Battle of Fort Pulaski
Encyclopedia
The Battle of Fort Pulaski was fought April 10–11, 1862, during the American Civil War
. Union
forces on Tybee Island and naval operations
conducted a 112-day siege, then captured the Confederate
-held Fort Pulaski after a 30-hour bombardment. The battle is important for innovative use of rifled guns
which made existing coastal defenses obsolete. The Union initiated large scale amphibious
operations under fire.
The fort's surrender strategically closed Savannah as a port. The Union extended its blockade
and aids to navigation down the Atlantic coast, then redeployed most of its 10,000 troops. The Confederate army-navy defense blocked Federal advance for over three months, secured the city, and prevented any subsequent Union advance from seaward during the war. Coastal rail connections were extended to blockaded Charleston SC.
Fort Pulaski is located on Cockspur Island
, Georgia, near the mouth of the Savannah River. The Fort commanded seaward approaches to the City of Savannah. it was commercially and industrially important as a cotton exporting port, railroad center and the largest manufacturing center in the state, including a state arsenal
and private shipyards. Two southerly estuaries led to the Savannah River behind the fort. Immediately east of Pulaski, and in sight of Hilton Head Island SC lay Tybee Island with a lighthouse station
.
administration, construction of Third System forts was directed under U.S. Secretaries of War including James Monroe
of Virginia, William H. Crawford
of Georgia, and John Calhoun
of South Carolina.
The new construction replaced two earlier forts on Tybee Island. A British colonial fort was torn down in the American Revolution. The first U.S. fort, authorized in the Washington
Administration, was swept away in an 1804 hurricane. Construction began on Fort Pulaski during 1830, and was completed in 1845 in the administration of John Tyler
by a successor of U.S. Secretary of War John Bell
of Tennessee. The new fort was named to honor Casimir Pulaski,the Polish hero of the American Revolution.
The Third System fort expanded Savannah's defenses downriver from "Old" Fort Jackson
, a "Second System" fort which had been built nearby the city to defend the immediate approaches to its wharves. In the campaigns for national elections in 1860, Southern secessionists threatened civil war, were their opponent to be elected President. Following the policy of President James Buchanan
and his Secretary of War John B. Floyd
of Virginia, the newly inaugurated Lincoln
Administration at first did not garrison and defend forts, arsenals or U.S. Treasury Mints
in the South. The policy was continued until April 12, 1861 at Fort Sumter
, South Carolina, just north along the Atlantic Coast from Fort Pulaski.
Following the secession of Georgia, volunteer militia seized Fort Pulaski from the Federal government and, with Confederate forces, began repairing and upgrading the armament. In late 1861, the commander, Department of Georgia, General Alexander Robert Lawton would transfer to Richmond. On November 5, General Robert E. Lee
assumed command of the newly created "Department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida".
Lawton's October report for his Department listed 2,753 men and officers in the environs of Savannah, almost half of the command. First Georgia Regulars had been assigned to Tybee Island. They built a battery on Tybee Island and manned it, along with lookouts along the beach. The Regiment was reassigned to Virginia, departing July 17, 1861. Olmstead’s “First Volunteer Regiment of Georgia” would garrison
Fort Pulaski through the Federal siege.
Fort Pulaski was considered invincible with its 7-1/2-foot solid brick walls and reinforcing masonry piers. General Robert E. Lee
had earlier surveyed the fort’s defenses with Colonel Olmstead and determined, “they will make it pretty warm for you here with shells, but they cannot breach your walls at that distance." Wide swampy marshes surrounded the fort on all sides and were infested with native alligators. No attacking ship could safely come within effective range, and land batteries could not be placed closer than Tybee Island, one to two miles away. Beyond 700 yards, smoothbore guns and mortars had little chance to break through heavy masonry walls. Beyond 1,000 yards, they had no chance at all. The U.S. Chief of Engineers, General Joseph Gilbert Totten
, is quoted as saying, "you might as well bombard the Rocky Mountains." If there were ever to be a successful siege, it would have to starve the garrison into submission.
Fort garrison duty with untrained troops made up for lost time. In May for example, one newspaper correspondent reported that Confederates spent early morning in heavy labor such as mounting heavy guns. Then came an hour and a half drill at the heavy guns with instruction or live fire out a mile or two. The proficiency of each gun crew was tracked in a “target practice” book. Troops were tested on gunnery skills, then dinner at one. The rotating fatigue parties returned to work Officers reviewed infantry tactics, then instructed the men for an hour. Fatigue parties had “recall” at six. Then at “Dress Parade” retreat, the garrison performed infantry drill including combat formation evolutions. Supper followed and afterwards an hour’s recitation of army regulations, taps at nine.
Operationally, General R. E. Lee headquartered in Savannah as commander of the “Department of the Coast of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida”. He was returning to the fort that he had helped construct in his early U.S. career. He had been instrumental in the engineering connected with channelling tidewaters around the fort where a hurricane had swept a previous structure on the same site. He knew the lay of the land and the tides of the sea there.
’s judgment as the District's commanding general was that “the river cannot be forced”. Old Fort Jackson had been armed, strengthened and “forms an interior barrier”. Savannah’s channel had been blocked. In December, Lee reasoned since the Federals had sunk a Stone Fleet
in the Charleston Harbor, they did not intend to use it. “We must endeavor to be prepared against assaults elsewhere on the Southern coast.” To that end, additional ships were sunk by Confederates in water approaches that led behind Fort Pulaski.
Lee brought Commodore Tattnall from a James River command, where under imminent attack from Union monitors he had landed sailors to expand Richmond fortifications immediately after the Battle of Hampton Roads
. Tattnall then manned batteries with his gunners to repel monitor attacks threatening to bombard Richmond's Tredegar Iron Works. Tattnall's sailors would perform similar service at a battery across from Savannah's Fort Jackson. Turning his attention to Fort Pulaski's defenses, Lee anticipated Union moves to establish batteries above the Fort. He ordered guns positioned to cover their likely positions were the Federals to get behind Pulaski in a siege attempt.
In January, following Tattnall’s three-gunboat
attack on seven Federal gunboats on the river, Lee’s assessment was that “there is nothing to prevent their reaching the Savannah River, and we have nothing afloat that can contend against them."
Fort Pulaski, a “Third System”, scientifically engineered coastal defense fort, still had at least four months’ provisions. Now, the primary objective became, “we must endeavor to defend the city.” The city’s floating dock was sunk as another river obstruction.
In March, Lee passed along War Department orders to begin transferring regiments from Florida to Tennessee to reinstate operations following the “disasters to our arms” there. Georgian troops had been sent to Virginia in July, additional Georgians would be moved to Tennessee also. The Confederate government required a withdrawal from seaboard forces into the interior of South Carolina and Georgia to better secure the breadbasket plantations feeding the armies. In Florida, only the Apalachicola River had to be defended at all costs because Federal gunboats could penetrate so deeply into the Georgia interior.
On Lee’s transfer to Richmond, he detailed urgent defense construction, then he called on Lawton’s “earnest and close attention” to the Federal’s probable approach to the city. “It looks now as if he would take the Savannah River”. Guns located in island batteries were to be removed to the mainland in and around Savannah’s defensive lines. Obstructions in the river above the city were to be set by hands provided by upriver planters in the event of an envelopment by way of Fort McAllister. “Every effort must be made” to retard or prevent further progress of the enemy directly upriver on the Savannah River approaches. “If he attempts to advance by batteries on the marshes or islands, he must be driven back, if possible.” Scouts were ordered out “so as to discover his first lodgment, when they can be broken up.” An additional three-gun battery
at MacKay’s Point was not intended to stop federal gunboats in force, but with Tattnall’s gunboat support, they could prevent Federal batteries from being built on Elba Island to threaten Old Fort Jackson.
Savannah's existing Fort Jackson
, about three miles downriver from the city, was supplemented with two additional batteries. Defenders built fire barges. Lee first placed a battery at Causton’s Bluff commanding navigable estuaries leading to the Savannah River behind Fort Pulaski. Then he added another battery situated farther upriver on Elba Island, blocking all river approach to Savannah. The Union naval commander, Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont, conducted a reconnaissance of Lee's system of defense upriver. When the commanding military general, Gen. Thomas W. Sherman
, insisted on forcing Lee's riverine batteries against Du Pont's recommendation, Thomas Sherman was transferred to the western theater and replaced by General David Hunter
.
