Robert E. Lee and Fort Pulaski

Robert E. Lee as a young solider in 1838.

Destined to be one of the most illustrious graduates of West Point, a young Virginian awaited assignment in the mid-summer of 1829 to his first tour of duty in the Army. Here Second in his class of 1829, Brevet Second Lt. Robert E. Lee received, on August 11, his first official orders from Brig. Gen. Charles Gratiot, Chief of Engineers. Lee must "by the middle of November next, report to Maj. Samuel Babcock of the corps of Engineers for duty at Cockspur Island, in the Savannah River, Georgia."

The assignment to Cockspur Island must certainly have held little allure for the young lieutenant. The undertaking to build a fort on this marshy and isolated island had just begun. The commanding officer on the island, Major Babcock, had begun his preliminary surveys in December of the previous year. The project was suspended in June 1829 for the hot months, while he was on leave in the North. A stupendous task yet awaited the superior and his youthful subordinate. On September 27, Lieutenant Lee notified General Gratiot that he would depart for Savannah in October.

Traveling by coastal steamer, Lee reached the thriving old southern city in early November. Savannah was the most important port and chief city in Georgia. Major Babcock had not yet returned from the North. The project, in a state of suspension, was in the hands of an overseer. Work would not resume at the site until Major Babcock returned.

Major Babcock reached Savannah on December 23, 1829. Lee's superior, whom he now met for the first time, was an aging officer in the Engineer Corps. A graduate of the Military Academy in 1808, Major Babcock had already seen some 20 years of active service on various projects. His health was in a very poor condition when he arrived. Due to this, the first officer to assist him would be expected to handle a large share of the responsibility.

During January 1830, Lieutenant Lee, acting in his capacity as assistant engineer, took over much of the direction of the work. Construction of quarters on the island for the workmen, and officers, had to be rushed. A system of drainage and embankments for the island was commenced. Construction on the principal wharf was also started. As the month closed, Lee was delegated to prepare a map, which he entitled "Sketch exhibiting the actual state of Cockspur Island and the operations for Jan. 1830." This rare sketch was semi topographical in nature. As its title states, the map not only showed the work accomplished, but the work projected as well. The shore of the island was outlined, and marshy and high ground indicated. The partially finished quarters, the beacon, and the revenue boathouse were shown. The proposed sites of the fort and advanced battery were also indicated. The location of the projected wharf and system of drainage ditches and embankments were included.

Lee had ample opportunity for gaining practical engineering experience despite the conditions. Cockspur Island is not an easy area for engineering operations. The island is essentially a mud and marsh island, containing a few low sand ridges. To complete his work, Lee trampled with persistence through the mud and marsh of Cockspur. He spent days surveying the island and its contours.

This sketch was drawn on Cockspur Island by young Lieutenant Lee in January 1830.

Major Babcock had realized Lee's ability by the end of their first month's association. While he characterized Lieutenant Lee as inexperienced, he found the young officer "active and intelligent." Babcock had delegated to him one of the most important, difficult, and thankless of post tasks, acting assistant commissary.

During February and March, in addition to his new responsibility, Lee carried on his routine engineering duties in connection with the development of the drainage and embankment system for the island. What leisure time as he found was occupied by trips to Savannah, and with preparing sketches and writing personal letters. Opportunities for such diversions became rarer, however, as the early spring advanced. As Major Babcock's health deteriorated steadily, the Lee's responsibilities grew ever more burdensome.

By early May, progress on the construction of the temporary quarters had advanced to a stage that allowed them to be used. In addition, for the first time, headquarters could be established on Cockspur. At the end of each of the months of February, March, and April 1830, Lieutenant Lee had revised his sketch of the condition of operations on the island. His sketches showed the progress on the buildings, the dikes, and the drainage ditches. The sketches demonstrate the progress made in finishing the officers' and workers' quarters. They also highlight the completion of the first main wharf on the north channel and the start of the excavation at the proposed fort site.

Rare sketch of the terrapin and alligator made by Lieutenant Lee on Cockspur Island. Copies of this sketch were apparently given by Lee to members of both the Mackay and Minis families, of Savannah, Ga., whose descendants still own the originals.

Operations on Cockspur during the early summer of 1830 were discontinued. Major Babcock had signified his intention, earlier in the year, of continuing the project throughout the summer. However, early in July he informed his superior, that two local physicians had recommended he leave the island. Summers on Cockspur Island are brutal. The heat and the mosquitoes that brought diseases to the workmen took their toll, on both Major Babcock and his men. Babcock never returned to the island. Lieutenant Lee journeyed to Virginia, where he spent the summer with friends, returning in November.

A bewildering condition on Cockspur confronted the young Engineer officer. When he had left the previous July, the system of embankments designed to keep tidal waters off the proposed site had been almost finished and were intact. The drainage ditches had been completely opened. But a recent storm had been destructive to the improvements on the island. Lee had to act fast to save the project.

The work of the survey and soil examination was producing results. On February 26, Lieutenant Mansfield reported that the current soil composition would not support the fort's foundation as it was originally designed. Captain Delafield, of the Engineer Corps, will be reporting to the site to help. He was somewhat experienced with problems like those on Cockspur.

