confederate defeat at Gettysburg, McLaws understandably still appears not to have completely forgiven his former chief for his treatment of him during the war.)

In the postwar period, McLaws served as an insurance agent, internal revenue collector, and postmaster. But his military service remained closest to his heart, so he became involved with the Confederate Veterans Association of Savannah. He died in Savannah in 1897 and was buried in Laurel Grove Cemetery. 

It is hard to imagine this bust being anywhere else but where it is now. But it, along with the Barstow sculpture, had originally been placed in Chippewa Square.   

The busts, unveiled in 1902, were created by George Julian Zolnay (1863-1949), who had developed a reputation as “the Sculptor of the Confederacy” with monuments to Confederate spy Sam Davis and Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Eight years later,  when the Savannah city council decided to make room in Chippewa Square for a memorial to the founder of the colony of Georgia, James Oglethorpe, they voted to move the McLaws and Barstow busts to Forsyth Park, where they have remained since.

These are the facts, in brief, of McLaws' life and his bust in Forsyth Park. But that cannot begin to summon the emotions that swirled around his life and his cause, even up to the present day. How much those emotions can be roiled was seen over the weekend,in the controversy over Lee-Jackson Day in another lovely, if smaller, Southern town, Lexington, VA. 

For the past decade, Lexington had been the site of a parade on Lee-Jackson Day celebrating Confederate heritage. This year, however, a group called the Community Anti-racism Education Initiative reserved a permit first. Hard feelings have developed. I am afraid we are going to see more of this kind of thing beginning January 20.

Photo of the Day: Streetscape, Savannah

Two years ago this month, on a vacation to Hilton Head, SC, I took a short afternoon side trip with a relative to Savannah. I’m not sure, after all this time, what the name of this street was. But the American flag is at the heart of what this past year has been about, for better or worse, and I thought this seemed like a beautiful sight in a Southern city already remarkable for its beauty.

Photo of the Day: Entrance, Forsyth Park, Savannah, GA

This is not the first time I’ve blogged about Forsyth Park (see earlier “Photo of the Day” posts on the site’s fountain and a central walkway), which I saw and photographed nearly two years ago. But I don’t mind revisiting it, at least in my mind, because it is not only the largest park in Savannah’s historic district, but as far as I’m concerned, one of the most beautiful urban parks in our great country.

Photo of the Day: Fountain in Fall, Forsyth Park, Savannah

I covered Forsyth Park in a prior post, but the beauty of this Savannah landmark is such that I thought it would be worthwhile to have a different shot, this time of its fountain.

I am told that the biggest St. Patrick’s Day celebration in the South occurs in this city. It seems that one of the customs on that wonderful day is to dye the water in this fountain green.