In the winter of 1864, General William Tecumseh Sherman’s army burned the city of Atlanta and began the March to the Sea which would end on the coast at Savannah. Along the way, Union troops destroyed plantations and freed slaves. These newly emancipated people, eventually numbering in the thousands, began to follow the march, some working to help the army, and all with limited resources to help themselves. They followed close behind the advancing Union army, in part seeking protection from trailing Confederate soldiers. Eventually, in the swamps on the outskirts of Savannah, the road literally and figuratively ended for these newly freed people.
In a crushing betrayal, the Union army refused to allow emancipated families to cross their hastily constructed bridge, and dismantled it under guard when the last of their equipment had safely reached the other side. Confederates soon attacked. That night, in the midst of darkness and freezing temperatures, trapped at the edge of Ebenezer Creek, newly freed people were either shot at point blank range, drowned attempting to cross the creek, or re-enslaved by Confederate forces. The massacre happened right where the Old Augusta Road ends. Many historians view Sherman’s triumphant March to the Sea as the definitive breaking point in the war, which ended several months later, but the atrocity at Ebenezer Creek is rarely mentioned. Few people are even aware of the slaughter.
In the summer of 2020, our nation was yet again ravaged by civil unrest. In August, we decided to go to see the place where so many souls perished. We retraced Sherman’s March to the Sea, and kayaked down Ebenezer Creek, to the end of the road, to the very place where it happened. And we photographed the swamp for what it really is – a memorial. The images are wet plate collodion, just as it was in 1864. They are literally made with the black, tannin-thick water of the Creek, which is now inherent to their chemical emulsions, bearing witness for all time. The trees stand at attention, an honor guard, sentinels. Light and shadow crossing the water is the eternal walking of the down-trodden. Two atrocities happened the night of December 9th, 1864, a sin of commission and sin of omission. It’s not enough to refrain from doing evil. To be the America we always wanted to be, to actually be great, instead of just pretending that we are, we have to choose to do good.