Lieutenant Lee completed his survey in early March 1831. He created a sketch called "Map of Cockspur Island, and position of Fort Pulaski." This map included a detailed survey of the island. It showed the high-water line, fixed terrain features, the current positions of dikes, sluices, and embankments. He also illustrated all temporary buildings, quarters, boat houses, and shops, marking the proposed site of the fort. After finishing the survey, Lee oversaw the new excavations for the fort's foundations.

As March 1831 drew to an end, the Engineer Department decided, it was not necessity for two Engineer officers to remain during the summer. The Engineer Corps was then very small, and the projects were many. Officers were too valuable to leave inactive over a summer. On March 26, General Gratiot instructed Mansfield to direct Lee to Hampton Roads, Virginia, as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Captain Delafield had arrived to help redesign the foundation plans for the fort. Therefore, Lee's services could not immediately be relinquished. Lee realized, however, that his transfer to Hampton Roads was only the matter of a few days. His transfer from Cockspur Island happened shortly after. Lee received orders on April 21, 1831, to go to Old Point Comfort, Virginia, and report to Captain Talcott for duty.

Lee's first tour of duty in the army ended. He left Cockspur Island, more experienced, more mature, and better equipped for his duties, having profited by the practical problems he had encountered there. The days of his apprenticeship were over.

Lee's Farewell to Fort Pulaski

Thirty full years passed before Lee returned to the marshy soil of Cockspur Island. Major constructional work at Fort Pulaski had been completed for 14 years. The red and gray brick structure sat on the foundations he had surveyed and the excavations he had started were finished. The now 54-year-old officer came to make a brief inspection of the fort.

The circumstances of Lee's second and final trip to Cockspur Island in November 1861 were much different from his first visit as a young officer. The long-feared break between the North and South had finally occurred. Following the secession of South Carolina in December 1860, Georgia had dispatched a detachment of the State militia to seize Fort Pulaski on January 3, 1861.

Upon Georgia's secession later in that month, the militia in garrison at Fort Pulaski was mustered into the Confederate service. Measures were hurriedly taken to strengthen the armament of the fort. Bombardment from the United States Navy was thought to be imminent. On November 7 the US Navy suddenly struck the South Carolina coast not far from Fort Pulaski. The US fleet succeeded in capturing the Confederate forts at the entrance of strategic Port Royal Sound. A day after this crucial moment Gen. Robert E. Lee, Confederate States Army, assumed command of the defense of the southeastern coast. Within three days, he was at Fort Pulaski. His urgent and unexpected visit was to give personal instructions regarding the strengthening of the defenses of a fort.

General Lee, coming off his first major campaign for the Confederacy in western Virginia, was personally selected by Jefferson Davis as the best officer to lead the vulnerable southeastern coast. During the fall of 1861, President Davis grew increasingly worried about the disorganized state of Confederate forces on the vulnerable South Carolina and Georgia coasts. On November 5, the "coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and East Florida" were "constituted a military department." On the same day, and to his astonishment, Lee was assigned to this new and difficult command. Hurrying to South Carolina, he arrived two days later, at the height of the overwhelming US naval attack against the Southern forts on Port Royal Sound.

By November 8 Lee had established his headquarters at Coosawatchie, upriver from Port Royal Sound and on the Charleston and Savannah Railroad. Lee's immediate plan of defense was organizing the troops. They were to defend the line of the railroad and to push forward the defenses of Charleston and Savannah." This emergency course of action was gradually accepted by Lee as his permanent plan of defense. Its execution quickly brought him to Savannah late on November 10. He was to inspect the city's defenses and Fort Pulaski during the following day.

Lee was accompanied by Brig. Gen. Alexander R. Lawton, commanding the Confederate forces at Savannah, and his staff. They were transported by the tiny paddle-wheel river steamer Ida, on the hasty 25-mile round trip over the mud red waters of the broad Savannah. Landing at the North Pier on Cockspur Island, the party walked the short distance to Fort Pulaski. Here they were welcomed by 25-year-old Maj. Charles H. Olmstead. He was the commander the detachments of the First Volunteer Georgia Infantry then garrisoned at the fort. The formalities of receiving such distinguished visitors were soon concluded. Olmstead conducted General Lee and his party on a careful tour of the fort and the island.

Major Olmstead became colonel of his regiment in December 1861 and was in command of the Confederate garrison at Fort Pulaski when it was bombarded and forced to surrender by Federal forces on April 10-11, 1862. Many years afterwards he wrote an interesting account of the last visit of General Lee to Cockspur Island on that early November day in 1861. Colonel Olmstead recalled that

Prior to the closing of the [Savannah] river [about November 24, when Confederate log obstructions were completed to prevent the passage of Federal gunboats], General Robt. E. Lee, who was then in command of the Military District of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, visited the Fort and gave instructions for further defensive work to be done—traverses to be built on the ramparts between the guns, ditches dug in the parade to catch shells, the light colonnade in front of the officers quarters to be torn down, blindages of heavy timber to be erected before the casemate doors around the inner circuit of the Fort, and these to be covered by several feet of earth.

