The siege of Fort Pulaski (or the siege and reduction of Fort Pulaski) concluded with the battle of Fort Pulaski 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 siege and battle are 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, South Carolina.
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. The city 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.Savannah boasted a roundhouse repair facility. Three railroads at the time of the Civil War were (1) Central of Georgia Railroad, 1843, to cotton center of the state: Macon and Milledgeville; (2) Savannah, Albany and Gulf Railroad to the south central part of Georgia; and (3) the Savannah Charleston Railroad in 1860 (later the "Charleston Savannah Railway"). The value of 38 manufacturing establishments of all kinds totaled near $1 million, more than any other county in the state. CSS Georgia: Archival Study Swanson, Mark and Robert Holcombe. January 31, 2007, p.13 Two southerly estuaries led to the Savannah River behind the fort. Immediately east of Pulaski, and in sight of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, lay Tybee Island with a lighthouse station.
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 Madison 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 C. 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.National Park Service. General History of Fort Pulaski. Viewed 11/10/2011.
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, Southerners threatened to secede from the United States if Abraham Lincoln was 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, when South Carolina militia bombarded Fort Sumter, South Carolina, just north along the Atlantic Coast from Fort Pulaski.
"Department of Georgia"
On January 3, 1861, 16 days before the secession of Georgia from the Union, 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, Brigadier 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", headquartering in Savannah. He had helped construct the fort in his early military career and was familiar with the terrain and tides.
Lawton's October report for his department listed 2,753 men and officers in the environs of Savannah, almost half of the command., excerpts. 379 men and officers were assigned to Fort Pulaski, another 1,183 on Tybee Island, 658 on Skidaway Island, and 533 in Savannah's camps. 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.Archaeological Reconnaissance at the Drudi Tract, Tybee Island, Chatham County, Georgia . LAMAR Institute Publication Series, 127, By Daniel T. Elliott., Savannah, Georgia, 2008, p.14. Troops under the command of William Duncan Smith. Col. Olmstead would later command this regiment in the Army of Tennessee after service with his volunteers in the defense of Charleston, 1863. The Regiment was reassigned to Virginia, departing July 17, 1861.On orders to proceed to Virginia by the Confederate government, General Lawson directed the 1st Georgia Regulars to make transit regardless of protests from the Governor of Georgia. Two 8-inch columbiads from their Tybee Island battery were dismounted and relocated into Fort Pulaski. Olmstead's "First Volunteer Regiment of Georgia"The pre-Civil War militia designation was used by the unit, officially Georgia's Ninth Volunteer Regiment. would garrison Fort Pulaski through the Federal siege.Elliott, op.cit.
Fort Pulaski was considered invincible with its 7-1/2-foot solid brick walls and reinforcing masonry piers. 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.Lattimore, Ralston B., “Fort Pulaski National Monument, Georgia, Historical Handbook Number Eighteen 1954 (reprint 1961). Beyond , smoothbore guns and mortars had little chance to break through heavy masonry walls. Beyond , they had no chance at all. Prior to the war, the U.S. Chief of Engineers, Colonel Joseph Gilbert Totten is quoted as saying of the fort, "you might as well bombard the Rocky Mountains."Lattimore, Ralston B., op.cit. If there were ever to be a successful siege, it would have to starve the garrison into submission.*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.
Defense in depth When Federal forces first made a lodgment on Tybee Island, the work on Fort Pulaski was progressing slowly, but Lee's judgment as the district's commanding general was that "the river cannot be forced".Lee's strategic considerations are outlined in his official correspondence as commanding officer of the department from Savannah on November 29 and December 20 to Confederate Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin, January 29, to General Samuel Cooper, March 1 to General James H. Trapier, and March 3 to General Alexander Lawton. Old Fort Jackson had been armed, strengthened and "forms an interior barrier". Savannah's channel had been blocked. In December, Lee reasoned that, 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, ships were sunk by the Confederates in the water approaches that led behind Fort Pulaski.Official Records, Armies, Chapter XV. Operations on the Coasts of South Carolina, Georgia and middle and east Florida. August 21, 1861 – April 11, 1862. Correspondence, etc. – Confederate. November 29 on p. 32, December 20 on p. 42.
Lee brought Commodore Josiah Tattnall from a James River command and would employ sailors to 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.Fort Pulaski – National Monument, National Park Service Historical Handbook Series, “General Lee Returns to Fort Pulaski” (1961).
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.Official Records, Armies, op.cit. Chap. XV. p. 85, January 29, 1862
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.Official Records, Armies, op.cit. Chap. XV. March 1, 1862. p. 403
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.Official Records, Armies, op.cit. Chap. XV. March 3, 1862, p. 34