St. Patrick's celebrations are underway in Savannah

Riverboat at Savannah, Georgia

The official observance of the St. Patrick's Day weekend stepped off in Savannah this afternoon with the Jasper Green Ceremony at Madison Square.

Savannah is home to one of the largest St. Patrick's Day parades and celebrations in the world. Hundreds of thousands of people will make it to the city to join in the celebration, which has been observed in the city since at least 1813.  So far as is known, the first parade there was held in 1818.

The main day of events will be tomorrow (Saturday, March 16th), with the annual St. Patrick's Day Mass at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist starting at 8 a.m. and the big parade itself stepping off at 10:15 a.m.

To learn more, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/savannahstpat.

Fort Pulaski National Monument - Savannah, Georgia

Battle-scarred walls of Fort Pulaski

One of the best preserved and most significant of the nation's antebellum coastal fortifications can be explored at Fort Pulaski National Monument near Savannah, Georgia.

Built on Cockspur Island near the mouth of the Savannah River, Fort Pulaski was a massive five-sided masonry fort designed to protect the vital port of Savannah from foreign attack. Instead, the only guns ever turned on it were those of the United States itself.

The fort was battered into submission during a two day battle in April 1862, an engagement that forever ended the era of masonry seacoast forts. Advancements in artillery had surpassed the ability of structures like Fort Pulaski to stand up to a sustained bombardment from rifled cannon.

During the final year of the war, the fort also achieved a dubious distinction as the site of the dungeon where the Confederate prisoners of war of the Immortal Six Hundred were intentionally starved and tortured.

Learn more about the historic fort and the other sites associated with it at our new Fort Pulaski section: www.exploresouthernhistory.com/fortpulaski.

Forsyth Park in Savannah, Georgia - A 19th Century Dream is Realized

Forsyth Park in Savannah, Georgia

When the planners of Savannah's antebellum city expansion conceived the idea of a large public park, the visualized it as a place around which neighborhoods would grow as well as culmination of color and beauty for the city's Bull Street Corridor.

More than 150 years later, their vision has been realized in the form of Forsyth Park. A magnificent 30-acre greenspace created in the years before the Civil War, the park is one of the most magnificent to be found in any city in the world. Its beautiful fountain, which can be seen as you approach along Bull Street from Monterey Square, has flowed since 1858 and is patterned after a similar feature in Paris. Shrouded by beautiful oak trees, it is one of the most photographed spots in the historic city.

Forsyth Park in Savannah

The history of this ground actually began long before the creation of the park by early city planners. General Oglethorpe himself reserved this ground when he created Savannah and its 24 magnificent squares. During the American Revolution, French troops camped here and their siege trenches began in what is now the northern end of the park.

By the time Sherman came in 1864, Forsyth Park was a developing reality. His men also camped here and thankfully spared Savannah from the flames they visited on Atlanta, Columbia and other locations they visited.

Today, Forsyth Park is everything its 19th century planners dreamed and more. A magnificent setting, it is popular with residents and visitors alike. To learn more, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/forsythpark.

Savannah, Georgia - Capital City of the Coastal Empire

Forsyth Park in Savannah

The stunningly beautiful city of Savannah has been a jewel of the Coastal Empire region of Georgia since 1733.
Founded by General James Oglethorpe when he arrived from England to establish the new colony of Georgia, Savannah was built on the Yamacraw Bluff, the first high ground up from the mouth of the Savannah River. Envisioning a city that would one day rival in beauty any in Europe, Oglethorpe developed a plan for the new settlement to grow around a grid of 24 public squares.

Twenty-two of these squares remain today and offer such beauty and peace in the midst of the busy city that it is hard to imagine why more towns did not follow Savannah's example.

Sidewalk Scene in Savannah

A focal point for the popular guided tours of the city, the Savannah Historic District is one of the most beautiful in the world. Beautifully restored homes surround the squares, which are themselves beautifully landscaped with flowers, ancient oaks, benchs, walkways and monuments. General Nathaniel Greene, a famed patriot of the American Revolution, rests beneath a monument on one of the squares, while other monuments commemorate the heroes and critical moments of Savannah's history.

Gracefully dominating the Bull Street Corridor is the city's famed Forsyth Park. The fountain, which provides a stunning vista as you move along Bull Street from Monterey Square, was placed back in 1858 and has been admired by residents and visitors alike for more than 150 years. French soldiers camped on this ground during the Revolutionary War's bloody Siege of Savannah. Sherman's soldiers also camped here after arriving in Savannah at the end of his devastating March to the Sea.

These are but a few of the attractions of Savannah, which is graced by hundreds of historic homes, structures and points of interest. To learn more, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/savannah.

Flannery O'Connor Farm & Grave - Milledgeville, Georgia

Grave of Flannery O'Connor

The famed Southern writer and novelist Flannery O'Connor was born as Mary Flannery O'Connor in Savannah on March 25, 1925 and lived much of her sadly brief life in Milledgeville.

The daughter of devout Cathlolic parents (and a devout Catholic herself), O'Connor moved with her family from Savannah to Milledgeville when she was thirteen. She went on to graduate from what is now Georgia College & State University (then the Georgia State College for Women) in Milledgeville before obtaining admission to the exclusive Iowa Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa. She had God given talent as a writer, which was nurtured and encouraged by such noted literary figures as Robert Penn Warren.

The often deadly disease of Lupus, however, was hereditary in her family and in 1951, when she was only 26 years old and living with Robert and Sallie Fitzgerald in Connecticut, O'Connor suffered a life-threatening attack from the disease. She decided to move home to Milledgeville where she could enjoy the comfort and support of family and friends, as well as the peaceful lifestyle of her family's Andalusia farm on the northern outskirts of town.

Flannery O'Connor lived out the rest of her life in Milledgeville and it was there that she completed some of her finest work, including her novels Wise Blood and The Violent Bear it Away. She also wrote many short stories while in Milledgeville, compiling some of her finest into a collection titled A Good Man is Hard to Find. Tragically, she died from from Lupus related complications on August 3, 1964. She was only 39 years old.

To learn more about Flannery O'Connor and the sites associated with her in Milledgeville, including Andalusia Farm and her grave at Memory Hill Cemetery, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/flannery.