Return to Savannah, Part I: Learned something new about cemetery

In my various return travels over the years, Savannah is one place to which I always look forward going. 

There is so much charm, history and ways to unwind. Perhaps I enjoy it so much because the lodge that our vacation club owns there is in the heart of downtown, allowing us to access many interesting places on foot. Add to that the fact that Savannah is infinitely photogenic. 

It seems as if each time we are there, we leave awed by some new tidbit of information or history.

This time, at the end of March, I left moved by the story of General Sherman's troops damaging countless graves in Colonial Park Cemtery, which is situated in the heart of the city's Old Historic District at Olgethorpe Avenue and Abercorn Street, just two blocks east of Chippewa Square, which is perhaps best-known for hosting the bus stop where Forest Gump ruminated about how his mother compared life to a box of chocolates in that "You never know what you're going to get."  

Colonial Cemetery was established in 1750, expanded three times before reaching its current 6 acres in 1789 and was closed to new interments in 1853. More than 700 people who died during the yellow fever epidemic in 1820 are among the deceased there. 

When the Union Army occupied Savannah during the last months of the Civil War in December 1964, hundreds of soldiers used the cemetery groups as a camp. It is said that during their time there, many soldiers vandalized graves, used vaults for sleeping accommodations and removed and or defaced many gravestones. Some even etched on the stones to change dates or other information.  

The soldiers' damage was so severe that once the war ended, townspeople had difficulty ascertaining where displaced gravestones should be returned on the grounds. They decided to build a brick wall along the eastern perimeter and display those grave markers along the war. This way, at least the deceased would have their markers in the cemetery, even if it couldn't be matched correctly with the grave sites.

I had not known about this part of the cemetery's history on my prior visits to Savannah, in 2017 and 2018.  

The vast amount of space in Colonial Park Cemetery looks like a normal cemetery, as depicted in the pictures above and first two below. In fact, before returning to it at the end of March, this was my recollection of the place. 

The photo above and the next four below give a perspective of the east-perimeter brick wall, from its north end to the south, where grave markers displaced by Union soldiers were recovered by townspeople after the Civil War and given a permanent home. 

Above: The wall memorial as seen looking northeast from near its terminus at the south end of the cemetery. 

Above and next six below show closer subsections of the wall, including a few closeups with information about the deceased whose graves were vandalized. Some of the markers even reflect various degrees of damage. 

Above and next three below: A few more views of the rest of the cemetery.

Next up: A cruise on the Georgia Queen