The Union fleet conducted explorations among the Atlantic inlets and coastal marshes by shallow draft ships, boats and monitors
. But when they came up against earthworks such as Fort McAllister just south of Savannah, their efforts using bombardment alone were fruitless. The Federals would not advance on Savannah until General William T. Sherman’s March from the interior in 1864.
At the time Pulaski was cut off from Savannah in April 1862, the garrison under the command of Colonel Charles H. Olmstead had been reduced from 650 to 385 officers and men. They were organized into five infantry companies and had 48 canons, including ten columbiad
s, five mortars, and a 4.5 inches (114.3 mm) Blakely rifle. The Confederate Tybee Island battery had been previously dismantled and abandoned, and their guns relocated to the fort. The fort had been provisioned on January 28 with a six-months supply of food.
In consultation with Lee, Olmstead had distributed armament on the ramparts and in the casements to cover all approaches, and several were placed to cover westerly marshes and Savannah’s North Channel. Confederate marauders burned sea island cotton crops to deny them falling into Federal hands. Navigational aids like the Tybee Lighthouse were dismantled and burned. Reports from the field had Confederate troops setting fires to everything that might be used by advancing Federal troops.
. It then could serve as a base for the expedition. Fort Sumter would not be retaken until 1865, but the Battle of Port Royal
answered the immediate requirement for a nearby staging area.
As the Union forces went about taking Port Royal, Commodore Josiah Tattnall
, CSN, and his “mosquito fleet” mounted an active defense, harassing elements of the Union’s South Atlantic Squadron. Over the next few months, Tattnall, an experienced US Navy commander, trained and fought his Confederate squadron into a flexible task force for coastal, amphibious, resupply and riverine operations. With the approach of the Federal expedition on Port Royal, including fifteen warships under the command of Flag Officer Du Pont, the Confederate “Savannah River Squadron” sortied with gunships CSS Savannah
(flag
), Sampson, Lady Davis and tender Resolute. These four along with the converted slaver-privateer Bonita, met eight of Du Pont’s fifteen US warships on November 5, and were “outgunned and outclassed”.
They withdrew overnight into Skull Creek, Georgia. The next day they sortied again. Under covering fires from Old Savannah engaging nearby heavy Union ships, the Sampson assisted in amphibious operations taking off numbers of the Port Royal garrison. Resolute, returning from delivering dispatches to the City of Savannah
, evacuated the garrison at Fort Walker. She then landed at Pope’s Landing, Hilton Head Island, and spiked Confederate guns abandoned there. The Savannah landed a shore party of Marines to support Fort Beauregard under fire from Union warships, but the fort was lost before the reinforcements could arrive. The ship took off the garrison and returned to Savannah for repairs.
, the Federals began preparations for besieging Fort Pulaski. The Union expedition next captured Tybee Island
.
The Union advance on Fort Pulaski began on November 24, 1861. Following reconnaissance that Confederates had abandoned Tybee Island, Flag Officer Du Pont ordered forward an amphibious raid with three gunboats at the Tybee Island Lighthouse
. Under a two-hour ship’s bombardment, the Confederate pickets set fire to the lighthouse and withdrew. Commander Christopher Rodgers
, USS Flag, led a landing party of sailors and Marines in thirteen surf-boats to occupy the Lighthouse and the Martello tower
, and flew the national flag from them. Overnight, a reduced company set false campfires to misdirect the Confederates ashore. Two days later commanding Flag Officer Du Pont and General Thomas Sherman made a personal reconnaissance, and on 29 November, General Gillmore, the command’s chief engineering officer, with three companies of the Fourth New Hampshire, took formal possession of the entire island without opposition. The Navy set the logistics train in motion, and by December 20, the Army had sufficient materials for establishing “a permanent possession”.
The last blockade runner
to make Savannah was the British steam ship Fingal. Its cargo of arms and munitions reached the entrance to Wassaw Sound at the mouth of the Savannah River on a clear night in mid November, but heavy fog in the early morning masked the ship’s progress across the bar and upriver. Later she made two unsuccessful attempts at escaping the blockade before being converted into an ironclad. Pulaski’s share on ship's manifest was two 24-pounder Blakely rifle
s and a large consignment of British-made Enfield infantry rifles
. As the Union Flag Officer Du Pont sought to close the alternative channels local ships used, he sank stone-filled ships in the Savannah River channel, and stationed gunboat
s at two southerly estuaries, Warsaw Sound, south of Wilmington Island, and Ossabaw Sound at Skidaway Island.
On November 26 Tattnall’s flag, CSS "Old" Savannah
in company with Resolute and Sampson sortied out from under Fort Pulaski’s guns in a “brave but brief” attack on the Union ships outside the bar, driving them out to sea. Tattnall’s squadron withdrew up the Savannah River for refit and two days later, the same three resupplied the Fort with six months provisions, despite “the spirited opposition of Federal ships”. "Old Savannah was partially disabled but returned to harbor. Sampson received considerable damage, returning to patrol the Savannah River only in mid-November the following year.
was General Thomas Sherman’s chief engineering officer. His professional reading had followed the test records of the experimental rifled gun which the Army had begun testing in 1859.
Following a reconnaissance of the ground, he proposed the unconventional plan to reduce Fort Pulaski with mortars and rifled guns. Commanding General Thomas W. Sherman
approved the plan, but not the promise of the rifled guns. His endorsement was qualified, believing gunnery effect would be limited, "to shake the walls in a random manner." But the innovative weaponry in the event made his deployed 10,000-man assault force unnecessary. Of the two senior military commanders leading up to the engagement, neither Union General Thomas Sherman, nor Confederate General Robert E. Lee believed the fort could be captured by bombardment alone.
had sunk a stone schooner to obstruct the northward channel connecting the river to the Union-held Port Royal, and he patrolled the river with Confederate gunboats. The Federals had to clear the obstruction on their most direct supply line first; it required three weeks. A camp and supply depot was established on the next island north, Dawfuskie Island.
Tattnall’s gunboats still commanded the lower river around Point Venus. As a part of Lee's active defense, the Confederate's Savannah River Squadron launched continuous patrols. Their naval gunnery required the work along the river by Union besiegers to be done at night. The Federal's guns had to be pulled by hand through swamp over moveable tram sections, the men working in brackish alligator-infested marsh, sinking in over their waist most of the day. The artillery then had to be placed on board-and-bag platforms to avoid their loss by sinking into the morass. The soldiers rested during the day.
By Lee's estimation, the fort could not be reduced by bombardment or direct assault, only by starvation. As long as supplies could be built up, they would be. The last Confederate supply ship to Fort Pulaski was the small workhorse steamboat
Ida. On February 13, it was on a routine run to the fort down the North Channel. The new battery of Federal heavy guns on the north bank opened up for the first time. The old side-wheeler ran for Pulaski and the battery got off nine shots before the guns recoiled off their platforms. Union troops went back to work modifying platform construction and resetting the cannon. Two days later Ida ran up the South Channel under the extinguished lighthouse and returned to Savannah through Tybee Creek.
Once the Union battery at Venus Point was disclosed, Confederate gunboats engaged in gunnery duels, but they were driven off. Over the next week, the besiegers completely surrounded the Fort. Federals built another battery on the Savannah River across from Venus Point. They threw a boom
across Tybee Creek and cut the telegraph
line between Savannah and Cockspur Island. Two infantry companies entrenched nearby to ward off Confederate raiders and a gunboat was detailed to patrol the channel and support the infantry. By late February 1862, no supplies or reinforcements could get in; the Confederate garrison could not get out. The last link of communications was a weekly swamp swimming courier.
At the end of February Tattnall laid plans for an amphibious assault on the two advanced batteries at Venus Point and Oakley Island. General Lee personally interceded. Preparations at Old Fort Jackson were not completed. Although Tattnall's flagship had been put back into service since the Squadron's January resupply sortie, one of the three gunboats was still seriously disabled. Lee reasoned that if Tattnall's plan failed, the city itself would be open to attack. The three-to-seven exchange had not gone well for the defenders of Savannah. A possible two-to-seven match against ships with superior armament did not promise better. No further consideration was given to relief of the Fort; in any case, it had perhaps sixteen weeks of provisions left in store. Meanwhile, Federal emplacements continued to improve on Jones and Bird islands, Venus Point and other points along the river. During the Federal bombardment of Fort Pulaski, April 10–11, “Old Savannah” participated in counter-battery fire with besieging Union guns.
