Civil War at Fort Pulaski: bam! - a photo on Flickriver

Days before Georgia seceded from the United States and joined the Confederacy, the state seized the federal fortification of Fort Pulaski on Cockspur Island near Savannah. Unfortunately for the Confederacy, it then did not support the surrounding ground because it thought Tybee Island was too remote, a waste of resources for what it deemed to be an impenetrable fort. The Civil War would quickly test those military assumptions. The United States thought of Fort Pulaski in terms of a bigger picture–Southern supply chain, military logistics, and economic bottleneck. Controlling traffic of the Southern port city of Savannah was very important to the overall war effort.

The United States military took advantage of the blind eye of the Confederacy's military command. First came the U.S. Navy, blockading the Savannah River for a 112-day siege of the fort. But that was not enough. The U.S. Army built up troops and batteries by night at Tybee Island, hidden, on Fort Pulaski's facing shore of the Savannah River.

On April 10, 1862, U.S. troops struck out. Rolling back their camouflage, they bombarded Confederate-occupied Fort Pulaski and won. The Confederate commander unconditionally surrendered, noting his isolation from any Confederate backup and that a breached wall exposed his entire garrison to the possibility of a catastrophic explosion from the ammunition storage area. He stated:

"We were absolutely isolated beyond any possibility of help from the Confederate authorities, and I did not feel warranted in exposing the garrison to the hazard of the blowing up of our main magazine -- a danger which had just been proved well within the limits of probability."†

The reclaimed fort would remain under U.S. control for the remainder of the Civil War.

The Confederacy did not emphasize the loss of Fort Pulaski because of clearer tactics, strategy, or supply logistics employed by their foe that capitalized on the Confederate military's blindspots but rather because of the Union's state-of-the-art technology that Confederate commanders did not anticipate to be used against their impenetrable fort, i.e. new rifled-bore cannons of the Union shot further and more accurately than traditional smooth-bore cannons. The new cannon fire could now reach the fort from the opposite shore to bring down its walls.

Wikipedia observes the strategic loss for the Confederacy and the strategic gain of Fort Pulaski for the United States: "all shipping into and out of Savannah ceased. The loss of Savannah as a viable Confederate port crippled its war effort."

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†Source– Wikipedia: Quote from Colonel Charles H. Olmstead, commander of Fort Pulaski's Confederate garrison, Fort Pulaski brochure, National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior

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Taken in: United States / Georgia / Lazaretto (historical) (show map)

Taken on: February 24, 2024

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Camera: Nikon Z 8, f/8.0, 1/160 sec, 14mm, ISO 64 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon Z 8
Lens:	NIKKOR Z 14-30mm f/4 S
Aperture:	f/8.0
Exposure Time:	0.006 sec (1/160)
Focal Length:	14mm
ISO:	64
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 13.2 (Macintosh)
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