The Devil Went Down to Georgia Revisited

The fiddle quavered, the stones were cast,
But nobody saw where the fiddler passed....

A strange red-bearded man holding a fiddle appeared in Johnson square a few minutes before our pub tour was supposed to go out at 9:30 PM. It was March 17, St. Patrick’s Day - a bit muggy for a spring night. There was fog in the air and thunder in the distance. Nobody saw from which direction the man had come. He was just there, all of a sudden, in the midst of tuning his fiddle. We walked over towards him and he turned to rosin up his bow. I’m not sure why we were so attracted. It just seemed that he was there for us. He reeked of whiskey and it looked like he was missing a tooth. Could this be our tour guide? The sponsoring company was a reputable one, well spoken for by all the concierges in the city. Yet this fellow was a rogue by even the most conservative and generous consideration. Who would dare hire this vagabond? Or was it an illusion? Was it just a costume? An act? Maybe. We couldn’t be for sure in a city where so many outlandish characters were incorporated into a professional touring industry of enormous proportions. It was probably best to give him the benefit of the doubt.

He was standing upon the base of the Nathanael Greene monument. He raised the fiddle bow up in the air. Then, suddenly, a string of fire ignited along the bow's length. He arched his back and slid the bow of fire down his throat and out again. Then he cocked his head at a forty-five degree angle and spewed out a dragon's breath so big that it must've singed the leaves on the live oak trees leaning over the square. A clump of Spanish moss ignited.

The gentleman standing near me remarked in disbelief,
"That man just ate fire."

Knowing a little bit about the history of the city, having taken a day tour earlier in the afternoon, I ventured a speculation.
"Well, you know this is where the biggest secession rally in the whole South was held, six days after South Carolina seceded in December of 1860, right before the Civil War."

"You don't say?" the man was still in disbelief.

"Yeah, there were about 10,000 people jammed in this square and all the fire-eaters made their speeches right there on the Greene monument under a flag with a rattlesnake coiled that read, "Don't tread on me". That was what they called a passionate Southern orator at the time. A fire-eater.

He apparently didn't hear me for he had wandered up with the others to get a closer glimpse. I followed.
As we gathered around him, the fire-eating fiddler straightened his lanky body, took a long glance at everyone, and then grinned. He introduced himself as Darby Hicks and said that he was here to lead us on a pub tour in old Savannah that we would never forget. His voice had the lilt of a prankster, varying in pitch, creaking from high to low in a single sentence. It sounded almost like his fiddle as he plucked it to check the pitch.

He then went on at some length about the mysteriously haunted nature of the city and warned us to stick close, emphasizing that we would be creeping along an energy vortex where the spirits of the past peered into the present. Savannah was the most haunted city in the United States and he was going to tell us why. And if we weren’t careful with our ‘mead’ intake we might get caught up in the romance of it all. And what a tragedy that would be! Then he gave a knowing wink. Everyone looked at each other under the spell of an intrigued wonder as he waved his arm forward and turned to the south.

He was moving fast and before we knew it we were on our way down Bull Street, the “Avenue of Heroes,” drawn along by a strangely magnetic force and an old Irish lay.

We began to wander through the magical streets of this old southern city, following the mysterious feller. This wasn’t just a stroll, it wasn’t just a pub tour, it was a journey through space and time. At each pub, we all bought a drink, made a toast, and threw it down the hatch. And the city’s history opened up like a thick velvet curtain on an antebellum stage.

While Darby talked, we all listened. He enraptured us. He seduced us. And when he wasn’t talking, he was playing as he rambled forwards, and we were singing, to ourselves, out loud, carelessly letting it all hang out, our emotions fibrillating along the frequencies of the fiddle. What madness had come on? We looked down into our glasses, then up into the live oaks, and in the netting of the ancient Spanish moss we saw the romance of the old South. Frightened by its violence, attracted to its passion, the energy had been trapped and held in the halo glow of the downtown historic district. The smells of Confederate Jasmine, Honeysuckle, and Privit filled our nostrils, exponentially amplifiying our already inebriated senses.

