Ghosts of the Siege

Billy Buckland is a ghost.

The 14-year-old militiaman who fought with the Continental Army was killed in a grotesque fashion during the Siege of Savannah in October, 1779. The young soldier’s body remained buried for over 200 years until a portion of it was uncovered and used as a decoration by an art student in Savannah, Georgia. Billy’s spirit comes back to find his bones and return them to a place where he could rest in peace.
During his quest Billy meets and is sometimes helped by other ghosts who haunt the ancient sections of Savannah, Georgia. Befriended by a maintenance worker he meets in a dormitory at the Savannah College of Art and Design, Billy learns about 21st Century life in one of America’s most intriguing cities. The unlikely team of 18th Century ghost and 21st Century plumber learn from each other and form a close friendship as they seek a way to allow Billy to find peace befitting one who fought to earn America’s freedom.

Ghosts of the Siege is a historical novel, a ghost story woven around the fabric of one of the most tragic battles fought in the American Revolution. The Siege of Savannah occurred during September and October of 1779, culminating in one of the bloodiest battles of the war, with over 800 killed or wounded. Troop movements and battle descriptions are included as accurately as possible, having been taken from eyewitness accounts and military reports. Many of the major characters…Generals Pulaski, Lincoln, D’Estaing and others… are presented as described by biographers or their own reports of the battle. The flow of the 1779 battle is also presented as an “overlay” of the modern city of Savannah, so the reader can stand on current street corners or parks and say, “This is where_______really happened.”
The fact that the ebb and flow of the battle are described by an eyewitness account, albeit a spirit in the 21st Century relating events that transpired over two hundred years ago, makes the telling of the tale entertaining and exciting as well as educational. Readers from adults to young adults studying American History will find themselves engrossed in this small but important portion of Americana as they learn from a ghost a first-hand account of life as a soldier during the American Revolutionary War.

If you love a good ghost story; if you love American history; if you love a tightly woven historical novel, you will love Ghosts of the Siege. For readers who have never traveled to Savannah, Georgia, America’s most haunted city, Billy Buckland and the other Ghosts of the Siege will definitely move the city to the top of your vacation destination list. If you have been to Savannah and fallen in love with the city, you’ll find your next visit can’t happen soon enough.
If you don’t see a ghost in Savannah, you just didn’t look hard enough.