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    Fort McAllister
    Fort McAllister
    Fort McAllister
    Ebook189 pages40 minutes

    Fort McAllister

    By Roger S. Durham

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Many earthen fortifications defended the city of Savannah and its numerous water approaches after the Civil War broke out. One of these defenses, Fort McAllister, protected the entrance to the Ogeechee River and the strategic railroad and highway bridges upstream. From November 1862 to March 1863 the U.S. Navy bombarded the fort seven different times without success. The fort finally fell to General Sherman in December 1864; ironically, the final threat the fort faced was not from an enemy trying to get up the river, but from one trying to get down the river to the sea. In the 1920s auto magnate Henry Ford renovated the fort and focused new attention on its history. In 1960 the State of Georgia built on Ford's work and opened the fort as a State Historic Site to mark the centennial of the Civil War. Today visitors can quietly wander the massive, earthen walls and gun positions, gaze across the wide river and expansive marshes, and ponder the thundering, blazing reality that once played on this ground.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 29, 2004
    ISBN9781439612736
    Fort McAllister
    Author

    Roger S. Durham

    Author Roger S. Durham was sent to Savannah when he was in the U.S. Army in 1969. During this time, he visited Fort McAllister and became intrigued with its history. Nine years later, while employed by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, he returned to the fort as superintendent of the historic site. Durham has written extensively for magazines and newspapers, and he has published several books about Savannah and Fort McAllister�s history.

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      Book preview

      Fort McAllister - Roger S. Durham

      Leaders

      INTRODUCTION

      Fort McAllister was only one of many large, earthen fortifications built around Savannah, Georgia, during the Civil War. The threat initially came from the sea, so efforts were made to defend navigable waterways and entrances. Many of these forts and batteries were never tested, and some were abandoned after they had been built; however, Fort McAllister attracted a lot of attention from the Union because of its location. Situated at the mouth of the Ogeechee River, the fort controlled access to the river and protected important railroad and highway bridges that crossed upstream, as well as the numerous planters living on the river. The railroad bridge was an important link to Georgia’s southwest interior, and the highway bridge gave access to Savannah’s back door. Another attraction that came along in the summer of 1862 was the blockade runner Nashville, which sought protection behind the guns of the fort but was bottled up in the river by the vigilant gunboats of the U.S. Navy.

      In April 1862, Fort Pulaski—at the mouth of the Savannah River—was captured by Federal forces. A massive brick fort, it was felt to be impregnable, but newly developed rifled cannon turned the masonry walls into rubble. With Pulaski’s fall, the question on the minds of Southerners was, If this modern fort could not stand against these new guns, how could the many sand forts and batteries be expected to stand? Fort McAllister provided the answer.

      Throughout late 1862, U.S. Navy gunboats attacked the fort on several occasions, without result. In early 1863, the navy brought to bear four new ironclad Monitors armed with the largest and heaviest ordnance available at the time. These ironclads were tested against Fort McAllister before being sent against Charleston. The last attack, on March 3, 1863, pitted three new Monitors and supporting gunboats against the fort for seven hours without success. Being made of sand, all the damage the fort sustained could simply be shoveled back into place—it was easier to shovel sand back into place than a pile of broken brick. At Fort McAllister, the South showed that the era of masonry forts was gone, and sand and earth would be the new method of defense against rifled cannon and heavy artillery. The only success the U.S. Navy saw at Fort McAllister was in the destruction of the blockade-runner Nashville, which allowed itself to be exposed to the Federal guns on the ironclad Montauk.

      For a year and a half, this the fort was left unmolested, but in late 1864, a new threat appeared from the western interior of the state, as Gen. William T. Sherman’s army marched through the state from Atlanta. When they arrived outside Savannah, they needed to open a water route to a fleet waiting to supply Sherman’s forces. On December 13, 1864, he sent a division of infantry against Fort McAllister. In spite of all the efforts made by the 150-man garrison to withstand the attack, it was overwhelmed by a mass assault made by over 3,500 Union soldiers. With the fall of the fort, the Ogeechee River was opened, Sherman had his supply route, and Savannah was doomed, being evacuated by Confederate forces a week later.

      The fort was abandoned and forgotten after the war ended. However, in 1927, Henry Ford purchased the property as part of land holdings he put together to establish a winter residence on coastal Georgia. He renovated the fort in 1935-1936; however, upon his death in 1947, the fort deteriorated again. In 1960, the State of Georgia acquired the property and renovated the site as part of its Civil War Centennial observance.

      The historical events that occurred at Fort McAllister are beyond living memory, although numerous written narratives exist whose words allow us to paint a mental picture of these events. However, we are fortunate that photography was just coming of age when the Civil War began, and images of the fort as it appeared in 1864 still exist, providing us with a window to another time. This book explores those images, as we look back to see what those who lived that reality actually saw. These photos also provide us with the only known images of Sherman’s soldiers in the field, at the end of his March to the Sea. They also provide us with a baseline by which to

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