As we passed the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace I looked into the garden and was distracted by the fireflies blinking in some of the trees. The air was fresh but heavy with humidity and there was an electric charge in the air. It felt like a storm was brewing. I turned to catch up with the others.

Darby was now standing in front of the Presbyterian Church telling a story about a woman named Mary Telfair. When she died in 1875, she left the church a generous financial endowment, the adjacent property along with some commercial lots on Broughton St, and an enormous wooden pulpit. The pulpit was so large that it was like watching the minister give a sermon from the top of a Christmas Tree.

Darby said that in her final years she had become a bit eccentric in her ways and that that was evident in the stipulations of her will. If the church stopped using the pulpit for any reason whatsoever, the property and the money would revert to other charitable causes that she had also endorsed. Well, fourteen years went by and in 1889, a fire broke out in Hogan's Livery stable and a cinder the size of a fist floated across the city and lodged itself in the steeple. The steeple burned and collapsed into the church. The rest of the church caught fire. The firemen were on it, doing their best to put out the fire but they say that when the deacons found out, they came a'runnin', riskin' life and limb, not to put out the fire but to get the damn pulpit out. They weren't sure they'd be covered by an accident. So the church burned and they ended up rebuilding the whole thing and putting that sucker right back inside.

"What was so special about that pulpit?" a lady with curly brown hair and red lipstick from Chicago asked as she smacked some bubble gum.
"Nothing, she was just a crazy old woman and they had to play by the stipulations of the will," a scholarly man from Connecticut informed.
Darby had another angle.
"Well, that's what most people think. But the apprehension of truth is arrived at through indirection. There's a rumor that the pulpit contained the lost gold of the Confederacy."
"I don't believe that."
"Yeah, He's lying."
"Well, I've heard that Jefferson Davis did have close connections to many of the families in old Savannah."
"Is it still there?"
"Who knows?"
"Tell us more."
"In time..." Darby assured.
Some of the group who were more analytical in nature and not content just to sit back and enjoy the ride tried to probe Darby further. What was the secret of Savannah's charm? How was it possible to maintain such a perfect illusion of the past? A city with twenty-four parks, all lit under an arboreal canopy. The place was one enormous special effect that sparkled on command.

Darby had a lot to say on this account. Pausing for a moment after the aforementioned inquiries, he gathered us together in Chippewa Square under the glare of General Oglethorpe's bronze statue which looked a bit like a Captain Morgan’s Rum advertisement. He agreed. It was a fascinating city. Almost too perfect. Historic preservation had succeeded in the rare accomplishment of saving enough of the old to suspend disbelief. Look in four directions, he admonished. We did. And yes, the illusion was still intact. The paradox was that it didn't start out like this. The old look was a sign of the future yet to come. Dreams are the commodities of the Information Age, he whispered.

Commercial developers coming through in the mid-twentieth century after the second world war met a city then known as "the armpit of the South," with blocks of old derelict homes and the stench of a paper mill where the plantations used to be. A few elderly ladies who still prized Savannah's previous grandeur, however, had stepped in front of a bulldozer and rescued the Davenport House over on Columbia Square in the fifties. House by house, street by street, brick by brick, they and others inspired by their example began to remake the city into the object of their fantasy, glimpsed one afternoon in the bottom of a mint julep. The slow and easy manner of the region had finally served its true function, slowing time down until the caretaker had built himself up. Historic consciousness for a brief moment, stood paramount over the dollah-chasahs who had been victorious ever since Sherman's march to the sea.

Not to be taken so easily though, commerce needed a hedge and saw a new direction opening up, the tourism industry. A city with a reputation of historic preservation carried with it a number of lucrative prospects. Architectural technology then turned its promethean energy from the destruction of the old and out of date into the construction of a polished simulation. The danger, of course, Darby warned us, was that if we were not careful, we would be fooled by the devil himself and thus mistake the old old for the new that had been made to look old. Again, he winked.

