"We, the prisoners, were carried to Hilton Head, South Carolina. All of the prisoners  

were issued what was called 'Retaliation Rations,' which consisted of one part 

of rotten meat and a pickle per day. They were retaliation for Andersonville." 

—Samuel L. Moore (POW from Company E) 

Fort McAllister: Defending Savannah on the Ogeechee River 

Fort McAllister sits near the mouth of the Ogeechee River, only twelve miles south of Savannah. Now part of Fort McAllister State Historic Park, the fort marks the point on a map where William Tecumseh Sherman's infamous scorched earth March to the Sea came to an end. 

After Union forces captured Atlanta on November 15, 1864, Sherman soon encroached into Confederate General Robert E. Lee's rear military positions. Sherman's Union army foraged the Georgian countryside, confiscating cattle, horses, mules, wagons, and crops as it tormented Georgia’s populace from Atlanta to Savannah. His march supplied the material needs of his army, confronting Confederate resistance without pity while destroying anything of value the Union army could not carry away. 

During the Civil War, Fort McAllister was the southernmost and — particularly after the fall of Fort Pulaski in 1862 — the most active Confederate fortification providing Savannah's defense. 

Standing inside the fort, I painted this scene en Plein air of a 32-pounder artillery gun overlooking the Ogeechee River. I did this work on a chilly morning in December, the month that, in 1864, its Confederate defenders surrendered the fort to Sherman's army. 

It took more than a single 'Battle of Fort McAllister' for Union forces to eventually obtain its surrender. Four Union attacks on Fort McAllister failed in 1862. That result contrasted sharply with what happened at Fort Pulaski, the Confederate-held fortification defending the mouth of the Savannah River.  

In April 1862, from about a mile away, Union ships bombarded Fort Pulaski, doing enormous damage to the massive structure despite its thick walls. The fort surrendered within 36 hours, closing the port of Savannah for the duration of the Civil War. 

But Fort McAllister was an earthwork fortification built mainly with soil. While soil is not very strong, it is cheap, readily available, and can create formidable structures when effectively used in large quantities.  

Between January through March of 1863, Rear Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont, commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, began test operations of new Union ironclad ships by attacking Fort McAllister. At one point, Du Pont ordered three ironclads — USS Patapsco, USS Passaic, and USS Nahant — to use the fort as target practice, testing their guns and other unique mechanisms. Together, these three warships conducted an eight-hour bombardment of Fort McAllister. 

This massive naval attack on Fort McAllister in 1863 failed. Savannah remained in Confederate hands. 

Over 20 months later, Sherman's army finally reached the outskirts of Savannah on its March to the Sea. On December 13, 1864, a 4000-man Union division stormed Fort McAllister. The fort fell. Most surviving Confederate soldiers ended the war in a Union prison camp on Hilton Head Island. 

Confederate General William J. Hardee skillfully withdrew his 10,000 remaining soldiers across the Savannah River into South Carolina. With few defenders left and most Confederate soldiers killed, captured, or on the run, on December 22, 1864, Savannah surrendered to Sherman's army — just in time for William Tecumseh Sherman to offer the city to President Lincoln as a Christmas gift. 

Fort McAllister got its name from the plantation owner on which it was built: Joseph L McAllister. In the 1930s, Henry Ford purchased the land, beginning an extensive restoration. Fort McAllister is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Its lovely museum offers visitors a treasure trove of its history.