"I beg to present you as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with one hundred fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton."
-General William Tecumseh Sherman to President Lincoln, 1864
A big fan of historical fiction, I have read many novels by John Jakes. Years ago I enjoyed his Bicentennial series which began with The Bastard and his North-South trilogy of the Civil War era. Recently I read Charleston in anticipation of a trip to that city. We will be visiting Savannah, GA soon, as well, thus the selection of this novel.
Savannah or a Gift for Mr. Lincoln was one of the more entertaining historical fictions I have read lately with interesting characters and an intriguing plot. I liked the novel enough to rate it a 5. The main protagonist, young Hattie Lester is brave, sassy and very likeable. One plot centers around efforts by Judge Cincinnatus Drewgood, a devious rascal, to get his hands on Silverglass, the rice plantation of Hattie's widowed mother. Other side plots involve "Uncle Billy" Sherman's stay in Savannah, the kidnapping of a free black under the pretense of "recruiting," the revenge of a prison escapee who was falsely accused, the low-life acts of a band of foragers and, on the lighter side, some hints of romance. It all centers around late fall to Christmas of 1864 and the holiday figures into the story in a compelling way. There was even a good bit of humor, especially in the use of figurative language, for example "Grandpa smelled like the inside of a steamer trunk used for storing dead squirrels." The author's use of now-obsolete words such as sockdologer and slanticular amused me; he explained in the Afterword.
I would love to read any comments you may have.
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