Civil War Coastal Fortress and Confederate Prison Site
41 Cockspur Island Rd, Savannah, GA 31410
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
$10 per person 16+, valid 7 days; National Park passes accepted
Access
Wheelchair OK
Mostly paved with some uneven masonry; ramps to lower fort levels
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1847 · Civil War Battlefield · First Rifled-Artillery Breach · Third System Coastal Fortification · Confederate POW Site
Fort Pulaski was authorized by Congress in 1816 as part of the Third System of coastal fortifications built after the War of 1812. Construction began in 1829 under the direction of Major General Babcock and, briefly, a young second lieutenant named Robert E. Lee, then assigned to the Corps of Engineers. The fort was completed in 1847 at a cost of about a million dollars and named for Casimir Pulaski, the Polish-born Continental cavalry officer killed during the 1779 Siege of Savannah.
Georgia state troops seized the unfinished defenses in January 1861, before secession was complete, and the fort entered Confederate service. On April 10-11, 1862, Union forces under Captain Quincy A. Gillmore opened fire from batteries on Tybee Island, more than a mile away. Their rifled cannon, a then-novel weapon, breached the fort's seven-and-a-half-foot brick walls within thirty hours and forced the surrender of the Confederate garrison. Coastal masonry fortifications worldwide became effectively obsolete in the same engagement.
From October 1864 through March 1865 the fort served as a Confederate POW camp. Roughly 520 Confederate officers, a portion of the group later known as the Immortal Six Hundred, were held in retaliation for reported Union prisoner conditions. The captives endured a cold winter on rations sometimes restricted to soured cornmeal and pickles. At least thirteen died of disease or scurvy in the casemates.
The fort was decommissioned after the Civil War and proclaimed a National Monument in 1924. The site is administered by the National Park Service, with the visitor center in the original fort and grounds open daily except Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Sources
The fort itself, in the words of NPS staff repeated in regional travel coverage, has no official ghost stories. The institution has been deliberate about not promoting paranormal claims attached to a site whose interpretive program centers on documented military history and the suffering of Civil War prisoners.
Visitor reports collected on travel and ghost-tour websites describe phenomena consistent with the fort's documented history. People report hearing what sound like cannon discharges or distant gunfire on quiet days. The cry of a child has been described in the area near the parade ground. Travelers writing about evening visits, when they could be arranged, have described shadowy figures glimpsed at the corner of the eye in the casemate corridors that housed the Six Hundred.
A separate strand of folklore concerns a 1863 baseball game played on the fort's parade ground, sometimes cited as one of the earliest organized games in Georgia. Witnesses have reported the crack of a bat and the sound of men cheering, attributed retrospectively to that game, though no contemporary investigation has corroborated the report.
The substantive material at Fort Pulaski is the verifiable history. The legends, where they exist, sit in the visitor record rather than on park signage.
Notable Entities
Walk the casemates, parade ground, and ramparts of the brick fort that fell in 1862 when Union rifled artillery breached its walls in 30 hours. Interpretive panels cover the Confederate POW imprisonment of the Immortal Six Hundred during the winter of 1864-65.
Park ranger walks the fort with focus on its 1862 siege, the introduction of rifled artillery as a weapon that obsoleted masonry coastal forts, and the use of the fort as a Confederate POW prison.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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Fort Pulaski is a brick coastal fort on Cockspur Island at the mouth of the Savannah River, constructed between 1829 and 1847. The April 1862 Union bombardment with new rifled cannon breached the fort's masonry walls in 30 hours, demonstrating that masonry forts had become obsolete. In late 1864 the fort held the Immortal Six Hundred, Confederate officers held in retaliation; thirteen died on the island.
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