Fort Pulaski National Monument

Today we finished all our school by lunch time and Brock took a partial day off and we headed to Cockspur Island to see Fort Pulaski. It is a fort that was built as part of a coastal fortification system adopted by James Madison after the War of 1812. It is all built of brick and granite and the walls are 7-11 feet thick. It took 18 years to complete. It was thought to be impenetrable. Just before Georgia seceded from the Union, the Governor moved the state militia troops into the fort and then the troops became Confederate soldiers upon the state's secession. During the important battle that took place there, the Union fired rifled cannons from a nearby island and hit the fort with some 5000 shells. Rifled cannons had been tested in the field, but never against a fortification like this. The Union Commander was confident though and in the end, he was proved right. The shells basically opened up, eventually, gaping holes into the walls large enough to drive a truck through. The Confederate soldiers surrendered after two days and the fort became occupied by the Union.

During our tour, we got to see some really awesome engineering examples. For example, there was a cistern water system that collected the rains and then filtered it through sod and oyster shells before it ran through pipes into several cisterns. We learned about one of the 32-lb cannons named Louisa and how she weighed over 8000 lbs, but could be moved by four men because of the gun carriage system that was engineered. There are two drawbridges and a moat that goes around the fort and is 7-8 feet deep and something like 30-40 feet wide in some places which would make infantry attack quite difficult. Today there were several medium size fish jumping in the moat.

Coming to the entrance to the fort.

Huge doors at the sallyport.

Brighton behind the bars of the prison which
 ended up housing the Confederate prisoners
 of war when the fort changed hands.

Cool granite spiral staircase

Sky was my cooperative "poser" for today.

The kids attempted to do the Junior Ranger booklets which we have at times enjoyed at other national parks. Sometimes they end up being a little stressful. Brighton and Brynna have actually outgrown the program. They can work through the activities just for fun, but they aren't allowed to earn a badge. Skylar was able to complete his program and earned his badge. I think he really enjoyed it. One of his activities was to choose from a large list of animals which ones might live in or around the moat. He was selecting them and came up to white-tailed deer and he decided he wouldn't select that one because while they live in Georgia, they probably didn't live in or around the moat. Wouldn't you know that just around the corner on the outside of the fort, we saw a deer. Skylar hurried to correct his work in his Junior Ranger booklet.

Some of the damage from the rifled shells was left for us to see.
 The brighter brick to the right of the pic shows
 the repair where the big gaping hole was.

Sometimes hard to get my honey to smile for a pic, but isn't he cute?

Spencer doing his thing.

When we had finished up at the fort, we decided to look for some seafood and ended up choosing a little restaurant right on the road back to our campground at Fort McAllister. It is called Fish Tales. It is right on the river and they also have a bait shop right there that sells to local fishermen. We even got to see a large cooler with tons of live fiddler crabs that they use.

We started out our dinner with an order of fried pickles for everyone to share. They were good. I'm glad we split the order because one really only needs to eat a couple. They are very salty. They come with a side of ranch for dipping. Everyone tried them and I think everyone liked them, but I don't think anyone LOVED them. With all our varied tastes it is always interesting to see what people will choose for dinner. Brighton got a huge plate of chicken nachos which wasn't too surprising as that is kind of his standard order wherever we go. Brynna chose a chicken strip basket which came with fries and a couple of hush puppies. Skylar ordered off the kids' menu and got a hot dog and fries which also came with a hush puppy. Spencer ordered "Kids' Crab Cluster" off the kids' menu and I was surprised to see that this was actually a half crab and it wasn't really very well cracked for him so he really had to work for it, but seemed to enjoy it. He chose grits for his side which I was proud of him for, but he did choose to leave most of those on his plate. Brock and I chose two entrees that we both wanted to try and then split them. One was a seafood au gratin. It was very cheesy and had crab, shrimp and scallops mixed in. It was really good with the garlic bread that came with it. The seafood was fresh so the flavor was good; it was very rich and also pretty salty. The other dish was Shrimp n' Grits. Neither Brock nor I had ever tried grits and this was grits with bacon and cheese and shrimp so it seemed like a good way to try them. I'm glad we tried them and the dish was good. We finished it all, but I doubt that we will order grits again either. It was a fun little restaurant decorated very colorfully. I took a picture of the family at our bright blue table, but for some reason it wasn't readable tonight. :o(

When we got back to the trailer, everyone took turns playing a Lego Batman level with Dad and then hit the sack. Tomorrow we plan to explore the city of Savannah. Hooray for Saturday!!