Heavy caliber rifled cannons which the Federals needed to reduce Pulaski had arrived nearby in February, at which time Gillmore decided to locate the batteries at the northwestern tip of Tybee Island nearest the fort. By March, Gillmore was offloading siege materiel onto Tybee Island. Roads had to be laid down, gun emplacements excavated, magazines and bomb-proofs constructed. As the work progressed southwesterly nearing the Fort, in the last mile the Union troops came under fire from the Fort’s Confederate gunners. A ranging shot said to be aimed by Colonel Olmstead himself cut a Union soldier in two. The following bombardment from elevated fort guns effected mortar barrages that forced all construction to proceed on Tybee Island by night. Each morning the uncompleted elements of siege construction were camouflaged against the fort's spotters.
To land the cannon onto Tybee Island, artillery pieces were taken off transports, set on rafts at high tide, and pitched into the surf near shore. At low tide, manpower alone would drag the guns up the beach. Two hundred and fifty men were required to move a 13-inch mortar along on a sling cart. Later Union amphibious operations would employ contraband labor for much of this work. Along the two-and-a-half mile front, their engineers had to construct almost a mile of corduroy road made of bundles of brushwood to keep the guns from sinking into the swamp. While offloading proceeded day and night according to the tides, Confederate bombardment from Fort Pulaski gunners required all Federal movement into the island limited to night time. After a month of work, 36 mortars and rifled cannons were in position.
The four breaching batteries closest to the fort were each given specific firing missions. Battery McClellan was to breach the southeast face, and the adjacent embrasure. Battery Totten was assigned to explode shells over the southeast walls, or at any hidden batteries outside the fort. Battery Scott with its columbiads' solid shot, was ordered to breach the same area as Battery McClellan. The fifth breaching battery was mortar Battery Halleck. It was given the task of shelling the arches of the northeast faces with plunging fire, "exploding after striking, not before".
Battery Sigel included the five 30-pounder Parrotts. Their mission was to fire on the barbette guns until silenced, then switch to percussion shells onto the southeast walls and adjacent embrasure, at a rate of 10-12 rounds an hour. Fire was to cease at dark, except for special directions. A signal officer was stationed at Battery Scott to communicate the ranging of the mortar batteries Stanton, Grant and Sherman.
Following prohibitive rain squall
s on the ninth, all was ready for the Federals by April 10, and the newly appointed Commander of the Department, Major-General David Hunter, sent a demand for “immediate surrender and restoration of Fort Pulaski to the authority and possession of the United States.” Colonel Olmstead replied, “I am here to defend the fort, not to surrender it.” The bombardment began at 8:00 a.m., concentrating on the fort's southeast corner which suffered greatly. The Confederate gunnery was described by the Federal commander as “efficient and accurate firing ... great precision, not only at our batteries, but even at the individual persons passing between them.”
As the day wore on, counter-battery fires from Fort Pulaski were gradually silenced as their guns were either dismounted or rendered unserviceable. Two of the Federal 10-inch columbiads jumped backwards off their carriages. The 13-inch mortars placed less than 10% rounds on target. But Federal fires proved effective from Parrott Rifles, scraped Davis tubes and working columbiad guns. There ensued a lull from the Fort, but the Confederate gunners re-opened an energetic counter battery duel that required the Parrotts to give up their wall assignment and concentrate on the working Confederate guns until they were re-silenced. By nightfall the wall at the southeast corner had been breached. Under periodic harassing bombardment throughout the hours of darkness, Olmstead's garrison put several guns back into service.
Overnight, Du Pont’s flagship USS Wabash detached 100 crew to man four of the 30-pounder Parrott rifles. In the morning, with the wind picking up right to left and effecting shell projectory, the Union artillery resumed the bombardment, concentrating fires to enlarge the opening. The Georgia gunners again found targets, described in dispatches as Rebel “firing ... good all the morning, doing some damage”. At the same time, the Parrott rifles and Columbiads opened a great gap in the wall, sending shot across the interior of the fort and against the northwest powder magazine containing twenty tons of powder. Regarding his situation as hopeless, Olmstead surrendered the fort at 2:30 p.m. that day.
General Gillmore reported in his after-action assessment of the siege by his artillery, “Good rifled guns, properly served can breach rapidly” at 1600-2000 yards when they are followed by heavy round shot to knock down loosened masonry. The 42-pounder James is unexcelled in breaching, but its grooves must be kept clean. The 13-inch mortars had little effect. The new 30-Pounder Parrott Rifle
had made a major impact on the battle. The rifled cannon fired significantly further with more accuracy and greater destructive impact than the smoothbores then in use. It's application achieved tactical surprise unanticipated by senior commanders of either side.
Memoirs and Biography
United States
Confederate States
Monographs
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. Union
Union (American Civil War)
During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the federal government of the United States, which was supported by the twenty free states and five border slave states. It was opposed by 11 southern slave states that had declared a secession to join together to form the...
forces on Tybee Island and naval operations
Union blockade
The Union Blockade, or the Blockade of the South, took place between 1861 and 1865, during the American Civil War, when the Union Navy maintained a strenuous effort on the Atlantic and Gulf Coast of the Confederate States of America designed to prevent the passage of trade goods, supplies, and arms...
conducted a 112-day siege, then captured the Confederate
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
-held Fort Pulaski after a 30-hour bombardment. The battle is important for innovative use of rifled guns
Parrott rifle
The Parrott rifle was a type of muzzle loading rifled artillery weapon used extensively in the American Civil War.-Parrott Rifle:The gun was invented by Robert Parker Parrott, a West Point graduate. He resigned from the service in 1836 and became the superintendent of the West Point Foundry in Cold...
which made existing coastal defenses obsolete. The Union initiated large scale amphibious
Amphibious warfare
Amphibious warfare is the use of naval firepower, logistics and strategy to project military power ashore. In previous eras it stood as the primary method of delivering troops to non-contiguous enemy-held terrain...
operations under fire.
The fort's surrender strategically closed Savannah as a port. The Union extended its blockade
Union blockade
The Union Blockade, or the Blockade of the South, took place between 1861 and 1865, during the American Civil War, when the Union Navy maintained a strenuous effort on the Atlantic and Gulf Coast of the Confederate States of America designed to prevent the passage of trade goods, supplies, and arms...
and aids to navigation down the Atlantic coast, then redeployed most of its 10,000 troops. The Confederate army-navy defense blocked Federal advance for over three months, secured the city, and prevented any subsequent Union advance from seaward during the war. Coastal rail connections were extended to blockaded Charleston SC.
Fort Pulaski is located on Cockspur Island
Cockspur Island
Cockspur Island is an island in the south channel of the Savannah River near Lazaretto Creek, northwest of Tybee Island, Georgia, USA. Most of the island is within the boundaries of Fort Pulaski National Monument....
, Georgia, near the mouth of the Savannah River. The Fort commanded seaward approaches to the City of Savannah. it was commercially and industrially important as a cotton exporting port, railroad center and the largest manufacturing center in the state, including a state arsenal
Arsenal
An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, issued to authorized users, or any combination of those...
and private shipyards. Two southerly estuaries led to the Savannah River behind the fort. Immediately east of Pulaski, and in sight of Hilton Head Island SC lay Tybee Island with a lighthouse station
Tybee Island Light Station
The Tybee Island Light, also known simply as the Tybee Lighthouse is located on Tybee Island, Georgia, east of Savannah at the mouth of the Savannah River...
.
Background
Fort Pulaski was built as a "Third System" fort in the United States system of coastal defense on land ceded to the United States by the State of Georgia. Authorized by appropriations begun by Congress under the James MadisonJames Madison
James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...
administration, construction of Third System forts was directed under U.S. Secretaries of War including James Monroe
James Monroe
James Monroe was the fifth President of the United States . Monroe was the last president who was a Founding Father of the United States, and the last president from the Virginia dynasty and the Republican Generation...
of Virginia, William H. Crawford
William H. Crawford
William Harris Crawford was an American politician and judge during the early 19th century. He served as United States Secretary of War from 1815 to 1816 and United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1816 to 1825, and was a candidate for President of the United States in 1824.-Political...
of Georgia, and John Calhoun
John Calhoun
John Calhoun may refer to:*John C. Calhoun, seventh Vice President of the United States, U.S. Senator*John Calhoun , American computer programmer*John B...
of South Carolina.
