"Sir, I have to acknowledge receipt of your communication of this date, demanding the unconditional surrender of Fort Pulaski. In reply, I 

can only say that I am here to defend the fort, not to surrender it."

—Colonel Charles Hart Olmstead

Fort Pulaski National Monument

In August 1814, the British burned the American Capitol amid the War of 1812. British troops invaded, then sacked Washington and set fires throughout the District of Columbia. Much of it was retaliation for the American burning of the Canadian capital at York (now Toronto) in April of the previous year.  

The War of 1812 revealed the need for a new system of coastal fortifications to protect the United States from foreign invasion. President James Madison appointed the Board of Engineers for Fortifications in 1816, initially identifying 50 sites to build forts along the American seacoast from Portland, Maine, to New Orleans, Louisiana. These became known as the Third System of forts protecting US coastal waters along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Thirty of these fortifications still exist, including Fort Pulaski in Savannah.

Work began in 1829 on this new fort on Cockspur Island near the mouth of the Savannah River. Robert E. Lee, a recent West Point graduate and future overall commander of the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, helped direct some of its early construction. In 1833, in honor of Revolutionary War hero Casimir Pulaski, it officially became Fort Pulaski. The heroic Casimir Pulaski died in Savannah, leading a cavalry attack against the British (see PFS-68).

When he sailed to Savannah in 1736, the future founder of Methodism, John Wesley, landed on Cockspur Island (see PFS-57). And one of the more popular architects in Savannah, John S. Norris, designed and built near Fort Pulaski the Cockspur Island Lighthouse between 1837-1839 (see PFS-37).

Construction of Fort Pulaski came to completion in 1845, and the new fort expanded Savannah's military defenses beyond the limited capabilities of Old Fort Jackson (see PFS-150). At the time, Fort Pulaski was considered invincible to most military experts. It had thick solid brick walls, positioned a safe two-mile distance from potential installations of enemy heavy guns, with marshland covering the entire area surrounding the fort, which made approaching on land or water impossible. 

Before the outbreak of the Civil War, Robert E. Lee, commander of the South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida Confederate forces, told Colonel Charles Hart Olmstead that Fort Pulaski was unbreachable. Colonel Hugh Mercer, the great-grandfather of famous singer and composer Johnny Mercer, placed Olmstead in command of the fort. The historic Mercer-Williams House (see PFS-01) carries his family name, but Mercer never lived in the house because the civil war interrupted its construction.

In January 1861, just a week after Federal troops occupied Fort Sumter in Charleston, Governor Joseph Brown of Georgia ordered the state militia to seize Fort Pulaski. Alexander R. Lawton led the attack and later enjoyed a storied career in Savannah (see PFS-77).

While Fort Pulaski proved invincible by land and sea, once Union forces occupied Hilton Head Island in 1862, they quickly established a beachhead on Tybee Island. Union Captain Quincy Gillmore demanded surrender from Fort Pulaski's commander, Charles Olmstead. When Olmstead refused, Gillmore introduced a new yet untested rifled cannon. With artillery batteries containing 36 guns and mortars, Union forces relentlessly bombarded Fort Pulaski through the air from Tybee Island.

Olmstead surrendered the fort only 30 hours later. After that, the port of Savannah remained closed to the Confederacy throughout the Civil War. Still, it would take William Tecumseh Sherman's March to the Sea and the Union storming of Fort Macalester (see PFS-148) to achieve Savannah's surrender.