Patton said "Fixed fortifications are monuments to man's stupidity." One of the places this is shown to be true is Fort Pulaski, a "Third System" coastal fortification located on US 80 between Savannah, GA and Tybee Island, GA. Early on during the Civil War, it was taken by the Confederates. On 10-11 April 1862, Union forces retook it; the fort's commanding presence at the mouth of the Savannah River enabled the Union to blockade the port of Savannah. Fort Pulaski was a victim of the rifled cannon, which reduced some of the fort's walls to rubble and nearly penetrated one of the fort's magazines. Were the magazine to have been penetrated the result would have been catastrophic. You can see the brick color differences below where the walls were rebuilt after being destroyed by Union cannon. Other parts of the wall still show damage inflicted by the Union batteries on Tybee Island.
I decided to play around with some other photos I've taken at the Fort and used special effects to try to give them an antique appearance. One of them is of one of the Park Rangers dressed as a Confederate soldier and playing the harmonica (the Confederates held Fort Pulaski during this time of the year, so the rangers dress in Confederate uniforms and the Fort flies a Confederate States flag). It looked to me like something you might have seen had you been at the fort in 1861 or 1862.