The new construction replaced two earlier forts on Tybee Island. A British colonial fort was torn down in the American Revolution. The first U.S. fort, authorized in the Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
Administration, was swept away in an 1804 hurricane. Construction began on Fort Pulaski during 1830, and was completed in 1845 in the administration of John Tyler
John Tyler
John Tyler was the tenth President of the United States . A native of Virginia, Tyler served as a state legislator, governor, U.S. representative, and U.S. senator before being elected Vice President . He was the first to succeed to the office of President following the death of a predecessor...
by a successor of U.S. Secretary of War John Bell
John Bell (Tennessee politician)
John Bell was a U.S. politician, attorney, and plantation owner. A wealthy slaveholder from Tennessee, Bell served in the United States Congress in both the House of Representatives and Senate. He began his career as a Democrat, he eventually fell out with Andrew Jackson and became a Whig...
of Tennessee. The new fort was named to honor Casimir Pulaski,the Polish hero of the American Revolution.
The Third System fort expanded Savannah's defenses downriver from "Old" Fort Jackson
Fort James Jackson
Fort James Jackson is a restored nineteenth-century fort located one mile east of Savannah, Georgia, on the Savannah River. It hosts the Fort Jackson Maritime Museum....
, a "Second System" fort which had been built nearby the city to defend the immediate approaches to its wharves. In the campaigns for national elections in 1860, Southern secessionists threatened civil war, were their opponent to be elected President. Following the policy of President James Buchanan
James Buchanan
James Buchanan, Jr. was the 15th President of the United States . He is the only president from Pennsylvania, the only president who remained a lifelong bachelor and the last to be born in the 18th century....
and his Secretary of War John B. Floyd
John B. Floyd
John Buchanan Floyd was the 31st Governor of Virginia, U.S. Secretary of War, and the Confederate general in the American Civil War who lost the crucial Battle of Fort Donelson.-Early life:...
of Virginia, the newly inaugurated Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
Administration at first did not garrison and defend forts, arsenals or U.S. Treasury Mints
Mint (coin)
A mint is an industrial facility which manufactures coins for currency.The history of mints correlates closely with the history of coins. One difference is that the history of the mint is usually closely tied to the political situation of an era...
in the South. The policy was continued until April 12, 1861 at Fort Sumter
Fort Sumter
Fort Sumter is a Third System masonry coastal fortification located in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. The fort is best known as the site upon which the shots initiating the American Civil War were fired, at the Battle of Fort Sumter.- Construction :...
, South Carolina, just north along the Atlantic Coast from Fort Pulaski.
"Department of Georgia"
| Fort Pulaski under siege |
|---|
Following the secession of Georgia, volunteer militia seized Fort Pulaski from the Federal government and, with Confederate forces, began repairing and upgrading the armament. In late 1861, the commander, Department of Georgia, General Alexander Robert Lawton would transfer to Richmond. On November 5, General Robert E. Lee
Robert E. Lee
Robert Edward Lee was a career military officer who is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War....
assumed command of the newly created "Department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida".
Lawton's October report for his Department listed 2,753 men and officers in the environs of Savannah, almost half of the command. First Georgia Regulars had been assigned to Tybee Island. They built a battery on Tybee Island and manned it, along with lookouts along the beach. The Regiment was reassigned to Virginia, departing July 17, 1861. Olmstead’s “First Volunteer Regiment of Georgia” would garrison
Garrison
Garrison is the collective term for a body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it, but now often simply using it as a home base....
Fort Pulaski through the Federal siege.
Fort Pulaski was considered invincible with its 7-1/2-foot solid brick walls and reinforcing masonry piers. General Robert E. Lee
Robert E. Lee
Robert Edward Lee was a career military officer who is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War....
had earlier surveyed the fort’s defenses with Colonel Olmstead and determined, “they will make it pretty warm for you here with shells, but they cannot breach your walls at that distance." Wide swampy marshes surrounded the fort on all sides and were infested with native alligators. No attacking ship could safely come within effective range, and land batteries could not be placed closer than Tybee Island, one to two miles away. Beyond 700 yards, smoothbore guns and mortars had little chance to break through heavy masonry walls. Beyond 1,000 yards, they had no chance at all. The U.S. Chief of Engineers, General Joseph Gilbert Totten
Joseph Gilbert Totten
Joseph Gilbert Totten fought in the War of 1812, served as Chief Engineer and was regent of the Smithsonian Institution and cofounder of the National Academy of Sciences.-Early life and education:...
, is quoted as saying, "you might as well bombard the Rocky Mountains." If there were ever to be a successful siege, it would have to starve the garrison into submission.
Fort garrison duty with untrained troops made up for lost time. In May for example, one newspaper correspondent reported that Confederates spent early morning in heavy labor such as mounting heavy guns. Then came an hour and a half drill at the heavy guns with instruction or live fire out a mile or two. The proficiency of each gun crew was tracked in a “target practice” book. Troops were tested on gunnery skills, then dinner at one. The rotating fatigue parties returned to work Officers reviewed infantry tactics, then instructed the men for an hour. Fatigue parties had “recall” at six. Then at “Dress Parade” retreat, the garrison performed infantry drill including combat formation evolutions. Supper followed and afterwards an hour’s recitation of army regulations, taps at nine.
Operationally, General R. E. Lee headquartered in Savannah as commander of the “Department of the Coast of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida”. He was returning to the fort that he had helped construct in his early U.S. career. He had been instrumental in the engineering connected with channelling tidewaters around the fort where a hurricane had swept a previous structure on the same site. He knew the lay of the land and the tides of the sea there.
Defense in depth
When Federal forces first made a lodgment on Tybee Island, the work on Fort Pulaski was progressing slowly, but Robert E. LeeRobert E. Lee
Robert Edward Lee was a career military officer who is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War....
’s judgment as the District's commanding general was that “the river cannot be forced”. Old Fort Jackson had been armed, strengthened and “forms an interior barrier”. Savannah’s channel had been blocked. In December, Lee reasoned since the Federals had sunk a Stone Fleet
Stone Fleet
The Stone Fleet consisted of a fleet of aging ships purchased in New Bedford and other New England ports, loaded with stone, and sailed south during the American Civil War by the Union Navy for use as Blockships...
in the Charleston Harbor, they did not intend to use it. “We must endeavor to be prepared against assaults elsewhere on the Southern coast.” To that end, additional ships were sunk by Confederates in water approaches that led behind Fort Pulaski.
Lee brought Commodore Tattnall from a James River command, where under imminent attack from Union monitors he had landed sailors to expand Richmond fortifications immediately after the Battle of Hampton Roads
Battle of Hampton Roads
The Battle of Hampton Roads, often referred to as either the Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack or the Battle of Ironclads, was the most noted and arguably most important naval battle of the American Civil War from the standpoint of the development of navies...
. Tattnall then manned batteries with his gunners to repel monitor attacks threatening to bombard Richmond's Tredegar Iron Works. Tattnall's sailors would perform similar service at a battery across from Savannah's Fort Jackson. Turning his attention to Fort Pulaski's defenses, Lee anticipated Union moves to establish batteries above the Fort. He ordered guns positioned to cover their likely positions were the Federals to get behind Pulaski in a siege attempt.
In January, following Tattnall’s three-gunboat
Gunboat
A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies.-History:...
attack on seven Federal gunboats on the river, Lee’s assessment was that “there is nothing to prevent their reaching the Savannah River, and we have nothing afloat that can contend against them."
Fort Pulaski, a “Third System”, scientifically engineered coastal defense fort, still had at least four months’ provisions. Now, the primary objective became, “we must endeavor to defend the city.” The city’s floating dock was sunk as another river obstruction.
In March, Lee passed along War Department orders to begin transferring regiments from Florida to Tennessee to reinstate operations following the “disasters to our arms” there. Georgian troops had been sent to Virginia in July, additional Georgians would be moved to Tennessee also. The Confederate government required a withdrawal from seaboard forces into the interior of South Carolina and Georgia to better secure the breadbasket plantations feeding the armies. In Florida, only the Apalachicola River had to be defended at all costs because Federal gunboats could penetrate so deeply into the Georgia interior.
