Fort Pulak History

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Imagine a place where ghost roam the city streets at night and every corner to turn may be haunted. This is a perfect definition of the city of Savanna, Georgia. Savannah is located on the eastern coast of Georgia. There are many important buildings in Savannah including Fort Pulaski, The Pirates House, and Colonial Park Cemetery, which are symbolic to Savannahs history. Savannah is considered the oldest city in Georgia. In 1733, General James Oglethorpe, landed on a high bluff along the Savannah River called Yamacraw Bluff by the local Creek Indians. The Yamacraw Indians were very important in the success of Savannah. Because of them, the town flourished without the warfare and hardship suffered by so many of the other colonies. Oglethorpe …show more content…

Fort Pulaski was finished in 1847. They could mount a total of 146 cannons in the fort, and the walls were 7.5 feet thick. In 1861 state forces occupied Pulaski to keep union troops from occupying it. During this time the condition of the fort had deteriorated greatly. When Colonel Charles H. Olmstead took control of Pulaski in December 1861 its defenses had improved dramatically. In January 1862 the union commander in the district, General William T. Sherman, decided to take the fort. He ordered troops to Tybee Island and constructed defenses on the smaller islands to cut the fort from reinforcements. Sherman then placed Captain Quincy Gillmore of the Engineer Corps in charge of the attack preparations on Tybee, despite comments like "you might as well bombard the Rocky Mountains. Gillmore ordered his engineers to build eleven artillery batteries along the north shore of Tybee Island. Once the batteries were built, the troops had to pull, artillery pieces weighing as much as 17,000 pounds and then get them into position. By April 9, Gillmore had twenty cannons and fourteen mortars in place to invade Fort Pulaski. The invasion began at 8:15 a.m. with the Federal guns maintaining a steady fire all day. On April 11, the Union invasion created two thirty-foot holes in the southeast wall of Pulaski. Soon, more shells were passing through the wall and hitting the interior of the fort. Olmstead decided to surrender the fort when the firing came very close to one of the main powder magazines (“Fort

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