These two photographs of
Fort Pulaski at
Savannah, taken in April, 1862, after the bombardment by the
Federal batteries, show very clearly how the Confederate Engineers learned that the old-fashioned brick wall was of no use against modern guns.
The time had passed for brick and stone fortresses.
Granite was found to be weaker than sand.
Any yielding substance which would slow down and finally stop the great projectiles, and which could be shoveled back into position, no matter how much of it was displaced by a shell, proved far superior to any rigid substance.
The ruins of
Fort Pulaski taught the
Confederates how to defend Fort Sumterwhich was evacuated but never fell.
In
General Gillmore's Report on
Charleston he says: “One hundred and ten thousand six hundred and forty-three pounds of metal produced a breach in
Fort Pulaski which caused the surrender of that permanent and well constructed brick fortification, while one hundred and twenty-two thousand and thirty pounds of metal failed to open the bomb-proof of
Fort Wagner, a sand work extemporized for the war.... It must not be forgotten, in this connection, that in the former case the brick wall stood nearly vertical, and all the debris formed by the shots immediately fell into the ditch, and no longer afforded any protection to the wall left standing; while in the latter the mass was so formed that a large proportion of the sand displaced fell back and again within an area attempted to be breached.”
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Fort Pulaski--the angle where the federals concentrated their fire |
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Inside the breached casemate (see above): rifled cannon vs. Bricks |
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