A Concise History of Portsong Read online

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  As time passed, America pushed west and cleared much of the wilds that Sir Percival had discovered. Sometime later on, his little journal with the curious marking of “song” on its map was found in a rubbish heap. Because the map was so fraught with errors, the confused gentleman who found it sought to authenticate its origin. But a new generation of Rumphs lit the forge in Savannah, and any knowledge of the journal had died with its writer. Because Percival had mistakenly thought himself so much further west than he actually was, the man followed the wrong river and made his own landing where he was able to secure property. The man’s name was Ethan Putman. Mr. Putnam named his land Port Song after the mark on the strange little map, and in time, a city was born.

  Contracted to Portsong after a decade of settlement, the city was incorporated shortly after the country won its independence. The leadership designed the city to be an improved replica of the Oglethorpe Plan, but found there weren’t enough citizens to make a second ward. So they settled on a green common zone with commercial blocks surrounding it. The outer squares were reserved for residential quarters and then farms beyond. The pristine little town had a certain quaint and efficient appeal to it and immediately attracted several residents.

  One new citizen had served in the Battle of Kettle Creek and followed General Nathanael Greene’s command back into Georgia when they pushed the loyalists out of Savannah in 1782. His name was Arthur Blackburn, and he became the first mayor of the new town. Blackburn was a firebrand who sought to legitimize Portsong in any way possible. While the river that bordered the town was too shallow to make it a true commercial port, he envisioned the little city as a major hub to westward expansion. His first act was a disastrous attempt at stealing the county seat from nearby Cottonridge.

  The current county seat was located to the west, putting Portsong between it and Georgia’s capital city, Milledgeville. Cottonridge was an old city whose distinguished mayor raised Arthur Blackburn’s dander to its highest. Although he had elevated the standing of his city, Arthur considered him haughty and downright uppity. Every time they had a clash, Portsong’s mayor left angry and filled with unsaid barbs he wished had come to his mind during the confrontation. For some reason, Blackburn just couldn’t outwit the old badger. So he concocted a plan to intercept his rival’s delegation to the state legislature and replace it with his own. He wrote a letter that looked perfectly official, detailing Cottonridge’s desire to concede its county seat to its neighbor, and he planned to deliver it during the upcoming session. When the signature was forged, he rolled it up and placed a wax seal on it to complete the ruse.

  With his deed to success, he jumped on his trusty horse, Moses, and trotted to the road between their cities where he planned to waylay the envoy of his nemesis. He jumped to the ground near a large oak and stood in its shade to wait. In a matter of moments, the man himself appeared atop his black steed. Blackburn had expected a lesser officer of the city and was slightly disconcerted at the sight of Nehemiah Calvin.

  “Well, well, well,” said Calvin when he rode close enough to recognize Blackburn. “Come all the way here to see me off? What a kind gesture from wee Portsong.

  Mayor Blackburn felt his temperature rise. “Wee? Who would you be a-callin’ wee?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Mayor,” Calvin teased as he brought his mount to a stop. “Did we have a baby boom? A gold rush maybe? Did Mrs. Grinstead give birth to triplets and double the population of your little city?”

  Blackburn threw the reigns of his horse down in disgust and marched over to the black horse, ready to snap its rider in two.

  “I’ll have you know that our city rolls have eclipsed one hundred citizens, sir!” answered the miffed mayor. “And furthermore, I intend to petition the state capital to take your prized county seat away from you. Everyone in the county knows Cottonridge is an old broken-down city whose best days are behind it.”

  “Speaking of behind…That’s all I can see of your horse,” taunted Calvin as he pointed to Moses’ dappled rump galloping away. “Good luck catching that one! But if he’s as slow as Portsong’s census, you may have a fighting chance.”

  Blackburn turned to see his retreating horse and shifted into a full tirade. He stuttered and stammered as Cottonridge’s mayor gave a hearty laugh from his saddle. In his fury, Blackburn bit his fraudulent scroll, ate some of it and spit the rest onto the dusty ground where he stomped it into the fine dust.

  “Goodbye, Arthur,” called Calvin over his shoulder. “I’ll send the governor your best.”

