Over the next week I will be posting images of this Historic Fort located here in Savannah,with hopes you find it interesting and enlightening..the view you see here is the front of the Fort with the ammunition magazines under these earthen mounds,actually an island independent from the Fort itself. Directly behind the magazines is the entrance to the Fort and the Atlantic ocean just behind that...
The Construction of Fort Pulaski...
Following the War of 1812, it became apparent that the recently ravaged United States of America needed a new coastal defense system in order to protect itself from future invasion. On March 15, 1830, the United States government took control of the 150 acres originally Lieutenant Robert E. Lee.allotted to Jonathan Bryan to be set aside for the construction of a new fort. French Brigadier General Simon Bernard was commissioned to select the location and design the new fort. Following numerous scouting expeditions and years of planning, construction of Fort Pulaski began in early 1829, initially overseen by an ailing Major Samuel Babcock of the Army Corps of Engineers. Babcock's failing health made it necessary for a new West Point graduate, Robert E. Lee (at right), to oversee the construction of the main drainage ditch, an earthen embankment and dikes, the north pier, and multiple temporary wood frame buildings. Following Lee's transfer and Babcock's death in 1831, Lieutenant Joseph K.F. Mansfield took charge of the fort's construction until near its completion in 1845.
The construction of Fort Pulaski provided a unique challenge for Army engineers of the early to mid-1800s (Click for the Plans for Fort Pulaski's Construction - 81 KB). In order for the fort to remain intact for its planned period of duty, it had to sit on a firm foundation; a very difficult task in Sketch of the plans for the Fort Pulaski drawbridge (43 KB).such a marshy environment. To accomplish this, the workers drove the pilings on which the fort sits 70 feet into the soft mud of Cockspur Island. Brick arches were then built on top of these pilings to support the dirt, cannons, and platforms of the terreplein. Fort Pulaski was initially designed to be a two-story fort with three tiers of guns, but due to the conditions noted above, its present one-story design prevailed. Fort Pulaski was constructed as a masonry fortification with 5 walls, each of which was from 7 to ll feet thick and 32 feet high. It was built to include 67 arched casemates, used for housing soldiers and storing supplies, that supported a 30 foot wide terreplein on which the cannon platforms were placed. Approximately 25,000,000 bricks were used in its construction. The fort still stands in near-perfect condition, despite having beared the brunt of numerous powerful hurricanes and one unrelenting bombardment.
Following the completion of the fort in 1847, there was little use or activity as evidenced by its having only two men residing in it. By the end of 1860, only 20 of the 146 proposed guns were actually in place. Fort Jackson, 3 miles east of Savannah, GA.On January 3, 1861, the fort was seized by approximately 134 men from the State militia (50 men each from the Savannah Volunteer Guards and the Oglethorpe Light Infantry and 34 men from the Chatham Artillery). Two weeks later, on January 19th, Georgia seceded from the Union and entered the Confederacy. The fort would remain under Confederate control for more than a year and would be the easternmost component of a string of earthen and masonry defenses that ran from Savannah to Cockspur Island. Other fortifications included Fort Jackson and Causton's Bluff, both of which had archeological investigations conducted at them during the 1970s. Work at Fort Jackson focused on the privies and the information they yielded, while the work at Causton's Bluff investigated the construction of earthen fortifications.
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This is the entrance of the fort surrounded by a moat .This is the first drawbridge going into the fort.The mounds you are viewing overlay four powder magazines and passageways to other gun emplacements.
Here on April 11, 1862, defense strategy changed worldwide when Union rifled cannon first overcame a masonry fortification after only 30 hours of bombardment. Named for Revolutionary War hero, Count Casimir Pulaski, Fort Pulaski took some 18 years to build and was the first military assignment for a young second lieutenant fresh from West Point - Robert E. Lee. This remarkably intact example of 19th century military architecture, with its estimated 25 million brick and 7.5 foot thick walls, is preserved for future generations by the National Park Service as a reminder of the elusiveness of invincibility.
Fort Pulaski National Monument was established by Presidential Proclamation on October 15, 1924. It contains 5,365 acres, including some of the most pristine and scenic marshland on the Georgia
coast.
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The entrance you see here is the inner moat and main entrance into the courtyard of Fort Pulaski,Savannah Georgia.
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one of the five walls of Fort Pulaski a pentagon shaped structure with 60 casemates, sometimes rendered casement, which were fortified gun emplacements or armored structures from which guns are fired.[1] Originally
referred to as a vaulted chamber in a fortress.
From what I was able to find out only 20 of these casemates were used.
The wall we are facing had the most structural damage during the siege as is evident on the upper wall where one of the cannons is located.
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Here you can see some of the details of the casemates and the wonderful arches in this structure.Notice on the wooden floor the grooves where the tracks were.These were used to roll the the bases that supported the cannons, to align them where they needed during an attack..
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