On Lee’s transfer to Richmond, he detailed urgent defense construction, then he called on Lawton’s “earnest and close attention” to the Federal’s probable approach to the city. “It looks now as if he would take the Savannah River”. Guns located in island batteries were to be removed to the mainland in and around Savannah’s defensive lines. Obstructions in the river above the city were to be set by hands provided by upriver planters in the event of an envelopment by way of Fort McAllister. “Every effort must be made” to retard or prevent further progress of the enemy directly upriver on the Savannah River approaches. “If he attempts to advance by batteries on the marshes or islands, he must be driven back, if possible.” Scouts were ordered out “so as to discover his first lodgment, when they can be broken up.” An additional three-gun battery
Artillery battery
In military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit of guns, mortars, rockets or missiles so grouped in order to facilitate better battlefield communication and command and control, as well as to provide dispersion for its constituent gunnery crews and their systems...
at MacKay’s Point was not intended to stop federal gunboats in force, but with Tattnall’s gunboat support, they could prevent Federal batteries from being built on Elba Island to threaten Old Fort Jackson.
Savannah's existing Fort Jackson
Fort James Jackson
Fort James Jackson is a restored nineteenth-century fort located one mile east of Savannah, Georgia, on the Savannah River. It hosts the Fort Jackson Maritime Museum....
, about three miles downriver from the city, was supplemented with two additional batteries. Defenders built fire barges. Lee first placed a battery at Causton’s Bluff commanding navigable estuaries leading to the Savannah River behind Fort Pulaski. Then he added another battery situated farther upriver on Elba Island, blocking all river approach to Savannah. The Union naval commander, Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont, conducted a reconnaissance of Lee's system of defense upriver. When the commanding military general, Gen. Thomas W. Sherman
Thomas W. Sherman
Thomas West Sherman was a United States Army officer with service during the Mexican-American War and the American Civil War....
, insisted on forcing Lee's riverine batteries against Du Pont's recommendation, Thomas Sherman was transferred to the western theater and replaced by General David Hunter
David Hunter
David Hunter was a Union general in the American Civil War. He achieved fame by his unauthorized 1862 order emancipating slaves in three Southern states and as the president of the military commission trying the conspirators involved with the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.-Early...
.
The Union fleet conducted explorations among the Atlantic inlets and coastal marshes by shallow draft ships, boats and monitors
Monitor (warship)
A monitor was a class of relatively small warship which was neither fast nor strongly armoured but carried disproportionately large guns. They were used by some navies from the 1860s until the end of World War II, and saw their final use by the United States Navy during the Vietnam War.The monitors...
. But when they came up against earthworks such as Fort McAllister just south of Savannah, their efforts using bombardment alone were fruitless. The Federals would not advance on Savannah until General William T. Sherman’s March from the interior in 1864.
At the time Pulaski was cut off from Savannah in April 1862, the garrison under the command of Colonel Charles H. Olmstead had been reduced from 650 to 385 officers and men. They were organized into five infantry companies and had 48 canons, including ten columbiad
Columbiad
The Columbiad was a large caliber, smoothbore, muzzle loading cannon able to fire heavy projectiles at both high and low trajectories. This feature enabled the columbiad to fire solid shot or shell to long ranges, making it an excellent seacoast defense weapon for its day...
s, five mortars, and a 4.5 inches (114.3 mm) Blakely rifle. The Confederate Tybee Island battery had been previously dismantled and abandoned, and their guns relocated to the fort. The fort had been provisioned on January 28 with a six-months supply of food.
In consultation with Lee, Olmstead had distributed armament on the ramparts and in the casements to cover all approaches, and several were placed to cover westerly marshes and Savannah’s North Channel. Confederate marauders burned sea island cotton crops to deny them falling into Federal hands. Navigational aids like the Tybee Lighthouse were dismantled and burned. Reports from the field had Confederate troops setting fires to everything that might be used by advancing Federal troops.
Federal advance
In August 1861 Secretary of War Cameron had authorized a combined “Expeditionary Corps” of Army and Navy. Brigadier General Thomas W. Sherman commanded Army elements, and Flag Officer Samuel Du Pont commanded the Naval Services. The Union forces intended to recapture Fort Pulaski as federal property, to close the port of Savannah to the rebels, and to extend their blockade southward. First they needed a coaling station for the blockading South Atlantic SquadronUnion blockade
The Union Blockade, or the Blockade of the South, took place between 1861 and 1865, during the American Civil War, when the Union Navy maintained a strenuous effort on the Atlantic and Gulf Coast of the Confederate States of America designed to prevent the passage of trade goods, supplies, and arms...
. It then could serve as a base for the expedition. Fort Sumter would not be retaken until 1865, but the Battle of Port Royal
Battle of Port Royal
The Battle of Port Royal was one of the earliest amphibious operations of the American Civil War, in which a United States Navy fleet and United States Army expeditionary force captured Port Royal Sound, South Carolina, between Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina, on November 7, 1861...
answered the immediate requirement for a nearby staging area.
Blockade
| Union naval presence |
|---|
As the Union forces went about taking Port Royal, Commodore Josiah Tattnall
Josiah Tattnall
Commodore Josiah Tattnall, Jr. was an officer in the United States Navy during the War of 1812, the Second Barbary War, and the Mexican-American War. He later served in the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War....
, CSN, and his “mosquito fleet” mounted an active defense, harassing elements of the Union’s South Atlantic Squadron. Over the next few months, Tattnall, an experienced US Navy commander, trained and fought his Confederate squadron into a flexible task force for coastal, amphibious, resupply and riverine operations. With the approach of the Federal expedition on Port Royal, including fifteen warships under the command of Flag Officer Du Pont, the Confederate “Savannah River Squadron” sortied with gunships CSS Savannah
CSS Savannah (gunboat)
CSS Savannah, later called Old Savannah, was a gunboat in the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War.Savannah was formerly the steamer Everglade, built in 1856 at New York City. She was purchased early in 1861 by the State of Georgia and converted into a gunboat for coast defense...
(flag
Flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, reflecting the custom of its commander, characteristically a flag officer, flying a distinguishing flag...
), Sampson, Lady Davis and tender Resolute. These four along with the converted slaver-privateer Bonita, met eight of Du Pont’s fifteen US warships on November 5, and were “outgunned and outclassed”.
They withdrew overnight into Skull Creek, Georgia. The next day they sortied again. Under covering fires from Old Savannah engaging nearby heavy Union ships, the Sampson assisted in amphibious operations taking off numbers of the Port Royal garrison. Resolute, returning from delivering dispatches to the City of Savannah
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...
, evacuated the garrison at Fort Walker. She then landed at Pope’s Landing, Hilton Head Island, and spiked Confederate guns abandoned there. The Savannah landed a shore party of Marines to support Fort Beauregard under fire from Union warships, but the fort was lost before the reinforcements could arrive. The ship took off the garrison and returned to Savannah for repairs.
Contact
After building up facilities on Hilton Head IslandHilton Head Island, South Carolina
Hilton Head Island or Hilton Head is a resort town in Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States. It is north of Savannah, Georgia, and south of Charleston. The island gets its name from Captain William Hilton...
, the Federals began preparations for besieging Fort Pulaski. The Union expedition next captured Tybee Island
Tybee Island, Georgia
Tybee Island is an island and city in Chatham County, Georgia near the city of Savannah in the southeastern United States. It is the easternmost point in the state of Georgia. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 2,990. Tybee Island is an island and city in Chatham County, Georgia near...
.
| British blockade runner |
|---|
The Union advance on Fort Pulaski began on November 24, 1861. Following reconnaissance that Confederates had abandoned Tybee Island, Flag Officer Du Pont ordered forward an amphibious raid with three gunboats at the Tybee Island Lighthouse
Tybee Island Light Station
The Tybee Island Light, also known simply as the Tybee Lighthouse is located on Tybee Island, Georgia, east of Savannah at the mouth of the Savannah River...
. Under a two-hour ship’s bombardment, the Confederate pickets set fire to the lighthouse and withdrew. Commander Christopher Rodgers
Christopher Raymond Perry Rodgers
Christopher Raymond Perry Rodgers was an officer in the United States Navy. He served in the Mexican-American War, the American Civil War, as Superintendent of the Naval Academy, and Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Squadron.-Early career:Rodgers was born in Brooklyn, New York, into a naval family...
