This National Monument is located in Savannah, Georgia. Construction of the fort started in 1829 and completed in 1845. It wasn't actively used until Confederate troops took control in 1861 to prevent Union occupancy. A young Lt. Robert E. Lee was stationed here as a young engineer between 1829 and 1831. He would return as General Lee, commander of the Confederate Army in 1851.
The Union attacked the fort on the way to downtown Savannah in April 1862. General Robert E. Lee was so confident the fort was safe, he stood from the parapets and declared the Union Army wouldn't do more than shake the walls. He was wrong. Captain Quincy A. Gillmore was determined to try a new invention, a rifled cannon. Smooth bore cannon had been used to this point. Rifling, adding spiral grooves inside, proved a key advantage in distance and speed of cannonballs on the walls of the fort. With two days of bombardment, the Confederates surrendered the fort.
