"I Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray:" Remembering Ebenzer Creek, the largest loss of civilian life in a single incident in American history

Yesterday was the memorial date of the massacre of an unarmed refugee train at Ebenezer Creek. The massacre's death toll of 5,000 is the largest loss of civilian life in a single incident in American history.
The incident took place outside of Savannah during the 1861 war, and involved warring troops from both sides. Sherman had divided his army into columns, each marching along separate routes in order to make his plunder of the countryside more effective. His troops left burned houses and barns, destroyed tools and wagons, confiscated provisions, and killed animals, leaving them stacked to decompose along the farm roads.
All that remained after his army's march were the wives and families of fighting men who were now without food and could not sustain themselves.
The slaves were left, too. “Freed” by the Emancipation Proclamation that freed slaves in captured territories in rebellion, they quickly discovered their new freedom only lasted until the army marched a few miles down the road. So, as the columns left the plantations, the jubilee formed refugee trains, as the rag-tag band of civilian followers were called. The trains grew at every encounter. Despite the attempts of the officers to convince them to remain in place until the war's end, the jubilee who embraced freedom knew their best chance of freedom and survival in a barren, devastated land lay in following the column of soldiers, who were forced to provide provisions for the care of the train.
The refugee train following the troops of Jeff Davis, a Union general leading a column under Sherman, grow to 5,000 elderly, children, and men and women. He was incensed at this extra burden on his troops and quartermaster corps. Nor was he a friend of the Negro, or sympathetic to their grant of freedom.
At Ebenezer Creek, a small black water cypress creek only a 100 feet wide, he devised a plan to abandon the train. Swollen by recent rains, the black water reached a floodtide of 15 feet. The temperature on December 3, 1864 was near freezing. The waters were icy cold. When the columns engineers laid out the pontoon bridge to allow the troops to cross, the refugee train was held back at gun point and refused passage, by Davis' command.
Suddenly from behind the train, Wheeler's calvary, which had been following Davis, and bushwacking small parties of Davis' men, rode up. And this creek named for God's stone of help, a memorial to an answered prayer, quickly turned into a killing ground.
Blood mingled in the icy waters with the ricocheting crack of rifle and pistol shots and the dull whack of unquartered swords and the sharp-edged screams that shouted for life as 5,000 held back from the pontoon crossing by Union troops were killed and denied by Wheeler's Calvary, or drowned by wading into the icy black waters of the 15 foot flood tide with their children shielded in their arms; old and young, women and men lay on its banks or passed into and sunk to rest in the cypress creek. 5,000 dead.
“TO COLORED MEN,” the 1863 government recruitment poster said, FREEDOM, “This decree to be enforced by all the power of the nation.”
But in the heat of war, no one took notice of the dead at Ebenezer Creek. Only a summary investigation took place, and Wheeler's official report indicated he captured 2,000 contraband and returned them to their rightful owners. Davis claimed in his report the train overslept.
Local residents said it took five years for the bodies to flow into the river out of the creek, where frequently the corpses dammed the water flow.
Today, kayak trips emphasize the beauty of the creek, and the natural splendors of the black water swamp.
But the locals say you can hear cries and screams coming across the water when it rains.
I share this history so we all might remember the importance of peace as we celebrate life and its gifts with our friends and families. The mercy of those unknown lost souls at Ebenezer Creek is certainly a part of our gift.