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1829
The fort took 18 years and an estimated 25 million bricks
Construction began in 1829 under Major Samuel Babcock and later Second Lieutenant Robert E. Lee, a recent graduate of West Point. The fort was named in 1833 for Casimir Pulaski. Wooden pilings were sunk up to 70 feet into the mud to support an estimated 25 million bricks. It was finished in 1847, after 18 years of construction.
Rocky Mountains
Walls 11 feet thick were thought safe from nearly every gun
The walls were 11 feet thick. Smoothbore cannon of the time had a range of only around half a mile, and the nearest land, Tybee Island, was much further away than that. It was assumed that the fort would be invincible to attack. The United States Chief of Engineers, General Totten, remarked that you might as well bombard the Rocky Mountains.
11 feetthick, the walls of the fort
“...you might as well bombard the Rocky Mountains”
General Totten, United States Chief of Engineers, on the fort's strength
April 1862
Rifled cannon breached a corner wall within 30 hours
On the morning of April 10, 1862, Union forces asked the fort to surrender. Colonel Charles H. Olmstead, who commanded the Confederate garrison, refused. Union troops then fired with 36 guns, including the new James Rifled Cannon and Parrott rifles. Within 30 hours a corner wall was breached and shells were passing close to the main powder magazine. Olmstead surrendered, and the decision haunted him for decades.
Order Number 7
General Order Number 7 freed the enslaved on Cockspur Island
Within six weeks Union forces repaired the fort, and all shipping into and out of Savannah ceased. On April 16, 1862, General David Hunter, the Union commander, issued General Order Number 7. It stated that all enslaved people at the fort and on Cockspur Island were now free. The fort became a final destination on the Underground Railroad, as slaves throughout the area were freed upon arrival.
The prisoners
In 1864 the fort became a prison for Confederate officers
In October 1864 the fort became a prison for captured Confederate soldiers, mostly officers, known as The Immortal Six Hundred. Their rations were moldy bread, soured pickles and limited water. The prisoners suffered starvation, dehydration, dysentery and scurvy. Thirteen of the men died at the fort and were buried outside its walls.
Thirteenprisoners died at the fort and were buried outside its walls
Day 3, midday
It comes after Old Fort Jackson. Then Tybee Island Light.
More stories from this trip idea
The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Fort Pulaski National Monument, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.