Fort-itude [Savannah]

We visited the first of a string of forts dotting coastal Georgia and Florida. First up, Fort Pulaski. With a drawbridge, allligator patrolled moats, two-foot thick walls and the guiding hand of a young engineer Robert E Lee, Fort Pulaski was built to last. Except it didn't. The Union's nifty experimental rifled canon forced the Rebs to surrender it after one day of precision pounding. Gators, too.

We also visited Fort Frederica, further south in coastal Georgia. This colonial fort was the brainchild of James Oglethorpe and built to thwart Spanish designs up the coast. What gets lost in this fort story was how Georgia was founded more on the enlightened model of Pennsylvania and not just another slave-based economy. Wha' happened?Read more