the Federal forces in the far South were entirely reorganized. On
January 21, Fort Pulaski became a part of the District of Savannah
under the command of Bvt. Maj. Gen. Cuvier Grover, U. S. Volunteers,
and, on January 27, following an inspection by Grover’s medical
director, Pulaski’s prisoners were put back on full rations. This
timely action saved the lives of many of the men. On March 5 the long
ordeal was ended. Four hundred and sixty-five survivors of the original
“Six Hundred” were returned to Fort Delaware.
[Illustration: =_Prisoners’ newspaper, Fort Pulaski, March 2, 1865._=
Courtesy Mrs. Irving McKesson.]
_The Last Salute_
Now the actors come on stage for the final curtain in the drama of Fort
Pulaski! Sherman had rested in Savannah and had gone north through the
Carolinas to Bentonville and Durham. Grant had met Lee at Appomattox.
The defenders of Fort Sumter had laid down their arms. The Confederate
armies had been crushed on the battlefields. Gillmore had returned to
command the Department of the South, and the destiny of Fort Pulaski
was again in his hands.
On April 29, 1865, 200 guns were fired from the ramparts of Fort
Pulaski to mark the surrender of General Lee—the end of a great
military career which had begun on Cockspur Island more than 35 years
before.
A few weeks later the conquering forces captured the President of the
Confederate States. In command of the detail which took Mr. Davis was
Brig. Gen. J. H. Wilson, of the Topographical Engineers, who 3 years
before had brought to Fort Pulaski the demand for surrender. Mr. Davis
was captured in middle Georgia and sent down the Savannah River to
Hilton Head Island for transport to Fortress Monroe. Accused of
complicity in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and under orders to
be treated as a dangerous criminal, the Confederate president spent his
last night in Georgia aboard ship in the lee of Cockspur Island. Next
morning as he was brought to Hilton Head, Negroes, lining the shores of
the islands, chanted “We’ll hang Jeff Davis to the sour apple tree!”
To the grim fort on Cockspur Island were brought leaders of the
Confederacy, some to remain many months in prison, while an angry
nation sought the illusive satisfaction of vengeance. In the list of
distinguished prisoners were 3 cabinet officers: Secretary of State
Robert M. T. Hunter, Secretary of the Treasury George A. Trenholm, and
Secretary of War James A. Seddon, as well as Assistant Secretary of War
John A. Campbell. In addition, there were 3 State governors, Andrew G.
Magrath of South Carolina, Andrew B. Moore of Alabama, and Alexander K.
Allison of Florida; 1 senator, David L. Yulee of Florida; and Brig.
Gen. Hugh W. Mercer, who as colonel of the 1st Regiment of Georgia had
once been in command of Fort Pulaski.
The Confederacy had been defeated and the streets of Savannah were
patrolled by blue-clad soldiers, but the spirit of the men and women,
who more than 4 years before had demanded the seizure of Fort Pulaski,
was still unbroken. The stores were all open. Business of every sort
progressed precisely as usual. The streets were filled with native
citizens, dressed somewhat antiquely, but giving no sign of suffering.
A smart sailor from a Federal gunboat summed up the scene, “Hell,” he
said, “this town isn’t dead; it’s wound up and running.” “It was the
rebel Savannah unchanged,” wrote Whitelaw Reid, the famous war
correspondent.
_Cockspur Island After 1865_
With the return of peace, the Corps of Engineers under the direction of
General Gillmore undertook to modernize and strengthen Fort Pulaski.
Between the years 1869 and 1872, they remodeled the demilune,
constructing underground magazines and passageways and emplacements for
heavy guns. Major changes were also planned for the main fortification,
but, after digging a huge excavation in the north end of the parade
ground and laying massive concrete piers, the job was abandoned.
Proposals were already under consideration for a new coast artillery
post on Tybee Island, which would take the place of Fort Pulaski.
After 1872 no further active military use of the fort was ever made,
except briefly during the Spanish-American War when a small force was
garrisoned there to man the guns that had been installed in the
demilune and at Battery Horace Hambright, on the north shore of the
island, and to operate the controls for electric mines in the mouth of
the Savannah River. For many years the only inhabitants of the fort
were an ordnance sergeant and a lightkeeper. After the great hurricane
of 1891, when the sea rose 5 feet over the parade ground, a 2-story
house for the lightkeeper was erected on the top of the fort.
In the first years of the 20th century, Fort Pulaski and the eastern
part of Cockspur Island were totally abandoned. The moat around the
fort and demilune filled with mud from the river; the tides swept over
the neglected dikes and flooded the low-lying marshes. The parade
ground became a veritable jungle and hundreds of snakes made their
homes in the innumerable crevices in the fort’s masonry. Infrequent
parties of zealous hunters and hardy pilgrims, willing to wade through
the soft marsh, were the only visitors.