, USS Flag, led a landing party of sailors and Marines in thirteen surf-boats to occupy the Lighthouse and the Martello tower
Martello tower
Martello towers are small defensive forts built in several countries of the British Empire during the 19th century, from the time of the Napoleonic Wars onwards....
, and flew the national flag from them. Overnight, a reduced company set false campfires to misdirect the Confederates ashore. Two days later commanding Flag Officer Du Pont and General Thomas Sherman made a personal reconnaissance, and on 29 November, General Gillmore, the command’s chief engineering officer, with three companies of the Fourth New Hampshire, took formal possession of the entire island without opposition. The Navy set the logistics train in motion, and by December 20, the Army had sufficient materials for establishing “a permanent possession”.
The last blockade runner
Blockade runner
A blockade runner is usually a lighter weight ship used for evading a naval blockade of a port or strait, as opposed to confronting the blockaders to break the blockade. Very often blockade running is done in order to transport cargo, for example to bring food or arms to a blockaded city...
to make Savannah was the British steam ship Fingal. Its cargo of arms and munitions reached the entrance to Wassaw Sound at the mouth of the Savannah River on a clear night in mid November, but heavy fog in the early morning masked the ship’s progress across the bar and upriver. Later she made two unsuccessful attempts at escaping the blockade before being converted into an ironclad. Pulaski’s share on ship's manifest was two 24-pounder Blakely rifle
Blakely rifle
A Blakely rifle is one of a series of muzzle-loading rifled cannon design by British army officer, Captain Theophilus Alexander Blakely. They were widely sold outside of the British army, and were best known for their use by the Confederate States of America during the American Civil...
s and a large consignment of British-made Enfield infantry rifles
Pattern 1853 Enfield
The Enfield Pattern 1853 Rifle-Musket was a .577 calibre Minié-type muzzle-loading rifle-musket, used by the British Empire from 1853 to 1867, after which many Enfield 1853 Rifle-Muskets were converted to the cartridge-loaded Snider-Enfield rifle.-History &...
. As the Union Flag Officer Du Pont sought to close the alternative channels local ships used, he sank stone-filled ships in the Savannah River channel, and stationed gunboat
Gunboat
A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies.-History:...
s at two southerly estuaries, Warsaw Sound, south of Wilmington Island, and Ossabaw Sound at Skidaway Island.
On November 26 Tattnall’s flag, CSS "Old" Savannah
CSS Savannah (gunboat)
CSS Savannah, later called Old Savannah, was a gunboat in the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War.Savannah was formerly the steamer Everglade, built in 1856 at New York City. She was purchased early in 1861 by the State of Georgia and converted into a gunboat for coast defense...
in company with Resolute and Sampson sortied out from under Fort Pulaski’s guns in a “brave but brief” attack on the Union ships outside the bar, driving them out to sea. Tattnall’s squadron withdrew up the Savannah River for refit and two days later, the same three resupplied the Fort with six months provisions, despite “the spirited opposition of Federal ships”. "Old Savannah was partially disabled but returned to harbor. Sampson received considerable damage, returning to patrol the Savannah River only in mid-November the following year.
Siege
The U.S. siege plan would make military history. Quincy Adams GillmoreQuincy Adams Gillmore
Quincy Adams Gillmore was an American civil engineer, author, and a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He was noted for his actions in the Union victory at Fort Pulaski, where his modern rifled artillery readily pounded the fort's exterior stone walls, an action that...
was General Thomas Sherman’s chief engineering officer. His professional reading had followed the test records of the experimental rifled gun which the Army had begun testing in 1859.
Following a reconnaissance of the ground, he proposed the unconventional plan to reduce Fort Pulaski with mortars and rifled guns. Commanding General Thomas W. Sherman
Thomas W. Sherman
Thomas West Sherman was a United States Army officer with service during the Mexican-American War and the American Civil War....
approved the plan, but not the promise of the rifled guns. His endorsement was qualified, believing gunnery effect would be limited, "to shake the walls in a random manner." But the innovative weaponry in the event made his deployed 10,000-man assault force unnecessary. Of the two senior military commanders leading up to the engagement, neither Union General Thomas Sherman, nor Confederate General Robert E. Lee believed the fort could be captured by bombardment alone.
Approaches
Two sites for Federal batteries were selected upriver from the fort to cut it off from Savannah, just as Lee had anticipated. The first was at Point Venus at the east end of Jones Island along the north bank of the Savannah River North Channel. Confederate Commodore Josiah TattnallJosiah Tattnall
Commodore Josiah Tattnall, Jr. was an officer in the United States Navy during the War of 1812, the Second Barbary War, and the Mexican-American War. He later served in the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War....
had sunk a stone schooner to obstruct the northward channel connecting the river to the Union-held Port Royal, and he patrolled the river with Confederate gunboats. The Federals had to clear the obstruction on their most direct supply line first; it required three weeks. A camp and supply depot was established on the next island north, Dawfuskie Island.
Tattnall’s gunboats still commanded the lower river around Point Venus. As a part of Lee's active defense, the Confederate's Savannah River Squadron launched continuous patrols. Their naval gunnery required the work along the river by Union besiegers to be done at night. The Federal's guns had to be pulled by hand through swamp over moveable tram sections, the men working in brackish alligator-infested marsh, sinking in over their waist most of the day. The artillery then had to be placed on board-and-bag platforms to avoid their loss by sinking into the morass. The soldiers rested during the day.
By Lee's estimation, the fort could not be reduced by bombardment or direct assault, only by starvation. As long as supplies could be built up, they would be. The last Confederate supply ship to Fort Pulaski was the small workhorse steamboat
Steamboat
A steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels...
Ida. On February 13, it was on a routine run to the fort down the North Channel. The new battery of Federal heavy guns on the north bank opened up for the first time. The old side-wheeler ran for Pulaski and the battery got off nine shots before the guns recoiled off their platforms. Union troops went back to work modifying platform construction and resetting the cannon. Two days later Ida ran up the South Channel under the extinguished lighthouse and returned to Savannah through Tybee Creek.
| Confederate naval presence |
|---|
Once the Union battery at Venus Point was disclosed, Confederate gunboats engaged in gunnery duels, but they were driven off. Over the next week, the besiegers completely surrounded the Fort. Federals built another battery on the Savannah River across from Venus Point. They threw a boom
Boom barrier
A boom barrier is a bar, or pole pivoted in such a way as to allow the boom to block vehicular access through a controlled point. Typically the tip of a boom gate rises in a vertical arc to a near vertical position. Boom gates are often counterweighted, so the pole is easily tipped...
across Tybee Creek and cut the telegraph
Electrical telegraph
An electrical telegraph is a telegraph that uses electrical signals, usually conveyed via telecommunication lines or radio. The electromagnetic telegraph is a device for human-to-human transmission of coded text messages....
line between Savannah and Cockspur Island. Two infantry companies entrenched nearby to ward off Confederate raiders and a gunboat was detailed to patrol the channel and support the infantry. By late February 1862, no supplies or reinforcements could get in; the Confederate garrison could not get out. The last link of communications was a weekly swamp swimming courier.
At the end of February Tattnall laid plans for an amphibious assault on the two advanced batteries at Venus Point and Oakley Island. General Lee personally interceded. Preparations at Old Fort Jackson were not completed. Although Tattnall's flagship had been put back into service since the Squadron's January resupply sortie, one of the three gunboats was still seriously disabled. Lee reasoned that if Tattnall's plan failed, the city itself would be open to attack. The three-to-seven exchange had not gone well for the defenders of Savannah. A possible two-to-seven match against ships with superior armament did not promise better. No further consideration was given to relief of the Fort; in any case, it had perhaps sixteen weeks of provisions left in store. Meanwhile, Federal emplacements continued to improve on Jones and Bird islands, Venus Point and other points along the river. During the Federal bombardment of Fort Pulaski, April 10–11, “Old Savannah” participated in counter-battery fire with besieging Union guns.
