That makes perfect sense except I don't understand what 0x1c56920 means in the output from the Devel::Peek Dump function

Looking at Devel::Peek documentation, I see "A simple scalar string" section which describes most of the output for a string scalar. Based on what that example says about the other hex numbers in the same output, and the fact that the hex numbers are all in the same approximate value range, I believe that it's the internal address where the string is held, much like the other two are the address of the scalar's head and body.