Hearing a bell, we turned to the left and saw a trolley full of tourists sauntering by. A flash of cameras. To the right, on the other side of the square, a hearse passed. The top had been cut off and ten heads stuck out the top of the vehicle. A speaker from within this gothic Flintstone contraption sent a shrill cackle through the night. But then, after the car was gone, another cackle. From where?
"Did you hear that?" Someone asked.
"Hear what?" Another replied.

On the sidewalk opposite from our tour was a lady dressed in a white satin hoopskirt, carrying a lantern. A large group of about 20 people followed her closely.

"It's almost an amusement park. Isn't it?" Darby said.

We all nodded and took another sip.

A man with a lyre plugged into an amplifier sat on the bench on the south side of the square. He played a medieval English melody.
"Almost, but not quite...you see, the system has not been able to repair the derailed ride."

"What do you mean by that?" One fellow asked.

Darby didn't answer. He turned and began walking South again. We followed. I was beginning to feel a bit dizzy. Probably just the alcohol. I looked down at the sidewalk and noticed that we were trudging through a sandy path. The sand was quite thick and my shoes were sinking up to my ankles. Must be a repair job. Earlier in the day, I had noticed places where tree roots had torn up the cement. I had thought that that was some prime material for a good lawsuit. Maybe, I thought now, they were trying to fix it in other places. But then, as I raised my eyes, I saw that the sandy path extended much further up into the darkness ahead. This was no temporary ground cover. There was not a trace of concrete, anywhere, anymore. I looked around me and the others were staring, too. What was happening? At the base of the next city lamplight that we passed, there was an old fashioned water pump. I stopped briefly, dumped my cup, and filled it full with water. I hadn't remembered seeing those pumps either. And the light itself. I could have sworn earlier that there was a bulb but now it seemed to be burning oil. Darby's music roused me from a briefly sober moment and again I ran to catch up with the group.
More old lamps shined amber in front of what looked to be an English style tavern looming up ahead. Six Pence Pub. Another drink.

We ducked in and all the people in the tavern looked as if they were dressed in costumes from the late 19th century. Talk about an amusement park. These folks were willing to go all the way. The men wore top hats and brandished gold stopwatches. There was lots of smoke coming from cigars and pipes. It looked like there were a couple of poker games going on. What about that recent legislation concerning smoke and gambling in public places? Some of the ladies were overdressed. How could they stand the heat? And some of the ladies were underdressed, way underdressed. Weren't there laws about public indecency in this town?

We approached the bar. Darby was already there. He had ordered a shot and downed it, slamming it onto the wood. He had fire in his eyes as he addressed the bartender, a short stocky bald Englishman. He was clearly angry about something that they had begun talking about before we were within hearing distance.

"...Yeah, well if you see this feller about yay' tall comin' in here with a puny, small group of people asking a bunch of questions about pub tours and the damned competition and shit like that, then you tell him that Darby Hicks is pissed off and that I want to whup his ass. He's got no business bein' in this city and I'm gon' rid the town of the varmint 'fore all's said and done. He thinks he's got a story or two, but you know me, and I give 'em the hot southern pulse. And if that feller comes over here askin' about me specifically, then you tell him that I'm over there at Pinkie Master's a-waitin' on his Yankee butt."

The bartender nodded as if he knew what Darby was talking about. None of us understood.

"We've only got so much room in Savannah for smooth talkin' charlatans and I can't be blamed if I'm faster on the draw than he is. Now you know that I don't work for nobody but myself and my beloved Scarlett. I ain't in it for the money and folks are lookin' for a good time. If we're gon' be drinkin' then we're gon' tell some rough stories about the old guys and gals and the type of you know what that it took for them to do what they did. Case closed. I've declared war on Uncle Sam's Amusement Park. You hear. Jay-sus!"

