What mean ye by these stones?

What do a pile of stones in the middle of the Savannah River have to do with the war?

These stones shall be for a memorial unto the children... that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones? Then ye shall let your children know, saying,

"That all the people of the earth might know the hand of the LORD, that it is mighty: that ye might fear the LORD your God for ever. "

From Joshua chapter 4.

To the right of the girl's shoulder and easily visible from the Jefferson Davis Memorial Bridge are three sets of bridge pilings left over from one of Augusta's floods.

At the beginning of the war, the railroad extended from Charleston to Hamburg, and once across the Savannah, the Georgia Railroad lines extended to and connected with lines all the way to the Mississippi River. Politics and stong business pressure from the dock workers and railway men ensured the prosperity of Hamburg by insisting that cargo be unloaded, ferried across the river, and then reloaded on the Georgia side of the river.

This image shows the Henry Shultz toll bridge, the Augusta Wharf, and Hamburg across the river in an unidentified engraving ca. 1850.

The Historical Marker located on the South Carolina side of the river reads:

WESTERN TERMINUS SOUTH CAROLINA RAILROAD U.S. Hwy. 1 & U.S. Hwy. 25 at the Savannah River, SW of Clearwater

Near the foot of this bluff in the old town of Hamburg stood the western terminus of the S.C. Canal and Rail Road Co. Begun in 1830, it was the first steam operated railroad to offer regular passenger service and to carry U. S. mail. Completed in 1833 to this point 136 miles from Charleston, it was the world’s longest railroad.

Erected by Aiken County Historical Commission, 1962.

One of President Davis' first official acts was to order that a bridge be built across the Savannah connecting the two lines. The guage on the railroad tracks were different however - thus was born Hamburg Industries to retrofit the train cars for the new tracks. The business exists today still producing and repairing railroad wheels and axles.

Shultz's bridge was destroyed in the flood of 1888. This picture shows the destruction and a good view of the railroad bridge in the background. Berry Benson remembers skipping across the Savannah on the railroad ties to avoid paying the toll on Shultz's bridge.

This picture,   proba-
bly taken about 1905 shows the bridge in the background from the location of the 5th Street docks. This is the same site where President Davis and his party were loaded onto a boat for transport to Savannah and then north to prison.

The bridge did not fare well either. It was washed out in the flood of 1916 necessitating the construction of the existing steel bridge which you see in the picture at the top of the page. Originally this was a drawbridge, but it no longer works. When the "Princess Augusta Riverboat" made Augusta home several years ago, it could not pass under the bridge except when the river was low, necessitating that trips on the tour boat be made downstream.

References: Photo from the Augusta Convention and Visitors Bureau (http://www.augustaga.org/)
View along the Savannah River, Augusta, Ga., Augusta and Environs Picture Post Cards in Color, East Central Central Georgia Regional Library, as presented in the Digital Library of Georgia.
Images of the Augusta Bridge (http://www.arete-designs.com/shultz/bridge/index.html)