  Arthur Blackburn jumped up and down in hysteria. His outburst lasted a full ten minutes. When he finally cooled, he found himself alone. So he took one last kick at the ground and wiped the red wax from the seal off of his mouth. Only then did a fine retort come to mind, and he yelled it at the top of his lungs. People for miles heard his irate voice, but no one could make out what he said. The mayor of Cottonridge was long out of range, anyway. But whatever it was, it seemed to satisfy Blackburn, though. He straightened his hat, pulled down his vest and meandered back to town a defeated soul. Alas, Blackburn’s vision of stealing renown would never be realized. But he was well loved and respected among his own.

  The election of 1825 was one for the ages as Blackburn ran for his seventh term. He had showed signs of dementia during his entire sixth term. He regularly planted horseshoes in his cornfield, drank camphor with his meals and held conversations with his poultry. In fact, he found one chicken named Erwin so interesting that on one fine spring morning, he rode into town and promptly declared it to be the new justice of the peace. Despite all of this, he easily won his seventh term as mayor of Portsong in 1825 at the ripe old age of seventy-two. The vote came in at sixty-three for Blackburn, seventeen for Caedby the druggist, and two write in votes for justice of the peace Erwin. Arthur Blackburn didn’t live to finish his term. He was buried with as much pomp and circumstance as the small town could muster.

 

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  Portsong grew up over the next few decades and settled into some prosperity until the war hit. Along with its neighbors, the town gave up all of her lads to the fight and lost many of them forever. As the North pushed their way through Atlanta and turned east, the people of Portsong knew they stood on the brink of destruction. The stream of refugees coming through told them of Sherman’s tactics, leaving them little hope of the city staying intact. Would it not have been for a stroke of luck, Portsong would have been reduced to ash and rubble like most other cities in Georgia.

  On a rainy December day in 1864, the northern flank of the Union Army was encamped just outside Mortimer Lee’s farm. The old farmer barricaded his family inside the farmhouse and went out to see just how close the soldiers were.

  “Take yer rifle, Mort,” called his anxious wife after him.

  “Nah,” he replied. “I figure on just lookin’. There’s probably too many t’ shoot and it might get me in trouble, anyhow.”

  She was not comforted by his lack of defense, but settled down with their grandchildren and did her best to keep calm. The encampment buzzed with activity and it wasn’t hard for Mortimer to stay on its fringes and observe. They had laid down their camp on the southwestern side of Carpen Wall Creek. From his vantage point on the other bank, he could see a mass of men and equipment settling down for a break from their march to the sea. Along with the Union Flag, he noted the standard of the 14th New Hampshire Infantry in the ground by the closest tent. Two soldiers set as guards were drinking coffee and talking nearby, so he slunk down into the creek bed and crawled as best as his aged body would allow. The boys were hard to understand with their foreign yankee accents, but he listened as closely as he could.

  “Dern rain,” said one. “Don’t it ever slow down here?”

  “Aww, Phin,” returned the other. “It rains like this in Portsmouth. Don’t you remember?”

  “It’s been too long….”


  “I remember the rain, but it has that salt smell. I miss the ocean, Phin,” lamented the first. “I heard the Major say we aren’t far from it now. Just a few more days and we’ll be in Savannah.”

  “But it won’t be like home, Michael. Not like Portsmouth. It’ll be some ratty seacoast with nothing but sand. Things are primitive here…you’ve seen it.”

  Mortimer slipped away as the boy continued. He had heard all he needed to hear, and had gotten an idea from their snippets of conversation. The boys were homesick. That was understandable. They were from a city whose name was close to the one they were about to enter and destroy. Very close!

  When he got back to town, Mortimer rallied the citizens of Portsong. Actually, all of the young men were off fighting the war, so he brought together a brigade of old men, women and children. It was a sad unit, but one completely devoted to saving their town. They met in A.L. Gentry’s little general store in the center of town. Supplies had been virtually cut-off by the enemy, so the few remaining citizens were easily able to squeeze into the empty store.

  “Whatta we do, Mortimer,” asked Mrs. Tisdale with frightened hands covering her tear-soaked face. “I can’t have them Yankees comin’ here and stealin’ off with my female charms.”

  Mr. Lee gave the homely woman a surprised glance before responding. “I think you’ll be fine, Mrs. Tisdale. Them soldiers would admire true beauty like yours.”

