Surviving Savannah

Surviving Savannah presents a fictionalized version of the Pulaski disaster. On the morning of June 13, 1838, the steam packet Pulaski set sail from Savannah heading to Baltimore. The ship was advertised as having only one night at sea in its itinerary, providing a faster and safer journey than previous steamships. However, at night an untrained engineer poured cold water into the ship’s boiler, leading to an explosion that killed 128 people, leaving 59 survivors. The disaster’s effects were felt across the South, especially in Georgia. Many of the people aboard the ship were from upper-class Savannah families that had a major influence on the economy and community.

While many of the characters are fictitious, Lamar and Charles Longstreet are based on real people: Gazaway Bugg Lamar and his son Charles Augustus Lafayette Lamar. The other characters’ stories are speculative, based on the facts of who was on the ship and the disaster itself. Callahan shows how Charles Lamar (as “Charles Longstreet”) turned into the Red Devil. Charles Lamar was infamous for repurposing a luxury yacht in 1858 to traffic over 400 Africans to the US, forcing them into slavery, 50 years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed by Congress. When the Pulaski exploded, Charles took charge and calmly woke his little brothers, dressed them, and went up to the deck to find their father and reach safety. Of the family, Charles, Gazaway, and Charles’s aunt Rebecca were the only ones to survive.

Just like Lamar Longstreet in the novel, the real Gazaway Lamar remarried less than a year after the Pulaski sank. Charles reportedly felt abandoned and needed comfort and affection that he could not get from his father, so he went to live with Rebecca. Charles died fighting for the Confederacy, shot days after the South surrendered to the North. Rebecca eulogized that he was generous and kind, capable of bravery, generosity, and kindness, but also committed grave atrocities through his participation in the slave trade.

The relationship between Augusta Longstreet and Henry MacMillan was also inspired by a true story. After the explosion, a passenger named Charles Ridge tied together two settees, empty barrels, and canvas to make a raft. He pulled a woman out of the water, Sally Onslow, who was a wealthy heiress. By the time they came across a lifeboat with room for one other, Sally refused to leave him. After three days on their makeshift raft, Charles proposed marriage, and Sally accepted. They, along with 28 others, were eventually saved by a passing schooner. Charles assumed that Sally wouldn’t stay with him, as he lost everything in the wreck, but, instead, the two married shortly after and settled in Baltimore.

Surviving Savannah tells the complex story of the passengers on the Pulaski. Understanding history makes the emotional journeys of the characters all the more poignant. The story of the Pulaski and its passengers was largely overlooked until the discovery of its wreckage in 2018.