Heavy caliber rifled cannons which the Federals needed to reduce Pulaski had arrived nearby in February, at which time Gillmore decided to locate the batteries at the northwestern tip of Tybee Island nearest the fort. By March, Gillmore was offloading siege materiel onto Tybee Island. Roads had to be laid down, gun emplacements excavated, magazines and bomb-proofs constructed. As the work progressed southwesterly nearing the Fort, in the last mile the Union troops came under fire from the Fort’s Confederate gunners. A ranging shot said to be aimed by Colonel Olmstead himself cut a Union soldier in two. The following bombardment from elevated fort guns effected mortar barrages that forced all construction to proceed on Tybee Island by night. Each morning the uncompleted elements of siege construction were camouflaged against the fort's spotters.
| Federal siege engineering |
|---|
To land the cannon onto Tybee Island, artillery pieces were taken off transports, set on rafts at high tide, and pitched into the surf near shore. At low tide, manpower alone would drag the guns up the beach. Two hundred and fifty men were required to move a 13-inch mortar along on a sling cart. Later Union amphibious operations would employ contraband labor for much of this work. Along the two-and-a-half mile front, their engineers had to construct almost a mile of corduroy road made of bundles of brushwood to keep the guns from sinking into the swamp. While offloading proceeded day and night according to the tides, Confederate bombardment from Fort Pulaski gunners required all Federal movement into the island limited to night time. After a month of work, 36 mortars and rifled cannons were in position.
The four breaching batteries closest to the fort were each given specific firing missions. Battery McClellan was to breach the southeast face, and the adjacent embrasure. Battery Totten was assigned to explode shells over the southeast walls, or at any hidden batteries outside the fort. Battery Scott with its columbiads' solid shot, was ordered to breach the same area as Battery McClellan. The fifth breaching battery was mortar Battery Halleck. It was given the task of shelling the arches of the northeast faces with plunging fire, "exploding after striking, not before".
Battery Sigel included the five 30-pounder Parrotts. Their mission was to fire on the barbette guns until silenced, then switch to percussion shells onto the southeast walls and adjacent embrasure, at a rate of 10-12 rounds an hour. Fire was to cease at dark, except for special directions. A signal officer was stationed at Battery Scott to communicate the ranging of the mortar batteries Stanton, Grant and Sherman.
Bombardment
| Surprise of the Parrott rifle |
|---|
Following prohibitive rain squall
Squall
A squall is a sudden, sharp increase in wind speed which is usually associated with active weather, such as rain showers, thunderstorms, or heavy snow. Squalls refer to an increase in the sustained winds over a short time interval, as there may be higher gusts during a squall event...
s on the ninth, all was ready for the Federals by April 10, and the newly appointed Commander of the Department, Major-General David Hunter, sent a demand for “immediate surrender and restoration of Fort Pulaski to the authority and possession of the United States.” Colonel Olmstead replied, “I am here to defend the fort, not to surrender it.” The bombardment began at 8:00 a.m., concentrating on the fort's southeast corner which suffered greatly. The Confederate gunnery was described by the Federal commander as “efficient and accurate firing ... great precision, not only at our batteries, but even at the individual persons passing between them.”
As the day wore on, counter-battery fires from Fort Pulaski were gradually silenced as their guns were either dismounted or rendered unserviceable. Two of the Federal 10-inch columbiads jumped backwards off their carriages. The 13-inch mortars placed less than 10% rounds on target. But Federal fires proved effective from Parrott Rifles, scraped Davis tubes and working columbiad guns. There ensued a lull from the Fort, but the Confederate gunners re-opened an energetic counter battery duel that required the Parrotts to give up their wall assignment and concentrate on the working Confederate guns until they were re-silenced. By nightfall the wall at the southeast corner had been breached. Under periodic harassing bombardment throughout the hours of darkness, Olmstead's garrison put several guns back into service.
Overnight, Du Pont’s flagship USS Wabash detached 100 crew to man four of the 30-pounder Parrott rifles. In the morning, with the wind picking up right to left and effecting shell projectory, the Union artillery resumed the bombardment, concentrating fires to enlarge the opening. The Georgia gunners again found targets, described in dispatches as Rebel “firing ... good all the morning, doing some damage”. At the same time, the Parrott rifles and Columbiads opened a great gap in the wall, sending shot across the interior of the fort and against the northwest powder magazine containing twenty tons of powder. Regarding his situation as hopeless, Olmstead surrendered the fort at 2:30 p.m. that day.
General Gillmore reported in his after-action assessment of the siege by his artillery, “Good rifled guns, properly served can breach rapidly” at 1600-2000 yards when they are followed by heavy round shot to knock down loosened masonry. The 42-pounder James is unexcelled in breaching, but its grooves must be kept clean. The 13-inch mortars had little effect. The new 30-Pounder Parrott Rifle
Parrott rifle
The Parrott rifle was a type of muzzle loading rifled artillery weapon used extensively in the American Civil War.-Parrott Rifle:The gun was invented by Robert Parker Parrott, a West Point graduate. He resigned from the service in 1836 and became the superintendent of the West Point Foundry in Cold...
had made a major impact on the battle. The rifled cannon fired significantly further with more accuracy and greater destructive impact than the smoothbores then in use. It's application achieved tactical surprise unanticipated by senior commanders of either side.
Military fallout
- Union: The port of SavannahSavannah, GeorgiaSavannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...
was closed to the Confederacy early, extending the Union blockadeUnion blockadeThe Union Blockade, or the Blockade of the South, took place between 1861 and 1865, during the American Civil War, when the Union Navy maintained a strenuous effort on the Atlantic and Gulf Coast of the Confederate States of America designed to prevent the passage of trade goods, supplies, and arms...
. Fort damage was repaired in six weeks; Confederates made no attempt to retake it. The Parrott RifleParrott rifleThe Parrott rifle was a type of muzzle loading rifled artillery weapon used extensively in the American Civil War.-Parrott Rifle:The gun was invented by Robert Parker Parrott, a West Point graduate. He resigned from the service in 1836 and became the superintendent of the West Point Foundry in Cold...
's technology made masonry fortifications obsolete, revolutionizing coastal defense as much as the Battle of the Monitor and MerrimacBattle of Hampton RoadsThe Battle of Hampton Roads, often referred to as either the Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack or the Battle of Ironclads, was the most noted and arguably most important naval battle of the American Civil War from the standpoint of the development of navies...
had for warships. The City of Savannah itself remained in Confederate hands until the arrival of Maj. Gen.Major general (United States)In the United States Army, United States Marine Corps, and United States Air Force, major general is a two-star general-officer rank, with the pay grade of O-8. Major general ranks above brigadier general and below lieutenant general...
William T. ShermanWilliam Tecumseh ShermanWilliam Tecumseh Sherman was an American soldier, businessman, educator and author. He served as a General in the Union Army during the American Civil War , for which he received recognition for his outstanding command of military strategy as well as criticism for the harshness of the "scorched...
in December 1864, Sherman's March to the SeaSherman's March to the SeaSherman's March to the Sea is the name commonly given to the Savannah Campaign conducted around Georgia from November 15, 1864 to December 21, 1864 by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army in the American Civil War...
.
- Confederate: Commodore Josiah TattnallJosiah TattnallCommodore Josiah Tattnall, Jr. was an officer in the United States Navy during the War of 1812, the Second Barbary War, and the Mexican-American War. He later served in the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War....
's efforts to break the Union blockade at Savannah extended the modern era armored warshipsIronclad warshipAn ironclad was a steam-propelled warship in the early part of the second half of the 19th century, protected by iron or steel armor plates. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells. The first ironclad battleship, La Gloire,...
with ironclads CSS AtlantaUSS Atlanta (1861)The first Atlanta was a casemate southern ironclad, converted from a Scottish-built blockade runner serving in the Confederate Navy. She was later captured in battle and then served in the Union Navy for the duration of the Civil War....
(1862) and CSS SavannahCSS Savannah (ironclad)CSS Savannah was a Richmond-class casemate ironclad in the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War.Savannah was built by H. F. Willink for the Confederacy at Savannah, Georgia in 1863. On June 30, 1863 she was transferred to naval forces in the Savannah River under the command of Flag...
(1863). To elaborate Savannah’s defenses, a torpedoTorpedoThe modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...
station was established under military command. Ironclad USS Montauk was struck by a torpedo while attacking Fort McAllister in 1863. Given shortages in marine engines, the Navy built floating battery CSS GeorgiaCSS Georgia (battery)CSS Georgia, also known as State of Georgia and Ladies' Ram, was an ironclad floating battery built at Savannah, Georgia in 1862–1863...
(1863). The new railroad allowed timely movement of troops and supplies to besieged CharlestonSecond Battle of Charleston HarborThe Second Battle of Charleston Harbor, also known as the Siege of Charleston Harbor, Siege of Fort Wagner, or Battle of Morris Island, took place during the American Civil War in the late summer of 1863 between a combined Union Army/Navy force and the Confederate defenses of Charleston, South...
throughout 1864.
