More Military Stuff (GA 03-23-13)

Fort Pulaski

Visiting nearby Tybee Island was on our list of “must do” things while in the Savannah area, but we held off, waiting for better weather.  Finally we had no choice- we headed to Tybee even though it was still pretty cold-and very windy- out.  We did a drive by of the island but since it wasn’t a beach day, we elected to head to Fort Pulaski (yes, yet another fort).

  I admit, I feel like I’ve seen enough forts for a while, but Paul really enjoys them, and the weather was not cooperating, so what the heck. It turned out to be one of my favorite fort visits. After the war of 1812, President Madison ordered the construction of a series of coastal fortifications, to protect the U.S. against foreign invasion. It was during that time period- 1829- that construction of Fort Pulaski began. After 30 years, this state-of-the-art fort was finished.

The fort is still in remarkable condition and is a great example of a Civil War era fort.  After the war, the fort was abandoned and not used again, so it never had additions or modifications done to update it for more modern warfare.

It still boasts a drawbridge and moat.

 

The interior parade grounds- each of the arched doorways would have had doors like the gray door in this picture.  They were all numbered, to keep confusion to a minimum, and a commander would say “go get me the rifles behind door 13”.

We took an awesome ranger guided tour of the fort where we learned that these wooden boards, called Blindage, would be put up all along the interior walls, then dirt would be piled up about to about halfway up the wood.  That essentially made the interior bomb proof.  Or so they thought.

So, that brings us to the role that Fort Pulaski played during the Civil War. 

Originally this fort was designed to hold more than 40 cannons and hundreds of men, but because it wasn’t actually needed for defense when it was finished, only two caretakers were sent to occupy the fort. It sits at the mouth of the Savannah River, protecting, in part, the port of Savannah.  In 1860, nearby South Carolina seceded from the Union, and anticipating that Georgia would soon follow in South Carolina’s footsteps, Georgia’s governor ordered that the fort be taken.  It wasn’t difficult, since, as I mentioned, there were only two caretakers there.

Fast forward to 1861. The Union army has decided that they need to secure access to the port of Savannah, so they set up an army of men on nearby Tybee Island.  Meanwhile, Robert E. Lee, one of the original architects of Fort Pulaski, comes to assess the fort’s defenses .  He assures the commander that the fort is impenetrable. Unfortunately, he did not know about a new invention- rifled artillery. I have mentioned before that it boggled my mind that forts in the 1700-1800s were built over a period of 20-30 years, and they were state of the art at the time they were built, but the minute rifled artillery was introduced, all forts became obsolete.  The Battle of Fort Pulaski played a huge role in that part of history.  It was here that the Union army decided to test the use of rifled artillery.  They pounded on the fort, firing over 5000 cannon shots, mostly trying to hit the same area of the of the wall. Within 30 hours they had drilled a hole clear through the wall of the fort. The Confederates didn’t surrender at this point, but they did soon after. 



Paul in the Powder Magazine



Why?  Because a cannon ball came through the opening in the fort, and landed in the hallway that led to the powder magazine.  A magazine that held 40,000 lbs of gun powder.  The white flag flew shortly thereafter.

The success of rifled artillery in this battle brought warfare into a whole new era, immediately transforming most existing forts into historic relics.

Mighty 8th Air Force Museum

 

Moving on from the Civil War to World War II, we took advantage of yet another rainy day to tour the Mighty 8th Air Force Museum.

The 8th airborne flew out of Savannah and were stationed in England during World War II. Paul enjoyed the museum tremendously and surprisingly, I found quite a few exhibits very interesting. I liked this one just because it was cool looking.

   

Inside the museum there were two rooms that were set up like a small French Safe House.  On the walls were pictures and notes  that told the personal stories of people who risked their lives to rescue and hide downed pilots from the Germans. Some people went so far as to build secret rooms in their homes, and some individuals helped rescue and return more than 100 pilots to England.

The first women to fly for the U.S. Military were the Fly Girls of World War II.  Due to a shortage of pilots, over 1000 women were trained to fly advanced military aircraft. Once trained, they took over such jobs as flying new aircraft from factory to air base.  One of their most dangerous jobs was Target Pilot.  They would fly planes towing targets behind them so that anti-aircraft and aerial gunners could practice using their weapons- using live ammunition.

38 of these women died in the line of duty, but because they were considered civilians, they weren’t accorded military benefits- there was no insurance, and the military didn’t even pay to have their coffins sent home.  Decades later, they were all awarded military recognition for their role in World War II.

It’s Savannah, y’all (03-21-13)

Although I have no desire to visit Savannah in the summer when the temperature and humidity both reach 100, we could have used a little more warmth for our visit here!  We delayed our trolley tour of the city, hoping for a warmer day.

  When we are touring a largish city, we consult Trip Advisor to see what the “must do” attractions are, so we spent our first day in the Massie School. It was built in 1856 and now houses information about the history and architecture of the city. 