The bartender nodded again and this time he smiled. Darby appeared to be a regular. We all stepped up and made our orders and got our drinks. A round of shots. We liked Darby's style. He pulled us over to a table in the corner where some shadows veiled us. Then he told us a story about duels in old Savannah. Said Savannah had more duels than just about anywhere else in the world and that a mayor in the 1920s had written a book about it but didn't have room to record them all.

He said that one of the reasons for all those duels was because General Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia, had been a firm believer in the code duello as a remedy for Western man's emasculation and that that was partially why he had outlawed lawyers in the early years. There were some issues that just couldn't be settled in a court. So much for the lawsuits I had been worried about. I finished my shot and asked for another. Darby continued.

Later in life, after Oglethorpe had gone back to England, he was having one of them snooty conversations with Samuel Johnson, Robert Boswell, and Oliver Goldsmith over a cup of tea. Those old gents brought up the subject of whether or not a man had the moral right to defend his honor by duelling. Oglethorpe interrupted, raising the stakes and his glass, claiming that not only did a man have a moral right to defend his honor by duelling but that he had a duty, as a man amongst men, to do so.

And so it went. He then talked at some length about a fellow named James Jackson, a revolutionary war hero who had lived much of his life in Savannah and who had single-handedly dismantled the great Yazoo Land Fraud of the 1790s. Darby claimed that he was the greatest duellist in the history of the United States, reportedly fighting 23 affairs of honor. Another drink. This time beer. In a to-go cup. And there we went again.

Out into the night. Darby was now playin' a roguish jig. "Oh, I'm a good ole rebel, oh yes that's what I am..."

As we moved further through the city, I looked back. And in the distance, I saw another group, much smaller than ours, going into the bar we had just left. The man leading the group looked about yay' tall. And from where I was squintin' , he appeared to be mad as hell. He yelled at a policeman nearby to come over. The officer did so and began writing notes on a pad. Uh-oh.

In Madison square, Darby pointed out the Pumpkin house, an orange mediterranean villa built in 1840, and said that the youngest general in the Confederate army, G. Moxley Sorrel, grew up there. He had been one of James Longstreet's staff officers and had distinguished himself at Gettysburg, the Battle of the Wilderness and others.

Caddy corner to that one was the Green-Meldrim House, completed on April 12, 1861, the date that Fort Sumter was fired upon. It was here, Darby lamented, that ol' Billy Sherman had his headquarters. Sherman wrote the famous Christmas telegram there at Charles Green's desk, "To his excellency, President Lincoln, I beg to present you as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah...".

"Awfully kind of him," Darby sarcastically commented.
We laughed and took another swig.
"Yeah, that guy was a real bastard!" I chimed in, now fully infected with Darby's fighting spirit, which got a laugh from some of the others.

I noticed several women in the shadows of St. John's Episcopal church, adjacent to the house. They were dressed in mourning and all of them had black veils that covered their faces. Chills went down my spine. And then the bells of the church started ringing out madly.
"What's going on?" A young lady was also afraid.
Darby swung left and pushed on towards the east.
"Follow me."

We passed the Sergeant Jasper monument in the center of the square. At least I thought it was a monument. As we walked by, I noticed that the man's right hand, which seemed to be covering a wound on his side, moved to better secure the flag in his left hand. I could see red blood gushing down from a gaping hole. The flag whipped in the wind and I thought I could make out the word Carolina. I closed my eyes and shook my head and looked again and it was the statue. Again, I shrugged and looked up and then it seemed like it was one of those actors that was pretending to be a statue like you sometimes see in Disney World or in Paris and London and other big cities with lots of monuments. I was really confused but I didn't have time to ascertain what the reality was because Darby was moving too fast and then he was playin' another song that caught my
attention. Onwards we delved, further into the night. "There's whiskey in the jar..."