Men of war
- Union: Gen. David HunterDavid HunterDavid Hunter was a Union general in the American Civil War. He achieved fame by his unauthorized 1862 order emancipating slaves in three Southern states and as the president of the military commission trying the conspirators involved with the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.-Early...
, issued his General Order Number Eleven, that all slaves in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina were free. President Lincoln quickly rescinded it, reserving this "supposed power" to his own discretion if it were indispensable to saving the Union. AbolitionAbolitionismAbolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
was to be outside the police functions of field commanders. Nevertheless, Pulaski became a terminal on the Underground RailroadUnderground RailroadThe Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...
, initiating freedman education and supplying many of 517 African-American Georgians serving in the US Navy 1862-1865.
- Confederate: In late 1864, 520 Confederate officer prisoners were transferred to Fort Pulaski. Fort‘s commander, Col. Philip P. Brown, Jr., restored food rations to starving Confederate prisoners following a medical inspection, but at least 55 died in their ordeal. These prisoners were the Confederacy's “Immortal Six HundredImmortal Six HundredIn 1864, the Confederate Army imprisoned 50 Union Army officers as human shields against federal artillery in the city of Charleston in an attempt to stop Union artillery from firing upon civilians in the city. In retaliation, United States Secretary of War Edwin M...
”.
Access today
See the "External Links" section below "References" to find directions, hours of operation, and descriptions of exhibits.- Fort Pulaski, is located at on a barrier island near Savannah, Georgia. It is open to the public today as the Fort Pulaski National MonumentFort Pulaski National MonumentFort Pulaski National Monument is located between Savannah and Tybee Island, Georgia. It preserves Fort Pulaski, notable as the place where, during the American Civil War, in 1862, the Union Army successfully tested a rifled cannon. The success of the test rendered brick fortifications obsolete....
and museum. It is a "Third System" fort in the U.S. system of coastal defense. The "scientifically designed" fort construction was supervised by Robert E. LeeRobert E. LeeRobert Edward Lee was a career military officer who is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War....
and the Fort's 112- day defense in depth was put in place under his command. Construction of Third System forts was directed under Secretaries of War William H. CrawfordWilliam H. CrawfordWilliam Harris Crawford was an American politician and judge during the early 19th century. He served as United States Secretary of War from 1815 to 1816 and United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1816 to 1825, and was a candidate for President of the United States in 1824.-Political...
of Georgia, and John CalhounJohn CalhounJohn Calhoun may refer to:*John C. Calhoun, seventh Vice President of the United States, U.S. Senator*John Calhoun , American computer programmer*John B...
of South Carolina.
- Old Fort (James) JacksonFort James JacksonFort James Jackson is a restored nineteenth-century fort located one mile east of Savannah, Georgia, on the Savannah River. It hosts the Fort Jackson Maritime Museum....
, is located in the City of Savannah. It is a "Second System" fort and museum, including American RevolutionAmerican RevolutionThe American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
, War of 1812War of 1812The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...
, and Civil WarAmerican Civil WarThe American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
history. The Second System of forts was begun under the administration of Thomas JeffersonThomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
. It is maintained by the Coastal Heritage Society.
- Fort McAllister, a Confederate earthenworks that defeated Union Monitor attacks six times, is preserved as the Fort McAllister Historic ParkFort McAllister Historic ParkFort McAllister Historic Park is a Georgia state park located near Keller and Richmond Hill in South Bryan County, Georgia and on the south bank of the Ogeechee River . The park is home to the best preserved earthwork fortification of the Confederacy...
, a Georgia State Park located just south of Savannah. It was begun under President Jefferson DavisJefferson DavisJefferson Finis Davis , also known as Jeff Davis, was an American statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as President for its entire history. He was born in Kentucky to Samuel and Jane Davis...
, with Secretary of War Judah P. BenjaminJudah P. BenjaminJudah Philip Benjamin was an American politician and lawyer. Born a British subject in the West Indies, he moved to the United States with his parents and became a citizen. He later became a citizen of the Confederate States of America. After the collapse of the Confederacy, Benjamin moved to...
of South Carolina.
External links
- Fort Pulaski Savannah, Georgia. National Park Service. School visits are generally free. See “For Teachers”. NPS Suggested reading
- Cockspur Island Light, Savannah, Georgia, Fort Pulaski National Park. Marks seaward approach to North Channel and South Channel, Savannah River.
- Tybee island light station, Savannah, Georgia, active Coast Guard with museum. Third Lighthouse.
- “Old Fort Jackson”, Fort James Jackson, Savannah, Georgia. Coastal Heritage Society.
- CSS Georgia. Floating gun battery off Old Fort Jackson. Army Corps of Engineers.
- Ironclads and gunboats of the Savannah River Squadron. Squadron headquartered at Old Fort Jackson. Background for historical marker.
- Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum. Ships models for Atlantic trade, 1700s and 1800s. descriptive listing by Nautical Research Guild.
- The Historic Railroad Shops and roundtable, Savannah, Georgia
- Fort McAllister, Richmond Hill, Georgia State Park. “Our Georgia History” recounts engagements with Union blockade, four in 1862, four in 1863, blockade runners, Sherman in 1864.
- St. Simons Island Light, Brunswick, Georgia, active Coast Guard with museum.
Further reading
Archives- Gillmore, Q. A., Official report ... of the siege and reduction of Fort Pulaski, Georgia, March and April, 1862.
by Brig.-Gen. Q.A. Gillmore, Captain of Engineers, U.S.A., to the United States Engineer Department, 1862, D.Van Nostrand, NY. - A compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, volume 12, Cornell University, Making of America.
- The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, vol. 6 chap. 15, Operations on the Coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Middle and East Florida, Aug 21, 1861-Apr 11, 1862. vol. 44, Vol. 14, Chap. 26. Government Printing Office. Cornell Univeristy, Making of America.
- Davis, George B., Leslie J. Perry, and Joseph W. Kirkley 1894 Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Originally published in 1891, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.
- Dyer, Frederick Henry, compiler, 1979 A A compendium of the War of the Rebellion, Compiled and Arranged from Official Records of the Federal and Confederate Armies, Reports of the ... Several States, the Army Registers, and Other ... Two Volumes. National Historical Society with the Press of Morningside Bookshop, Dayton, Ohio. Originally published in 1908.
Memoirs and Biography
United States
- Gillmore, Quincy A. "The Siege and Reduction of Fort Pulaski" (1863) ISBN 0-93963-107-5
- Porter, David D., “The Naval History of the Civil War”
- Weddle, Kevin J., "Lincoln's Tragic Admiral: The Life of Samuel Francis Du Pont" Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 2005. ISBN 978-0813-92332-1
Confederate States
- Jones, Charles C., Jr. The life and services of Commodore Josiah Tattnall 1878. Morning News steam printing house, Savannah.
- Jones, Charles C. , Jr., “Military lessons inculcated on the Coast of Georgia during the Confederate War” an address before the Confederate survivors’ association, Augusta Georgia, April 26, 1883. by Col. Charles C. Jones, Jr., pres. of the association.
- Olmstead, Charles H., “The Memoirs of Charles H. Olmstead”. Hawes, Lillian, editor 1964 Collections of the Georgia Historical Society 14.
Monographs
- Jones, Jacqueline. “Saving Savannah: The City and the Civil War” (2009) ISBN 1400042933
- Schiller, Herbert M., “Sumter is avenged: the siege and reduction of Fort Pulaski”, 1995. White Mane Pub. ISBN 978-0942-59786-8
- Tomblin, Barbara Brooks. Bluejackets and Contrabands: African Americans in the Union Navy, 2009. U of Ky Pr. ISBN 978-0-8131-2554-1
- Wilson, Harold S. “Confederate Industry: Manufacturers and Quartermasters in the Civil War” 2002, ISBN 1-57806-462-7
- Erickson, Ansley. | “War for Freedom: African-American Experiences in the Era of the Civil War, a web-based curriculum.” National Parks Service. Pdf file created 2007. “Best practices” lesson plan, site supports student handouts. Though omitting primary and secondary sources (scan is truncated), generally meets requirements of the US Department of Education “Teaching American History” grant and teacher’s National Board Certification.