[Illustration: _Abandoned and desolate._ Photo by Geoffrey King, 1925.]
Decontamination facilities to receive German prisoners of war were
prepared in 1918 at the U. S. Quarantine Station on the west end of
Cockspur Island, but the war ended before this installation was put to
use.
Meanwhile, the War Department took the first step toward the
preservation of Fort Pulaski, announcing on July 17, 1915, that this
fortification had been selected to be a national monument under the
American Antiquities Act. Further action was delayed by World War I. In
1918, Col. John Millis, District Engineer at Savannah, visited Fort
Pulaski and was so impressed by the magnificence of the ruin that he
recommended immediate preservation. The next district engineer, Col. F.
W. Alstaetter, was equally interested in the project, and, largely
through his efforts, the Savannah Board of Trade and other
organizations began to seek national monument status for the fort. On
January 7, 1924, Representative Charles G. Edwards, 1st District of
Georgia, introduced a bill in Congress to bring about this desired
result. The efforts of these individuals and organizations were
rewarded on October 15, 1924, when Fort Pulaski was made a national
monument by proclamation of President Calvin Coolidge.
The fort remained in desolate condition, however, until 1933 when the
national monument was transferred by the War Department to the
Department of the Interior, and the National Park Service began the
development of the area.
The plan adopted in the restoration of Fort Pulaski was not to
reproduce any one definite period in the history of the fortification,
but rather to protect the structure from further deterioration by
making essential repairs and to restore only where necessary to
illustrate the use and history of certain features of the fort.
_Fort Pulaski during and after restoration
by the National Park Service._
[Illustration: _The Moat._]
[Illustration: _The Moat._]
[Illustration: _The parapet._]
[Illustration: _The parapet._]
[Illustration: _The quarters._]
[Illustration: _The quarters._]
[Illustration: _The sally port._]
Original plans and specifications were available in the files of the
War Department for practically all of the items of restoration and
repair work undertaken. The restoration of the fort and the development
of the national monument were accomplished with funds provided by the
Public Works Administration and through the labor of the Civilian
Conservation Corps. In 1938, Cockspur Island was joined to McQueens
Island by the construction of a bridge across the South Channel of the
Savannah River. From 1942 to 1947 the fort was closed to the public,
when Cockspur Island, as the site of a Navy Section Base, again became
an active part of the defense system of the United States.
Fort Pulaski is a large-scale outdoor exhibit. The main structure,
together with outlying works, including demilune, drawbridges, ditches,
and dikes, is a fine example of past military architecture. As a vivid
reminder of past events it presents an important phase of our great
national heritage.
[Illustration: FORT PULASKI SELF-GUIDED TOUR PLAN]
_Guide to the Area_
Fort Pulaski, resembling a medieval castle, is surrounded by a wide
moat, with two drawbridges, and a rear fortification known as a
demilune. After crossing the outer drawbridge, a short walk through the
demilune will bring you to the second drawbridge and the sally port or
only entrance into the main fortification.
Numbered markers have been placed at significant points of interest.
These markers correspond with the numbers of the text below and with
those shown on the guide map. They should be followed in consecutive
order.
1. THE SALLY PORT. The fort entrance is equipped with many devices for
last-ditch defense. The massive drawbridge, weighing several tons, is
raised by winches and counterweights which may be seen in the rooms on
either side of the entrance. As the drawbridge rises, a strong wooden
grill, called the portcullis, drops through a slot in the granite
lintel overhead. The heart-pine doors are studded with iron bolts to
make it difficult to chop through them with axes. Within the sally port
are two recesses for the protection of guards and 10 slits, or
loopholes, through the side walls for small arms fire. In time of great
danger, the inner doors could also be shut and barred.
2. THE GORGE. The western, or rear, section of Fort Pulaski is known as
the gorge (“throat”) because it contains the sally port, or entrance of
the fort. The living quarters are also in the gorge. Enlisted men
occupied the barracks rooms, or casemates, to the north of the
entrance; officers were quartered in the casemates to the south of the
entrance. The word casemate means a bomb-proof shelter. Each of the
arched chambers surrounding the parade ground is a casemate. During the
Civil War, when a large number of troops was stationed at Fort Pulaski,
most of the enlisted men were quartered in the casemated gun galleries
or in tents. Originally, all of the casemates were closed in with
wooden fronts to provide shelter from rain and cold. The parade ground,
on which the men exercised and drilled, is 2½ acres in extent. The
covered veranda, which runs the length of the gorge, is an unusual
feature in fort architecture.
