Cannons are very loud.

We went to Fort Pulaski yesterday, which is near Savannah and Tybee Island (about a mile from Tybee). There are a couple of forts around here that were used during the Civil War. Fort Pulaski was really cool because it was controlled by the Union and the Confederate sides at different times. When the South controlled it, the Union was setting up a "camp" on Tybee Island that the South didn't know about. Then they began bombarding the fort with cannonballs and finally breached the southeastern corner of the fort, which is shaped like a pentagon. The fort took over 8 years to build, used millions of bricks, and cost a million dollars, and in just 30 hours, a wall had broken through. The Confederate general knew that without the wall protecting the inside, a loose cannonball could crash into the storehouses where all the black powder was stored and then the entire fort and all of his army would be destroyed, so he surrendered. The Union took many of the Confederate soldiers prisoner and held them for about 3 months. Fort Pulaski was really important for the Union to get because it controlled all the shipping in and out of Savannah.

Kathryn and I took these pictures around the fort. The top picture is of my mom and my sister inside one of the caves.

There were TONS of cannons - really cool ones and we got to see how they turned for aiming, how far they could shoot, and we even watched some "soldiers" fire a real cannon. It was so loud - I can't imagine what it must have been like to be surrounded by 45 cannons all shooting 3 rounds per minute at the same time!


We went to look at the southeastern corner too (the one that was destroyed by the Union army's cannons ) and it was awesome to see the cannon ball holes. Check it out in the picture! Don't the holes look cool? And look! It even has a moat around it with real alligators in it! How sweet is that!