Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 6.djvu/22

6 It could be supplied with troops and munitions from the sea with little risk, and once properly manned and equipped would, in the judgment of military experts, be practically impregnable. A few months later the chief engineer of the United States army expressed the opinion that “the work could not be reduced in a month’s firing with any number of manageable calibers.” The fort was of brick, with five faces, casemated on all sides, and surrounded by a ditch filled with water. The massive walls, seven and a half feet thick, rose twenty-five feet above high water, mounting one tier of guns in casemates and one in barbette. The gorge face was covered by a demi-lune of good relief, arranged for one tier of guns in barbette, and was also provided with a ditch. The marshy formation, Cockspur island, on which Pulaski stood, was surrounded by broad channels of deep water, and the only near approach to it, on ground of tolerable firmness, was along a narrow strip of shifting sand on Tybee island.

The people of Savannah, familiar with the situation, thought they were menaced by a danger as great as that of Sumter to Charleston; that even a few days’ delay might permit this isolated fort to be made effective in closing the main seaport of Georgia, and that once strongly manned, it would be impossible to reduce it with ordnance such as could soon be obtained by the State. Capt. William H. C. Whiting, of the United States army engineers, who had an office in Savannah at that time, was absent at Fort Clinch, on the St. Mary’s, and Ordnance-Sergeant Walker with a fort keeper was in charge at the works; only twenty gpins were in the fort and the supply of ammunition was meager. Governor Brown, being advised of the situation at Savannah, and of the probability that Pulaski and Jackson would be seized by the people, visited the city, and after consultation with the citizens took the appropriate step of ordering an immediate occupation. The earnest spirit of the citizens of