3. BARRACKS ROOMS. When Georgia troops seized Fort Pulaski in 1861, the
barracks rooms were unfurnished. The Confederates built triple-decker
bunks against the walls and filled mattress covers with hay from the
parade ground. They brought chairs, tables, and camp cots from their
homes in Savannah. After the surrender, Federal troops added many items
of furniture obtained by raiding plantations along the coast. The rooms
were lighted by candles, coal-oil lanterns, and lamps. The large
fireplace in each room was equipped with a crane and other devices for
cooking, but both Confederate and Union soldiers did most of their
cooking on field ranges. While walking through the barracks rooms, note
how the loopholes in the rear wall are variously angled to give a wide
range of fire.
4. THE NORTH MAGAZINE. On the second day of the bombardment Federal
projectiles, exploding near the entrance to this powder magazine,
threatened to blow up the Confederates with their own powder. The
interior walls of the magazine are from 12 to 15 feet thick.
5. THE NORTHWEST BASTION. A bastion is a part of a fort which extends
out from the main wall, with embrasures and loopholes to permit lateral
fire along the walls. Fort Pulaski had only demibastions, or half
bastions, as they extend out only in one direction and give protection
to only one wall. The rectangular openings through the outer walls of
the fort are embrasures to permit the firing of cannon. The embrasures
in the bastions are angled to bring a crossfire on the main drawbridge
and on the point of the demilune. The slot under each embrasure was to
receive the tongue of a gun carriage which was then held in place by a
large iron pin dropped through the round hole in the floor of the
embrasure. The openings in the ceiling above the embrasures are smoke
vents. The circular grooves in the floor originally held iron tracks on
which the wheels of the gun carriages turned. The slots and grilled
trapdoors in the floors of the casemates are to provide ventilation
under the floors. The round pegs in the floor cover iron spikes that
hold the planks in place and originally served to reduce the hazard of
a powder explosion when the guns were in use. Hobnails in soldiers’
boots on contact with exposed spikes might have resulted in a dangerous
shower of sparks.
6. THE GUN GALLERIES. The casemated gun galleries, which surround the
parade ground on four sides and give to Fort Pulaski the atmosphere of
a cloistered monastery, contain fine examples of brick masonry. The
arches were constructed over wooden forms, each brick being hand cut to
fit its special place. The joints were mortared from above and, when
the arches were firm and strong, the wooden forms were removed.
7. THE WATER SYSTEM. Under the brick pavements, which replace the
wooden floors in the two center casemates of each gallery, are water
cisterns. There are 10 of these cisterns, or storage tanks, in the
fort, each capable of holding 20,000 gallons of water. During
rainstorms, water falling on the top of the fort seeps through about 3
feet of earth and a foot of oyster shell until it reaches the
lead-covered brick roof, whence it is diverted through pipes to the
cisterns. Overflow water from the roof emerges through weep holes
between the arches high on the walls facing the parade ground.
8. THE TERREPLEIN. The flat surface on top of the rampart of the fort
is called the terreplein and contains brick and granite platforms for
mounting guns. From this high level, guns had a range of fire greater
than those mounted in the casemates below. The breast-high parapet on
the outer edge of the terreplein was for the protection of both guns
and gun crews. The recesses in the parapet wall were to allow gun
carriages to swing freely.
9. TERREPLEIN, EAST ANGLE. From this point a good view may be obtained
of the shore of Tybee Island, from which the fort was bombarded. The
two batteries containing the 10 James and Parrott rifled guns, which
did the principal damage to the fort, were located on the western point
of Tybee just north of the present highway bridge. The 9 other
batteries of mortars and siege guns were at various places along the
shore for 2 miles in the direction of the lighthouse. The small brick
lighthouse on Cockspur Point was built about 1840 and therefore was a
feature of the landscape at the time of the bombardment.
10. THE PRISON. From October 23, 1864, to March 4, 1865, the northeast,
southeast, and part of the south casemates of Fort Pulaski were used as
a military prison.
11. THE BREACH. In three casemates at the southeast angle there are
solid brick walls without embrasures. These walls were constructed in
1862, after the surrender, by troops of the 48th New York Volunteers to
close the breach, or opening, made by the Federal shot and shell during
the bombardment.
12. THE SOUTHWEST BASTION. The interior of the southwest bastion was
destroyed by fire in 1893. This part of the fort has been left
unrestored to show details of the foundation construction. All arches
are completed beneath the floor level and are laid on a platform of
yellow pine timbers, called grillage. The grillage in turn is supported
by yellow pine piles which are driven deep into the mud of Cockspur
Island.
13. HEADQUARTERS (SURRENDER ROOM). The surrender of Fort Pulaski was
executed in the quarters of Col. Charles H. Olmstead, Confederate
commander. In 1925 a lightning fire destroyed the officers’ quarters.
This room was restored in 1935.
14. CISTERN ROOM. This room, also destroyed in the 1925 fire, has been
left unrestored to show construction details. The cylindrical brick
structure below floor level is the top of a water cistern.