In Lafayette Square, a fountain bubbling an incandescent green liquid illumined the square with an otherworldly light. A carriage quietly stopped in front of the Andrew Low House on the Southwestern trust lot. A man got out and quickly went to the other side of the vehicle and helped an older man out onto the uneven cobblestone.

"General Lee, if you would, please be careful with your step. Let us retire here for the evening. There is not as much noise as in the vicinity of the Mackay House on Broughton Street. I apologize for the commotion but can we in Savannah help it if we are excited by your presence amongst us. The men will be whistling Dixie for the rest of the night. You only thought that the war was over and we the defeated. But who, sir, had the greater measure of honor, not to mention Love? History may, in time, consider your spiritual victory superior to the crass material conquest that has destroyed our republic. Here, take my arm for support."

The old man did not say a word but accepted the grip of his assistant. They walked slowly up the path to the front entrance between two lions that were so meek and gentle that they seemed to beckon a scratch behind the ears. We were aghast.

On the other side of the square, the Hamilton-Turner house blinded us with a thousand lights. It looked like a birthday cake. A chandelier in every window, streaming floodlights that made it hurt to stare too long.
"James Pugh Hamilton was the Rhett Butler of Savannah. He was a Confederate naval blockade runner."

According to Darby, that meant that he had "the derring-do and just enough of the rascal to make it through." After the recent unpleasantness, when all of his friends were declaring bankruptcy and moving out of their big homes in downtown Savannah, he was having his built. He became president of the first electric company in Savannah and his house had the first electricity. At nights, they say, he would ascend the cupola on the roof and smoke cigars, looking down towards the water and reminiscing to the days when he was a sailor.

We squinted as we looked up and sure enough, a dark form seemed to be standing there, facing North.
"Is he naked?" One person asked.
"No, you fool, you're just drunk." another replied.
The tour continued and we bent back a little through a shadowed sidewalk over to the corner of Drayton and Harris. A neon sign notified everyone that here was the next tavern. Pinkie Masters.

Upon entering, we were all a bit relieved to see folks inside were wearing clothes that were a little more modern. Definitely twentieth century though it wasn't present day. They were still out of step. There was a lot of politickin' goin' on in this one. Right before I was able to pick my beer up, a man with a boyish face and a toothy smile jumped up on the bar and knocked my cup over. He apologized sincerely and asked the bartender if he would fix me another. I turned to my incredulous friend that I had spoken to at the beginning of the tour.
"That man looks like Jimmy Carter."
"You don't say? He does."
The man on the bar started addressing the whole crowd.
"I'm here to speak for the peanut poppahs, the pecan pickahs, and the plain people of Jow-dja."
"Unbelievable." whispered the man with whom I'd just spoken.
Another man in coat and tie, chubby face and spectacles attempted to grab the attention of the crowd, climbing onto one of the tables near the jukebox.

"Now looky here folks, ol' Dick Nixon is here in Savannah trying to make his rounds for those damned Republicans. I'm here to remind you that he ain't visitin' from the goodness at the bottom of his heart but rather to secure his party in Jow-dja. He's a dollah-chasah just lak the rest of them scoundrels. Keep me in powah, folks, and I'll stand up to 'em all. Come ovah heah, I want to shake yo' hands."

Darby clued us in.
"That there is Georgia governor Gene Talmadge and he came to Savannah in 1970 to make sure that Nixon didn't get all the attention when he visited the city."

Right at that moment, through the window, we saw a convertible drive slowly by.

And sure enough, there sat President Nixon waving. Immediately after, several police cars tore by with their lights flashing and sirens blaring. Were they searching for a place to park nearby? Uh-oh. I though again.

After that, we looked amongst ourselves and Darby was missing. We turned around and noticed him over by the cash register, taking another shot and yelling at the bartender.

