One island's story

Today we drove east 2 miles short of Tybee Island, to Fort Pulaski on Cockspur Island, which sits between the now unused south, and very much used north, channels of the Savannah River Inlet. Every day many huge container ships sail in to and out of Savannah Harbor. We can see the tall, well lit cranes working all night long from our parking spot in Port Wentworth, about a mile north of us.

Fort Pulaski was not the first on Cockspur Island.  Both the revolution and the War of 1812 saw British Troops overwhelm American garrisons in log and earth  forts here.  But the island was really only a very low marsh then.  In 1829 a young army engineer, Lieutenant Robert E Lee, arrived and designed an efficient 3 mile long dike and canal drainage system to create a solid island under what would become Fort Pulaski. 

The fort was named for the Polish hero who fought for freedom for America when he had to leave Poland after it lost its own independence. He died here in the siege of Savannah leading a new American Cavalry.

By 1861 Fort Pulaski was thought to be one of the most impregnable structures on the American coast.  It would have been, if new technology had not just been developed in the art of artillery. The rifled cannon and shell.  No more would you have to shoot round balls, shot, at short ranges. 

Now you could accurately fire a massive exploding shell well placed at up to 3 miles, and by the end of the Civil War, over 8.  Too far to be even practicable until artillery spotters were developed in World War 1 to be able to place artillery fire over the horizon.

But the history of Cockspur Island is not only one of war and the military.  It was here that John Wesley, the future founder of the new method of practicing Anglican faith his detractors would eventually call ‘Methodism’, first arrived and preached his first American sermon. He quickly left this mostly deserted place and settled in Savannah, but spent much of his year and a half in the colony among the Indians and the poor, out of town.

It was near the site where Wesley arrived that the army built a sizable working camp and village.  The New England granite dock still remains, though choked with sand and river muck now.  Once this was home to a constantly changing list  of ships bringing brick, stone and men and women to this once deserted island.

We walked the trail out to the North Dock then found our hunger pangs took us to the picnic area on the island west of the fort. A quiet and beautiful park under tall pine trees.

April 12, 1861. Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, about 100 miles north of Savannah, is fired on by the Confederate batteries surrounding her. Fort Pulaski is surrendered without a shot being fired.  Civil War has begun.

Commander of all the American Armies, Winfield Scott, has come up with a Lincoln approved plan to blockade the entire southern coast and take the Mississippi River as well, throttling the new Confederacy with an inability to be supplied food and arms. Newspapers call this ‘The Anaconda Plan’.  The strangulation begins with the barrier islands along the Atlantic coast.

Tybee Island, today known for its natural beaches and Gulf Stream warmed surf, was the first taken by the Navy, Marines, and Army. Cockspur was next in line on the Savannah River.

Between the two was a lighthouse on a small rocky sand bar. The Cockspur light had already withstood one hurricane.  Now it would withstand a storm of human making.

I walked the lighthouse trail out to the now unlit light and could literally feel the shells flying overhead from the 11 batteries on Tybee Island and the topmost guns on the fort (the casemate guns on the first level of Fort Pulaski were too low to fire effectively except at close range).

But the Confederate guns were not rifled.  They fired round shot.  And none of them could even land their shells even half the distance to the Union guns.  In 30 hours one entire corner of the ‘impregnable’ fort was demolished.  The fort had to be surrendered. And solid wall forts would never be considered impregnable again.

Fort Pulaski remained a union base of operations for any moves against coastal Georgia throughout the war but its purpose was really to just keep the Rebel blockade runners from using Savannah at all. It did that just by existing at this narrow channel of the river. No shot has ever been fired in anger off this island since.

In the 1930’s President Roosevelt ordered the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to turn Cockspur Island into a National Monument. I asked a park ranger today if much of their restoration work had to be redone in light of more recent archeological information about the site.  He said, “Not much at all.  They did a remarkably good job preparing this site to be studied by historians and seen by the general public.” 

We left the island as the sun was beginning to gloriously drop to the horizon.  Not too late to stop to wash our laundry, though! That done we went due west into downtown Savannah, one easy town to get into and out of.

We parked on the ballast stones of 18^th century trading ships, which form the roadway ramps that lead down the Savannah bluff to River Street. This is where the action was when sailing ships and steamers lined these shores, and where the tourist action and many restaurants are today.

A 60 degree November evening along Savannah’s riverfront is a pleasant way to end any evening.

Pics in full on my Facebook page!

-Ken