15. BOTTLE COLLECTION. Nearly 1,000 bottles were found in the Fort
Pulaski moat when the mud was cleaned out in 1935. These bottles had
been thrown into the moat by workmen building the fort and by
Confederate and Union soldiers during the Civil War. A part of the
collection is shown in this room.
16. THE MOAT. The wet ditch, or moat, which completely surrounds the
main fortification and the demilune, varies in width from 30 to 48
feet. It has an average depth of 7 feet. The water, brought through a
canal from the South Channel of the Savannah River, is controlled
through a series of tide gates. Fish, crabs, shrimp, oysters, and
turtles live in the moat.
17. THE DEMILUNE. The outwork often found at the rear of a large
fortification was originally constructed in a half-moon shape—hence
the name demilune. The principal earthworks in the demilune were built
in 1869, after the Civil War, and contain four powder magazines and
passageways connecting gun emplacements. The detached mound of earth
near the entrance to the demilune was erected in 1893 to protect an
underground chamber in which were placed the controls for electric
mines in the main channel of the Savannah River. This room is kept
locked today as it contains a large and dangerous electric transformer.
18. DAMAGED WALL. Evidence of the bombardment can best be seen from the
outside of the fort. The breach through the southeast angle was
repaired in 1862 with a bright-red brick, which, in contrast to the
original brown brick, shows the area of the damage wrought by the siege
guns. The southeastern wall facing Tybee is pock-marked by shell hits,
and many of the balls and projectiles are still embedded in the
brickwork.
[Illustration: _The damaged wall._]
19. THE CEMETERY. On the glacis, or north bank of the demilune moat, a
small cemetery was established when the fort was under construction.
Here, during the Civil War, both Confederate and Union soldiers were
temporarily buried. The 8-inch columbiad, which marks the site, was a
Confederate gun damaged in the bombardment.
20. THE WAVING GIRL. Just after the Civil War a girl was born on
Cockspur Island in the former quarters of the engineer officers. The
child was named Florence Martus, and her father was an ordnance
sergeant at Fort Pulaski. From the stone pier on the north shore of
Cockspur Island young Florence first saw the passing ships going with
cargoes to the farthest corners of the earth. The small child was
fascinated by these gay ships and waved her handkerchief. Sailors on
the ships waved back. A few years later, the child, then in her ’teens,
went to live with her brother, a light keeper, in a white cottage close
by the riverbank, about 5 miles up river from Fort Pulaski. From this
time on she waved at every ship that passed—a table cloth or towel by
day, a lantern by night. For more than 44 years she never missed a
ship, and each ship, as it passed, returned her salute with three
blasts of the whistle. Many stories were told of this small girl, who
finally grew to be a white-haired old lady. These legends of the Waving
Girl of Savannah are known in all the seas where ships have sailed.
[Illustration: _John Wesley Memorial erected in 1951 by the Georgia
Society, Colonial Dames of America, to commemorate the landing of
Wesley on Cockspur Island, February 6, 1736._]
_How to Reach the Monument_
Fort Pulaski, on Cockspur Island at the mouth of the Savannah River, is
15 miles east of Savannah, Ga., and may be reached from that city by
way of U. S. 80 (Tybee Highway). The entrance to the monument is on
McQueens Island at U. S. 80. Cockspur Island is connected by a short
road and a concrete bridge across the South Channel of the Savannah
River.
[Illustration: _U. S. 80 through Fort Pulaski National Monument._]
_Administration_
Fort Pulaski National Monument is administered by the National Park
Service of the United States Department of the Interior. Communications
should be addressed to the Superintendent, Fort Pulaski National
Monument, Box 204, Savannah Beach, Ga.
_About Your Visit_
You may visit Fort Pulaski daily, except Christmas, from 8:30 a. m. to
5:30 p. m. Information may be obtained from attendants on duty inside
the fort, and brief lectures are given at frequent intervals by the
historian. A nominal admission charge is made at the fort entrance.
Children under 12 years of age are admitted free when accompanied by
adults assuming responsibility for their safety and orderly conduct.
Organized groups of school children between the ages of 12 and 18 are
also admitted free.
_Related Areas_
Other seacoast fortifications in the National Park System are: Castle
Clinton National Monument, in New York Harbor; Fort McHenry National
Monument and Historic Shrine, at Baltimore, Md.; Fort Sumter National
Monument, in Charleston Harbor, S. C.; Fort Frederica National
Monument, Ga.; Castillo de San Marcos and Fort Matanzas National
Monuments, at St. Augustine, Fla.; Fort Jefferson National Monument, in
the Dry Tortugas Islands, about 68 miles from Key West, Fla.; and San
Juan National Historic Site, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1958 O—469169
------------------------------------------------------------------------
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
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Transcriber’s Note
Typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected without
mention.
Spellings in quoted phrases have been maintained as originally
presented.
Minor adjustments to illustration captions have been made to reflect
relative position in an e-book.
Italicized phrases are presented by surrounding the text with
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