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38 The newlyweds July 1864 The ranking Chattahoochee officer in the new savannah contingent was lieutenant George W. Gift. he expected to soon command the Water Witch. a Tennessee veteran of the old navy, Gift was gregarious and confident (overly so, many thought), a man of big ideas, and a big talker who too often confounded his critics by backing up his talk with success. he had already made his name in the confederacy as a hero of the Arkansas. it was in his nature to assume he was being brought to savannah for an important command. Gift had just married ellen augusta shackleford, one of several daughters of a planter in saffold, Georgia, on the chattahoochee river. They were one of the prominent families on the lower river, and their plantation had been a gathering place for the sociable young officers of the gunboat Chattahoochee. Gift and ellen (he called her nell) were married in april, and their moonstruck lovers’ early months were the beginning of a lifelong love and a happy family. When Gift arrived in savannah, just three months married, he took a room at the Pulaski house with the Chattahoochee’s assistant paymaster, Marshall l. sothoron , and immediately wrote his Dearest nell that he had resolved to make writing a nightly letter to her his life’s priority. he would be busy, he said, but would insure that he carried out this evening mission. he only feared that he would not have enough to say to hold her interest. she was thrilled at the romance of it all and replied: the idea of your not having anything to write about—how can you say that when you know that everything you do & think is interesting to me. . . . i would be so much gratified & flattered if the habit of talking in this way to 344 / chapter 38 your wife, were as essential to your peace & comfort as your pipe! Write me every night my precious heart, if that troublesome sleepy head of yours can be induced to be communicative at such a time of day. for George Gift, writing came almost as easily as talking, and he was already ahead of her in daily correspondence. he chided her for the scarcity of her letters. and to her teasing him as a sleepyhead, he protested that he needed his eight hours and teased her in turn about her habit of shaking and kissing him awake early in the morning.1 Gift was ever the optimist and found enjoyment in everyday life. it was easy for him to appreciate the Pulaski house. “i believe that mine is about the most pleasant room in the city,” he told nell, “as it faces to the south, the direction from which the breezes usually come.” But sometimes the wind swung around to the east. Then he could see the breeze in the trees outside, yet it remained still and close in his room. “The smoke from my segar lazily curls upwards,” he wrote of one of those days, and he would have to halt this day’s correspondence and “seek a more airy locale.”2 a few of the Chattahoochee men would soon be ordered to the Water Witch under Master henry l. vaughan, a louisiana native who had served at new orleans , then Mobile, then aboard the Isondiga at savannah before orders sent him to the Chattahoochee.3 at saffold he had courted one of ellen’s sister, but he soon had a girl in columbus, and no doubt hoped to find another in savannah. Gift visited the Water Witch and liked the White Bluff area. “The fishing is good and the fruit fine,” he said. he thought White Bluff and its upper-class society would be a wonderful place for his new bride. he liked Warley—they talked over their days at new orleans (Gift on the Louisiana, Warley commanding the Manassas)—and found they shared many of the same opinions and disliked many of the same people. Gift thought he’d like to serve with Warley—but not as his subordinate. he wanted the Water Witch himself. Gift began making acquaintances in town. he liked assistant Paymaster Keim, whose social contacts were wide, and he was soon doing breakfasts and evening socials with him. food, though expensive, was still plentiful. a typical breakfast at one of Keim’s haunts might include cantaloupe, broiled chicken, soft-boiled eggs, tomatoes, cornbread, toast, and hot cakes.4 But there was no action in...

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