  The lady blushed at the compliment. Humility would only add to the luster of most southern belles. But it only made this one a darker shade of regrettable.

  “I had an idea whilst I was listenin’ to two soldiers talk. Now we’s between them and Savannah, so they’re coming through here – like it or not,” Mortimer assured them. He paused to let the gasps and chatter die down before continuing. “The group of ‘em that’s closest to us just happens to be from New Hampshire…Portsmouth, New Hampshire.”

  “So what!” cried out Waymon Reese. “What do it matter who ‘r comin’ through here? They’s burning everythin’ to the ground no matter where they from!”

  “Now hear me out, Waymon. These two boys was talkin’ about how much they missed home and how long it’d been since they’s seen it. They’s from Portsmouth and we’re in Portsong,” he explained. “All we gotta do is change the signs in town and maybe they will be too homesick to burn us out!”

  “Awww, that’s dumb!” yelled one old codger. “They’ll burn us out no matter what!”

  “You got a better idea, Farris?” answered Mortimer. “What do we have to lose anyways? So we spend our afternoon changin’ a few signs instead of sittin’ around frettin’ and scarin’ all the children. You gonna shoot the whole union army?”

  “I think we’d better get to work!” said Waymon. “I’ll crank up the old sawmill so’s we can make new ones for the roads comin’ and goin’!”

  “Here, here,” rang out the now agreeable Farris. Relief and purpose swept over the crowd as each considered their role in the renaming of their town.

  “One thing, though,” said Mortimer. “I didn’t consider it before. But somebody’s gotta talk to them when they come in – kind of a welcoming committee. Anyone up to it?”

  Everyone was silent until a lady asked, “Why don’t you do it, Mr. Lee?”

  “I would, ma’am, but I don’t speak Yankee,” he replied. “I had to concentrate and think real hard just to understand what those soldiers were sayin’.”

  After many minutes of folks just looking around the room at each other, an aged hand slipped up and a stooped man stepped forward. “I… I speak Yankee,” he said quietly.

  “Nestor Creech, you’re makin’ it up,” accused the ever-negative Reese. “You don’t speak no Yankee!”

  “Don’t you call me no dadburn liar. I do too speak Yankee! I got me a cousin on my mother’s side moved on up to that Ohier and he come back every summer for the better part of ten years. He taught it to me. Ain’t a whole lot different ‘n English yer momma teached you. Ya just gotta close your mouth quicker and grunt some while yer talkin’ – like yer mad.”

  Mortimer was dubious, but no one else volunteered. So he agreed to let Mr. Creech negotiate with the army at their door. “Alright Nestor,” he said. “You got the job. When they come in, you can talk to ‘em. Everyone know what they need to do?”

  The little town came alive with sign changes all around as over a hundred years of history were blotted from the annals of time in a matter of hours. All of the stores and businesses that bore the name of Portsong were partially changed in the hopes that they would be saved from the fire of the angry army encamped just a few miles away. Even the tormented preacher, Obadiah Greely prayed for forgiveness for his part in breaking the ninth commandment and painted over the sign in the churchyard. With hands wobbly from guilt, he repainted and repented, hoping if he could save the church from this fire, he may be able to keep using its standing walls to pull souls from a similar eternal fate. It ended up a messy job, filled with the muddled lines of his anguish over the violation.

  The Northern army entered the newly dubbed Portsmouth early the next morning, led by the 14th New Hampshire. Armed with only their wits as protection, Nestor Creech and Mortimer Lee stood waiting on the lawn of the green center of town. A confused Major and his aide approached with map in hand.

  “Sir,” said the irritated Major. “What is the name of this confounded town?”

  “This is Portsmouth,” replied Nestor doing his very best to imitate the soldier’s accent so he would be understood.

  The Major removed his hat, scratched his bald head and looked at the map once more. “Why, then, does our map say Portsong on it?”

  Nestor breathed deeply and went over what he had rehearsed. “I don’t know, sir. This here is Portsmouth. It was named rightly after that town up north. Didn’t ya see the signs on the way in?”