"I tell you, if that guy yay' tall comes in here tonight, you tell him that I'm pissed off, that I want to whu-up his ass, and that he's a Yankee to top it all off!!! That should get him good. You tell him that I'm over at the Olde Pink House and that I've been drinking enough whiskey to put down a hoss and that I have not yet begun to fight..."

And with that, we ordered another round and before we got our drinks, Darby was out the door and on his way again. And if I'm not mistaken he was playing "In the Hall of the Mountain King" on his fiddle. We followed, barely eluding the police.

Walking down Abercorn Street, we passed the duelling green. Button Gwinnet, Georgia signer of the Declaration of Independence and American General Lachlan McCintosh were squaring off preparing to shoot one another for honor's sake. We heard the count to three. And then pistols firing. A bullet whizzed past the lady's head in front
of me.

Then there was Colonial Cemetary. Sherman's Union Calvarymen were camped inside. Either that or it was a group of Civil War reenactors. There were some campfires burning and it even looked like some of the men were walking in and out of the large brick vaults where the old Savannah families were buried.

I noticed a sign midway along the cemetery, noting a Captain Kerloguen, who had manned a ship alongside John Paul Jones' Bon Homme Richard during his famous sea battle with the Serapis in the Revolutionary War. "Sir, I have not yet begun to fight..."

Again, I had to hustle to catch up with the group because Darby was moving so fast. Next he took us into the tavern in the basement of the Olde Pink House. They usually did not allow pub tours to enter but Darby had a way and they seemed to know him well. This tavern had been one of two places during the Revolution where the Sons of Liberty had met to organize resistance to British rule. Darby said that it was from this basement that they planned the tar and feathering of John Hopkins, an English sailor who had made the unfortunate mistake of damning the cause of liberty in Savannah during the hot summer of 1775.

After we were done sittin' around, Darby again engaged the bartender in the same manner as at the other taverns.
"If that Yankee feller about yay' tall comes in here, tell him that I'm pissed off and that I want to whup his ass gooooood and that I'll be down at Kevin Barry's on the River awaitin' on him!"
The bartender nodded and we hurried along with another drink in our hands. Most of us were pretty far gone at this point and we were all seeing so many ghosts that the sheer number of them prevented us from being afraid. It was like the comfort one feels in a stadium or auditorium full of people. There was so much human energy all around that it didn't bother us that we might have been bumping elbows with rogues and murderers and vigilantes and pirates and all other sorts of rapscallions.

Darby told us that Kevin Barry's would be our last stop for the evening. Kevin Barry's was his favorite. And I have to hand it to him. It was a good bar. It's tucked in one of those old antebellum cotton warehouses on the river. As we entered, I looked back and noticed a line of steamboats and paddle-wheelers from the 1840s docked along the boardwalk.

In the main room at Kevin Barry's there is a large horseshoe shaped bar in the middle. There was also a side room that Darby ushered us into. You had to have a special pass to get in because this was where they had live Irish music. Yet the stage was empty.

We sat down at a table in the corner. Darby talked to one of the waitresses and then to the manager. They got into an enormous argument. It was so heated that we all thought it was going to come to blows but Darby held himself in check and the manager walked away. He approached us now, clearly upset.

"Well, folks, I had hoped to wind things up with a little concert on the stage over here but Mr. Daniels, the manager, has just informed me that they've booked another fiddler tonight. Said that he's not from around here but that he's been meaning to come down to Georgia for a long time now. So I guess I'll just have to sit on the sidelines with you.
But before we get settled, perhaps ya'll would like another drink. They make a special here. It's a flamin' drink with Georgia moonshine straight out of Metter. They call it the "Fire-eater". It's ten dollars. If ya'll give me the money, I'll go fetch 'em while ya sit here."
We gladly yielded up the ten dollars. Darby collected the cash and as he was headed towards the main barroom, I asked him a question.
"Darby, you said earlier tonight that you were going to tell us why Savannah was so haunted? Well, why is it?"
He thought for a minute, scratched his beard, smiled wide with his snaggle-tooth and said,
"Because of an ancient prophecy."
Then he headed off for the drinks.

