Our N & M's: Spring Break Trip 2025 // Tybee Island, GA // Day Six: Park Day, Fort Pulaski & an Afternoon At the Beach

When we woke up on Thursday morning, Noel went down to the ocean to watch the sunrise once again and then when he got back to the house, he said that he would like to drive over to Ft Pulaski and to check that out. We decided that we could probably tour the fort in under two hours or so and come back right around lunchtime. Then we gave the kids the choice of coming along with us or staying behind at the house, and all three said that they just wanted to stick around the house and to just take their times getting ready and relaxing.

So Noel and I headed over to Fort Pulaski. The fort is located on Cockspur Island, right in between Savannah and Tybee Island. After the war of 1812, President James Madison ordered a fort be constructed to help protect the United States from foreign invasion. Construction began in 1829 by Major Babcock and Robert E Lee, who was just starting out his career in the military. The fort was completed in 1847 and was occupied by only two caretakers until the start of the Civil War. After Georgia succeeded from the Union during the war, the fort was taken over by Confederate Soldiers On the morning of April 10, 1862, Union forces requested the complete surrender of the fort but the Confederate general refused because up to this point, the fort had felt impenetrable and all of the soldiers were protected. Shortly afterwards, the Union soldiers began the bombardment of the fort and after using the new rifle canon to inflict major damage, the fort was taken in just 30 hours. The fort was surrendered to Union forces and later used as a Prisoner of War camp until the end of the war.

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The design of the fort with waterways surrounding the brick fortress and dirt hills built up around the fort did protect it quite well from an infantry assault but unfortunately, the brick exterior was not enough to take many hours of canon fire.

Everything looked really good until we took a walk around the other side of the fort and it was then that you could see where it had taken major damage. The preservation and restoration of the fort meant that new brick was added, but you can still see where the damage was done.

Surrounding the fort were large mounds of dirt. There were many tunnels and rooms built inside of these hills and many soldiers and supplies could be kept hidden in there.

After we crossed over the drawbridge, we were able to enter the inside of the fort and see where the officers quarters were along with the kitchen, the infirmary and the church. There were also a lot of other "rooms" to store all of the gunpowder and weapons.

After we finished walking all around the fort, Noel and I decided to walk the trail to the old lighthouse that stood watch right outside the fort. It was a really short trail - only about 1 mile roundtrip - and we were surprised that no one else really seemed to be walking on it. Oh well, that gave us the entire place to ourselves.

While we were at the fort, I got a text from the kids saying that they were walking from the house over to park where we had played a couple of times already. Since we were planning to head home for lunch soon anyway, we decided to drive by the park and see if they wanted a ride back home. When we arrived at the park, it was full of school children who apparently come over every day to play during their recess. Nolan was running around on the playground with the kids, but Victoria and Melayna were over by the swings pushing several girls the entire time. (Of course they were). And then on the ride back to the house, they told us all about which kids were nice and their favorites and which ones they didn't really want to push.

You can hardly see Melayna because she is hidden by a pole, but Victoria is wearing jean shorts and a while top and is pushing a girl near the top of the left side.

After we left the playground, we grabbed some lunch at the house and then we spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach. The waves were pretty big that afternoon so the kids all spent about two hours jumping the waves and getting knocked around quite a bit as well.