  It wasn’t so much of a lie as an omission of fact. It was truly named after the older Portsmouth. But Nestor Creech withheld the fact that it had been so named for only twelve hours. The hearing of his hometown seemed to have the desired effect. Both men stood solemn as memories of family, friends and sentimental locations flooded their minds. Mortimer Lee would later say he saw a tear run down the cheek of the officer.

  “I haven’t seen Portsmouth in nearly three years,” he said dreamily.

  Finally roused, the Major looked very favorably at the two old men. His gruff exterior was changed and he resumed his commanding air. “Humphreys!” he ordered. “Bring up the regiment to this spot! Have the trailing units behind us stand fast until we report. Understand?”

  The aide smiled and gave a quick salute before hurrying out of town.

  Turning to the old men, the Major said, “Gentlemen, my name is Major Jacob Fletcher. By lunch time there will be one hundred of the finest young men seated on this lawn. As fate or dumb luck would have it, they are all from the town of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Who would have thought that we would stumble upon a sister city on this march? If you have women that haven’t left, I would ask that you provide a meal to these boys to remind them of their home. This war is almost over, and we’re going to be united once more. An offering such as that would be a gracious reminder that among all of the cruelties of war, there is still good in this world.”

  “We’ll tend to it, sir!” said Nestor with a bow.

  The two old men turned around and left smiling. “Which one are you?” whispered Mortimer as they walked away.

  Nestor was still shaking slightly from the encounter with the enemy and couldn’t concentrate long enough to figure out what his partner meant. “What in creation are you talkin’ about?” he asked.

  “Well, I figure one of us is ‘fate’ and the other ‘dumb luck,’” snickered Mortimer. “I was just givin’ you your choice!”

  They reached the church where most of the town had gathered and told the news. Overjoyed at their ap
parent success, the women began to hurry off to prepare their best meal until Mrs. Tisdale stopped to ask an important question, “What do Yankee’s eat, anyway?”

  Everyone looked to Nestor for an answer, but he shrugged his shoulders and said, “I dun’t know. I never been there, I just know how to talk to ‘em.”

  “I figure the same as us,” said Mortimer. “Get a good one together and you’ll see how touched they are. This might just make ‘em wanna save this place.”

  When the soldiers assembled on the green, the ladies came and graciously fed them. Some families gave up their last provisions to make sure it was the finest meal the boys had tasted since leaving home. From the outset, it was a rousing success! The young men dreamed of home as they ate. These hardened soldiers wept openly with no regard for their pride, and when the meal was over they thanked their hosts repeatedly.

  Major Fletcher donned his blue hat and summoned his aide. “Humphries! Assemble the men.”

  The younger man roused the troops and they formed neat lines on the green with the citizens of Portsong to their rear.

  “Men, we came here today under standing orders to wreck everything in our path. When we woke this morning, we expected to light fire to these buildings and make them burn,” said the Major. “But today, instead of lighting the torch of destruction, we have found a light much warmer. We have found the glow of friendship…of kinship that no blaze can cast asunder. It would be foolish – nay I say absurd – to burn this honorable place. It shall stand as a tribute to this day and the memory of the Christian fellowship that we have shared with these people. You are not our enemy, people of Portsmouth, Georgia. Today you are our brothers. This horrible war is coming to a close and I commend the day when we shall all once again break bread together as family!”

  A cheer went up from the Union soldiers, who had never been more proud to serve this officer. After heartfelt goodbyes, they were led back to where they had started the morning. Instead of leading their flank of the army through town with malice, they slipped to the south under the watchful eye of Major Fletcher, who ensured that no sword or torch was aimed at Portsmouth. When the threat had passed completely, he bade Mr. Creech and Mr. Lee farewell and left to wreak havoc on other cities on their way to Savannah.

  Portsong was spared thanks to the ingenuity of one man and the hard work (and deception) of its citizens. It became an intact oasis amidst the charred remains of Sherman’s route. As the major had suggested, the war did end very soon after their encounter. The boys of Portsong layed down their arms and walked through one toppled city after another until they reached home, surprised to find their town still stood. Soldiers passing through headed to their own hometowns also found it a pleasant resting place. Portsong earned a good reputation and received a healthy influx of new citizens and commerce. The little downtown area thrived with new shops and businesses and over the next decade, the city grew larger than any of its immediate neighbors.