It is interesting to quote a remark of Gen'l Lee's at this time. Pointing to the nearest part of Tybee Island, 1700 yards away, he said, "Colonel, they will make it very warm for you with shells from that point but they cannot breach at that distance." From 800 to 900 yards was then laid down in the books as the extreme range at which a wall of good masonry could be attacked with any prospect of success, but up to the Siege of Pulaski, so far as the writer [Olmstead] knows, no fortification had ever been subjected to the fire of rifled guns. Their power against masonry was yet an unknown quantity . . . [Of especial interest is the fact that from the exact point on Tybee Island referred to by Lee in 1861, Federal batteries of rifled cannon successfully breached the walls of Fort Pulaski in 1862].

Immediately after General Lee's return to the city [Savannah] steps were taken in supply the timber required for the work he laid out. Rafts were brought down the South Channel [of the Savannah River] and from thence by a small canal on the South-side of the island into the moat. The whole garrison was put to work and to such good purpose, with such hearty good will, that everything contemplated was practically completed when the bombardment actually began [on April 10, 1862].

Battle preparations included trenches dug in the parade ground to serve as "shot catchers" and construction of blindage along fort walls to protect casemates.

A short time afterward, Lee gave instructions for Colonel Olmstead regarding the preparation of the fort for a siege. Then Lee and his party embarked for the return trip to Savannah. Although he was in the area for three more months, General Lee was too occupied with his general plan of defense to visit Fort Pulaski again. Nevertheless, he kept a vigilant eye upon the reports regarding measures taken to strengthen the fort.

After his inspection of Fort Pulaski, General Lee undertook a general survey of the other Confederate coastal defenses between Charleston and Fernandina, Florida. As a result, he notified the War Department in Richmond of the confirmation of his previous opinion. The entrance to Cumberland Sound, Brunswick and the water approaches to Savannah and Charleston will need to be defended.

In the midst of supervising the hurried defense measures along the coast, Lee did not overlook the work under way to strengthen Fort Pulaski. On November 24, US forces occupied Tybee Island, opposite the fort. Five days later, General Lee informed Secretary Benjamin the preparation of Fort Pulaski has progressed slowly. However, he did not think that the US Navy could breach the Savannah River.

Lee took another tour of the coast between Charleston and Fernandina early in January 1862. From his observation of US fleet movements in the area, Lee believed that an attack near Savannah was imminent. On January 28, he wrote from Coosawhatchie to his wife: "There now seem to be indications of a movement against Savannah. The enemy's gunboats are pushing up the creeks to cut off communication between the city and Fort Pulaski on Cockspur Island. Unless I have better news, I must go there [Savannah] today."

Lee transferred his headquarters from Coosawhatchie to Savannah early in February. It was now necessary for his constant supervision of the defense measures under way at Savannah and Fort Pulaski. By the mid-February, US forces established batteries on the Savannah River, a short distance above Fort Pulaski. This prevented Confederate steamer Ida from returning to Savannah. This effectively cut communication between Savannah and Cockspur Island by river.

Under the circumstances, there was little that Lee could do further to assist Colonel Olmstead in the defense of Fort Pulaski. However, on February 17, by a messenger through the marshes, Lee sent these final instructions for the protection of the fort:

Colonel: From the position the enemy has taken in the Savannah River, it becomes necessary that you look to your defense in that direction. I therefore recommend that, if necessary for that purpose, you shift some of your barbette guns [those on top of the fort] to the gorge [rear wall] of the work, and the casemates [bombproof rooms] in the northwest angle, which bear up the river, be provided with guns. I would also recommend that the parapets of the mortar batteries be carried all around, so that the mortars can be protected from the fire up the river as well as from Tybee Island, and that everything be done to strengthen the defenses of your work in the rear.

As far as it is possible your safety will be anxiously cared for, and for the present your communication with the city [Savannah] will have to be by light boats over the marsh . . . or by any other mode by which you can better accomplish it.

In late February, General Lee's difficult assignment on the southeastern neared its end. There were many signs that the slow-moving US naval and land operations in the Savannah area were finally organized for an actual attack. The Confederate situation between Savannah and the coast was dire. By February 23 Lee had begun to believe that Fort Pulaski "may in time be reduced." He continued his efforts to complete the defensive system of earth batteries and waterway obstructions in front of Savannah. On March 2, President Davis suddenly called him to Richmond . A few days after leaving Savannah on March 3, General Lee was assigned to the command of the operations of all Confederate armies. His task of preparing defenses for the southeastern coast was over.

Defense measures undertaken at Fort Pulaski by his direction did not prevent Fort Pulaski's surrender to US forces on April 11. However, this eventuality, which he previously feared would occur, was accomplished through unforeseen military developments beyond his control. Yet the main defense system between Savannah and the sea, started by Lee, proved to be effective. US forces would not enter the city of Savannah until Sherman arrived late in 1864. Lee would be a part of many important battles fought during the war, finally surrendering to US General U.S. Grant at Appomattox in April 1865.

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Based on:
Rogers W. Young, Robert E. Lee and Fort Pulaski, National Park Service Popular Study Series, 1941.