Fort Pulaski, Ga.

Ah, the best laid plans.....Fort Pulaski was to be the impenetrable fortress, until someone thought about rifled barrels for artillery pieces. What took 18 years to construct was literally obliterated in 30 hours of Union shelling from Tybee island during the Civil War. In 1842, when construction was started on Fort Pulaski, rifled canon were unheard of. By the standards of the day, Pulaski would have been impregnable. The Union Army bombarded Pulaski with 36 canon from Tybee Island causing little or no damage but for the one experimental canon with a rifled barrel. This new canon was able to breach the southeast angle and expose the powder magazine to Union artillery. One round into the magazine would have obliterated the fort and killed all stationed there. The fort was surrendered with only the wounding of three Confederate soldiers. The Union Army suffered one fatality.

The fort was garrisoned until 1885. It lay in disrepair and was returning to the elements until 1933 when work began to restore it back to it's historical importance. Although much of the fort has been rebuilt it is easy to see the magnificent workmanship that went into the original structure. The fort sits on wooden pilings driven 70 feet into the mud. The stabiltiy of the fort still shows today as there are no cracks caused by settling. The vaulted arches of the powder magazines in the Demilune are still in perfect condition.

The destruction of Pulaski by rifled artillery rendered the masonary fort obsolete.



Tomorrow morning we pull up stakes and head for Gainesville Ga. and a weekend of racing at Road Atlanta. This event marks SVRA's finale for 2007 and we will once again be free agents until the Sebring 12 Hours of Endurance in March of 2008.

addendum: Drove into Savannah tonight to eat at one of our favourite eateries....The Conch House. It was closed for renovations.....arrrgh. Had to eat at our second favourite place, 'Fiddlers Crab House'. After 18 raw oysters, 12 oysters Rockefellow and some crab stew. it was hard to remember our intitial goal was to get some craked conch at the Conch House...oh well.