He never came back.
After about fifteen minutes, we realized that he had gone, apparently with our money. I ran outside and up and down River street looking for him, but there wasn't a trace. As I headed back to the bar, though, I thought heard a fiddle off in the distance. It sounded like a Southern song. It was that one about "...ol' times there..."
When I reached the group again, another man was addressing them. It was the angry man that was yay' tall that I had seen trailing us a couple of times earlier that evening.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I hate to say it, but you've been had. Had had had. And I've lost a tour. We've got a lot of local color here in Savannah and sometimes things get out of hand. The man that you were following around tonight was not a tour guide. He was a transient beggar. I've been notified by some of the other bartenders in the city that he was using the name Darby Hicks.
Well, Darby Hicks does not exist, you see. He's an old Savannah legend. Years back, Irishmen used to play a joke on each other. One fellow would walk into a bar that he wasn't very familiar with and the bartender would tell him that Darby Hicks had been talking trash about his good name. The fellow would most often get angry and demand to know where this Darby Hicks was. The bartender would then tell him that he had headed over to another bar in town. So off the fellow would go to track him down. It became a huge goose chase. At every bar, he would demand to know if Darby was there and if not
then to where he had gone next. When they had had their fill of foolin' with him and runnin' him around the city, someone would finally break the news that Darby was merely a figment of Savannah's collective imagination.
Again, I'm so sorry, folks. Just to make amends with you, I'm going to refund all of your pub tour tickets and give you guys some free vouchers for our ghost tour which begins at midnight, over in the garden of good and evil."
The sincere man pulled out a wad of cash and began handing it over to us. The woman next to me started to say something but I pinched her arm and she shut her mouth.
"And, ah...one more thing....uh...I heard...that this man...claiming to be Darby Hicks...uh...was talking about how I was...a...uh...about how I was...a Yankee..."

Everyone suddenly became very quiet. Apparently, this was quite a serious accusation.
"Yes, well...it is true...I was raised...in Vermont...yeah, lots of...um...granite there...you know that is Vermont granite over there at the Customs House. Yeah...for sure. And I'm not ashamed of it..."

The man looked down as he made his confession. Everyone looked away in
embarrassment for him.

"But...ah...my father was in the military...and...I was actually born in North Carolina." Then he looked up.
Everyone laughed.
As we looked at one another in sheer hilarity at the nature of the confession, the waitress brought a round of flaming drinks over to our table.
"Johnny Reb gives his regards." She curtsied and turned to leave.

The man, whoever he was, had been true to his word after all. And we didn't even get a chance to tip him. The Fire-eater. Jay-sus. I grabbed one of the glasses, raised it high in the air, and looked straight at the real tour guide.

"Well, you know what they say about boys from North Carolina, don't ya?"
The man was uneasy.
"No, what do they say?"
I turned it up as loud as I could.
"TO NORTH CAROLINA, FIRST AT MANASSASS, FURTHEST AT GETTYSBURG, LAST AT APPOMATTOX! HERE'S TO YA! WHOOO-HOOOO!"
We all laughed, gave him a good slap on the back, and encouraged the yankee boy to hang around. At first, he was skeptical but finally he gave in, deciding to join us for the rest of the evening.
And then, we all ate some fire.

To be honest, beyond that strange communion, I don’t really remember anything else...







Bibliography

1. Thomas F. Coffey, Jr., Only in Savannah: Stories and Insights on Georgia's Mother City
(Savannah, GA: Frederic C. Beil, 1997).

2. Timothy Daiss, Rebels, Saints, and Sinners: Savannah's Rich History and Colorful
Personalities
(Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company, 2002).
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3. Derek Smith, Civil War Savannah (Savannah, GA: Frederic C. Beil, 1997).



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