On one of the desks were sheets of paper with examples from an 1895 8th grade final.  This one is the Grammar final, but they also had the arithmetic including questions such as:

1. Name and define the fundamental rules of arithmetic.

2.  Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.

I bet we could all use an 8th grade refresher course!

 

Savannah was founded in 1733 by James Oglethorpe and a group of settlers from England.  Oglethorpe designed the city using a ward system (I wish he had founded Boston!!).  Several neighborhoods were created, each one centering around it’s own public square.  Actually, the layout that was painted on the floor gave me a good sense of what the organization looked like.

There was also a scale model of the city, which gave us a great sense of how it was laid out.

Savannah is a city full of beautiful architecture which is best seen while meandering around on foot.  Since the weather required winter jackets, and/or raincoats, we didn’t do too much of that, and my pictures of the beautiful buildings are extremely limited. I didn’t realize how limited until we’d left the city.

We saw several of the squares while walking to and from whatever parking spot we managed to find for the truck. 

Eventually we took the trolley tour of the city, getting off at several stops along the way.  It wasn’t the best day we’ve ever had, but we managed to go with the flow pretty well.  It started off badly when we bought our tickets.  No half price deals here, so we paid full price for the tour, making it a little expensive, but we figured it would be worth it.  We opted to include a discounted ticket for the Savannah History Museum in our trolley ticket purchase, but when we got off at the stop for the museum, we discovered that our ticket was for the Massie School.  So, back on the trolley we went, to straighten it out.  They apologized for the error   ( they don’t sell tickets to that museum anymore, but had forgotten to take the info off the menu board).

Take 2 of our trolley tour led us around the different squares, and gave us information about some of the buildings.  We got off again at the river front to meander through the stores.

Problem 2 of the day happened \when we tried to re-board the trolley.  We stood with another couple, waiting for the trolley to show. We stood, and stood, and stood. When we’d seen about 4 trolleys go down the street a few blocks away, but not stop where we were, we called the company.  They once again apologized that we had not been informed that although stop 12 is still on the map, they, in fact, do not stop there anymore (Paul’s point: how hard would it have been for them to cross out the 12 on the map they give out??). We got convoluted directions to the “new” stop, that required another call to them for clarification.  Once there, we had two trolleys go by that didn’t stop for us. At least one had no room. We are not sure why the other driver ignored us trying to flag him down! After another call to the company, they sent a trolley out specifically to pick us up.  Whew.  Once we got back to the parking lot, however, our 3rd issue of the day occurred. We couldn’t get our truck out.  Someone had parked behind us in a place that wasn’t a parking spot, taking away our maneuvering room.  Luckily the guy parked next to us showed up and we then had enough room to make a 20 point turn and get out. 

Surprisingly,we didn’t eat out very much while in Savannah, but we did have lunch at a restaurant that I’ve eaten in before- Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room. This restaurant is only open 3 hours a day, and the line starts forming outside an hour before it opens. We waited in line for over an hour to get seated for lunch.  So, what makes this place so special?

Well, besides the fact that the food is great, the  experience is unique. There are tables of 10 set up, and each table gets filled with the next 10 people in line, so we sat with 8 people we didn’t know.  Then they start bringing the food.  It’s all served family style, and there is an amazing amount of food.  It gives you a chance to try different southern style dishes.  I tried Black Eyed Peas, Collard Greens, okra, and candied yams, and that was just the ones that were new to me. 



There was a total of about 14 side dishes, in addition to the 3 types of meat served.  We met some great people- my only wish would be that dinner last a little longer so we would have had more time to chat.

The day we ate there we also visited the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.   This is a beautiful church.  Originally built in 1876, a fire destroyed everything but the exterior in 1899.  It took a full 13 years for the interior art and decoration to be finished.

The stations of the cross are carved out of wood and are absolutely beautiful.  We were going to go back on Sunday and attend mass, but realized it was Palm Sunday and the place would be mobbed.


















This last section is for all my animal lover friends:
The campground we stayed at had a resident Australian Shepard that was always off leash.  We found out that her name is Disco.  When we talked to one of the workers, she said if you make the mistake of throwing the stick Disco offers you, she will guilt you into playing for as long as your arm holds out.

Every day that we sat outside she would come over and ask us to throw sticks. One day, she couldn’t find a good stick for us to throw so after searching for a while, she brought over a small piece of firewood.

The next day she was really desperate and brought us a pine cone to throw.

 
She is such a well behaved dog, Paul and I really enjoyed her company.  We discovered how well trained she is when we got tired of stick throwing and told her to “go home”.  We were totally surprised when she actually left when we said that!

Dozer didn’t enjoy Disco’s company very much and it didn’t surprise us at all when he tried to chase the dog away. Disco handled herself very well when the cat was outside, and never approached.