“My mama always said, life is like a box of chocolates …you never know what you’re gonna get.”

—Forest Gump 

First Baptist Church on Chippewa Square 

The Battle of Chippawa was a significant victory for the United States Army during The War of 1812. It became the genesis for the name given to Chippewa Square when it was originally laid out in 1815. 

I cannot, however, explain to you why the battle is spelled Chippawa, while Chippewa is the spelling Savannahians gave to the square way back then. A spelling mystery for the ages, I suppose. 

Of course, The Battle of Chippawa was fought a long distance from Savannah. In fact, its location is not even found within the borders of the United States. The battlefield has been preserved as a National Historic Site in Canada, located in Ontario across the border from New York, nearby Niagara Falls. 

Chippewa Square is located in the ‘Brown Ward’ of Savannah. The Brown Ward is named for Major-General Jacob Brown. Today, General Brown is mostly missing in the annals of American military history; but during the War of 1812, he commanded forces that won 3 of the 9 major American battle victories. 

So popular was Jacob Brown, he received a Congressional Gold Medal in 1814 for leading the Chippawa campaign and was later appointed Commanding General of the Army under President James Monroe. 

In the Southern States, the British Navy successfully blockaded our many Atlantic ports during the War of 1812, including the port here in Savannah.  

And during the war, British raids and blockades offered thousands of slaves the opportunity to escape bondage, with many former slaves resettling south to Trinidad, as well as north in Nova Scotia. 

Canadian humorist Eric Nicol once quipped: “Very little is known about the War of 1812 because the Americans lost it.”  Funny, but not quite the whole truth. 

The war ended more as a draw when peace came via the Treaty of Ghent in 1815. The British held on to Canada while Andrew Jackson became infamous (and was later elected President) for winning the Battle of New Orleans eighteen days after the peace treaty was signed. Jackson’s vital victory cemented the potential of the United States’ western expansion, offered through Jefferson’s historic Louisiana Purchase, by securing essential American military control at the mouth of the Mississippi River. 

The First Baptist Church, designed by architect Elias Carter, was completed on Chippewa Square in 1833. It is Savannah’s oldest standing church building. It makes an imposing presence en plein air. 

Savannah legend has it that during the Civil War the Pastor at First Baptist Church preached a sermon to Confederate army personnel on one Sunday in December 1864, and the following Sunday preached to Union soldiers under the command of William T. Sherman after the Confederate surrender of the city. 

A statue of Georgia’s founder, James Oglethorpe, stands in the middle of Chippewa Square. Naturally, the General is properly positioned: facing his enemies to the South — namely, the Spanish in Florida. 

The park bench on which the Academy Award-winning film character ‘Forest Gump’ shares his mama’s philosophy of life is located on this square. Take a seat. Have a chocolate. Enjoy the beauty of Savannah.