Siege of Fort Pulaski
Cockspur Island, near Savannah, Georgia, USA
What happened
Union forces under David Hunter and Quincy A. Gillmore, with ships under Samuel F. Du Pont, besieged the Confederate garrison of Colonel Charles H. Olmstead. Union guns on Tybee Island fired on Fort Pulaski for about 30 hours using new rifled cannons. The shots broke through a corner of the fort's thick brick walls. Olmstead judged his position hopeless and surrendered.
Why it matters
The new rifled guns showed that heavy brick and stone forts could no longer stop modern cannon. The fall of the fort closed Savannah as a port and extended the Union blockade.
What came next
The Confederates never tried to retake the fort, and after the war its fall was used as a reason to stop building new brick forts. On 16 April 1862, Hunter's General Order No. 7 declared all enslaved people at the fort and on Cockspur Island free.
Did you know?
Before the war, an army engineer reportedly said that bombarding the fort was like trying to 'bombard the Rocky Mountains'.
Timeline
- 10 Apr 1862The Union bombardment begins after Olmstead refuses to surrender.
- 11 Apr 1862Fort Pulaski surrenders.
- 16 Apr 1862General Order No. 7 frees enslaved people at the fort.
- Dec 1864Savannah falls to Sherman's March to the Sea.