Colonel committed

"He looks in pretty bad shape, doesn't he?" asked Billy McIntosh of Savannah about his great-great-great grandfather's remains (3rd image). Revolutionary War hero Lt. Col. John McIntosh had been toasted Saturday night by Billy and others, including congresswoman Debbie Gignilliat Buckner (D-Georgia), after being picked from the funeral home and driven to the waterfront (2nd image). The Colonel was then carried to his 3rd funeral by horse-drawn hearse (1st image) yesterday morning. The 1st was held after his death in 1826, but historians have deduced that McIntosh was washed out of his original grave during hurricane floods in the 1850s, because the Fisk coffin in which he was reburied had not been invented until 1848. "I personally think he's so McIntosh stubborn he didn't want to stay in the ground,'' said Missy Brandt, who chairs the McIntosh County Historic Preservation Commission and coordinated the reburial ceremony. When he was in command of Georgia's Fort Morris, Col. McIntosh famously responded to British demands to surrender by responding, "Come and take it,'' which they eventually did.

This latest (and presumably last) send-off was celebrated by more than 100 mourners, including some in colonial uniform. After a blessing by Rev. Danny Grace, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Darien that John McIntosh and his family helped found, 8 men lowered John McIntosh's casket into the grave the old-fashioned way (with ropes) not too far from a historical marker memorializing him and the plantation where he had lived. As a final gesture, Scottish Clan Donald members "Dub" Peder and Reece Acklen, and a few other admirers, bid the Colonel a final farewell with 12-year-old Scotch, a little of which they poured into the open grave.

But in answer to Billy's question above, reader Wright - whom we have to thank for alerting us to this story, providing us with his firsthand observations, and supplying the above photographs - writes, "Despite the celebration and flowing libations during the wake, and the musket volleys and bagpipes throughout the day, it was nonetheless sad to see Colonel John's iron casket all rusted out and ripping at the seams. Everybody that honored him had their hearts broken just a little bit when they saw it. I know mine was."