Quote:
Originally Posted by Honu
My parents own a place on Isle of Palms, S.C. ......Fort Moultry is on the end of the island and you can see Fort Sumter from there, I have been to Moultry alot and it still gives me chicken skins, you can feel the history.
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been to moultrie and sumter, as well as jackson and pulaski (all last summer)outside of savannah. moultrie was really neat, since it's in such good shape. of the four, the most interesting imo is pulaski. it was a state of the art fort when built, but they soon came out with rifled cannon. when they finished emplacing guns about a mile off from the fort (pulaski is surrounded by swamps, and was 'impregnable' vs the guns made at the time) they sent a message to the fort. you have til daylight to surrender, or firing will commence. the sneering reply was pretty much have at it, you can't do anything.
12 hours after shelling began they surrendered. a couple more shots, and the fully exposed powder magazine would have gone up. every side of the fort is still perfectly intact-except for the one section they pounded. there are still sabots stuck in the wall. amazing stuff, rifled cannon.
taking fort pulaski ended savannah as a viable port. the city was left pretty much alone, with the city elders giving the key to sherman after the defending army scampered out of town.