Forts! Forts! Forts!

Before we left Savannah, we went out to Fort Pulaski Ntl. Monument. Robert E Lee engineered the fort & set up the drainage system in 1829. In 1847 it was completed with the help of many slaves. It had 71/2 thick walls.

In 1861, 150 men from Georgia took the fort with the beginning of war. In 1862, Union ships closed off Savannah Harbor. 11 batteries were erected on neighboring Tybee Island. Heavy shelling for 10 hours by the Union army destroyed one end of the Fort where the magazines were. The Commander of the Fort knew if the magazines were hit it would kill his troops & destroy the fort. The Confederates surrendered

Underground passages were added in 1869 to the magazines.

The quartermaster room

Officers quarters for sleeping

Officers dining quarters.

Steve on the ramparts

The fort served as a prison through the end of the war.

Notice the moat. The fort was made a Ntl. Monument. In 1933 restoration began.

We saw the Tybee Island lighthouse.

This may be the rectory.

This is the Church of the Cross. Constructed around 1857

We headed down to Hilton Head to see the Harbour Town Lighthouse & the Hilton Head Coastal Discovery Museum. We couldn't see the Lighthouse because they didn't allow RV's.

We had a picnic lunch at the Museum.

This is a sea turtle skeleton

This was a prehistoric Horseshoe crab.

Here is a living turtle.

Look closely at the butterflies flitting around in the Butterfly House.

All the black areas were the little larvae which precede the catterpillers.

These are the caterpillars

These are where the butterflies emerge from

the Chrysalis.

Pretty nice sculpture of a starfish.

We got to our campsite outside Charleston & actually ate dinner outside.

We started early Saturday to hit an urgent care. I still need a different antibiotic.

Our next stop was Fort Moultrie.

In 1776, a small wooden palmetto fort on Sullivan's Island held off a British attack for 9 hours. This was the first Fort Moultrie.

Charleston was attacked & held by the British in 1780 till the advent of peace.A 2nd Fort Moultrie was completed in 1798. Two hurricanes destroyed that in 1804.

In 1809 a new brick fort stood on Sullivan's Island. In 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union & the federal garrison abandoned Fort Moultrie for the stronger Fort Sumpter.

In the 1870's it was modernized. New batteries of concrete & steel were constructed. There were threats of submarine & aerial attacks. There was a WW II Harbor Entrance Control Post at Fort Moultrie.

We had a nice lunch break at the Charleston Harbor Fish House with a whole wall of windows to see the bay.

Steve went on a WWII Aircraft carrier called the Yorktown. I actually took the pic on the ferry because there's other boats in front of it on shore.

We reserved online for Fort Sumpter & they sell out, so do that if you ever go. The ferry ride takes close to an hour if you board at Patriots Point. They have to go across the river to pick up the people in downtown Charleston

We saw the Sullivan Island Lighthouse so we didn't have to drive there to see it.

This was the Folly Fort which is. now privately owned.

Fort Sumpter

"Beginning at 4:30 a.m. on April 12, the Confederates bombarded the fort from artillery batteries surrounding the harbor. Although the Union garrison returned fire, they were significantly outgunned and, after 34 hours, Major Anderson agreed to evacuate. There were no deaths on either side as a direct result of this engagement."

The Confederacy held Ft. Sumpter till the end of the war.