Fort Pulaski: The End of Brick Fortification

Fort Pulaski

​We all know the most famous forts in the United States. There is the Alamo which played a part in Texas leaving Mexico, Fort Sumter where the first shots of the Civil War were fired, and Fort McHenry the fort under siege while Francis Scott Key wrote our national anthem. But I suggest to you that Fort Pulaski outside of Savannah and right before you cross the river onto Tybee Island is as noteworthy as these.

Recent graduate from West Point Lt. Robert E. Lee was the designer. Lee was assuredly trying to impress with his design of an impenetrable fort. It was as much of the 19th century forts a masonry fortification. The construction took from 1829 to 1847 to complete. The fort is in the shape of a hexagon surrounded by a moat with a parade ground inside the walls roughly the size of a football field.

The muddy, soft earth would not support the weight of the proposed 25 million brick fort. Construction started with seventy foot long pilings. These pilings, driven into the mud, would provide stability for the wooden subflooring. The subflooring, composed of two layers of timber, would provide direct support for the brickwork.

Following the secession of Georgia from the Union to the Confederacy in February 1861, Confederate troops then moved into the fort and prepared for possible attack. In1862 Union troops came to reclaim the fort. The battle that ensued would bring on a new era of war and forts. The Union had new rifled cannons that they wanted to see how effective they were in battle. They set up their cannon rifles on the shores of Tybee Island too far for the guns in the fort to reach them. Within twenty four hours Fort Pulaski’s great brick walls had been breached. The rifle cannons success would rendered brick fortifications obsolete. No longer could brick forts hold up to the onslaught of enemy fire, a new era in battle had begun.  

The new Union General David Hunter issued an order that made all slaves free and Fort Pulaski a safe haven for them. Many slaves were delivered to Ft. Pulaski by a Harriet Tubman type figure, March Haynes. These slave began to taste freedom and create their lives anew on the island.  Others would form some of the first colored troops of the Union serving in the 2nd and 3rd colored divisions.

Yet the history does not stop there in October 1864 what would become known as the Immortal Six Hundred would arrive. These were imprisoned Confederate officers. Try as they might the Union soldier’s efforts to treat humanely the emaciated troops did not occur. The prisoners never received sufficient food, blankets or clothes. Supplies in the South were hard to come by for both Union and Confederate Troops. Thirteen of the prisoners of war would die and be buried on the site. In 1865 they would be transferred to Fort Delaware up North where hopefully the supplies would have been more abundant.
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Today, Fort Pulaski is a national Monument. Two movies about Abraham Lincoln have been made in part at the site: The Conspirator and Abe Lincoln:Vampire Hunter. So between Lincoln and history buffs Fort Pulaski stands as a testimony that in war there is no real protection no matter how great our defenses may be. Maybe Peace is really the answer.  
 

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Holes delivered by the new rifle cannons

Map showing Fort Pulaski and where the bombardment fro Tybee Island took place