Travels in the South

Hello sweet friends.  Today we continue our Travels in the South series with our friends Fozziemom and Fozziedad who visited all the way from Australia.  Now this little piggy is jealous over today’s adventure.  I think I could have had a ball roaming the grounds with everyone exploring the way they did.  You see, on this day everyone visited Ft. Pulaski National Monument which is a national park near Tybee Island in Chatham County.

 This is an aerial view of Ft. Pulaski National Monument courtesy of Ft. Pulaski 🙂 Thank you Ft Pulaski!  Ft. Pulaski was going strong in the days of the American Civil War.  It is over 5,000 acres consisting of tidal marshes and mud flats.  There are canon and musket reenactments throughout the day.  The park is open daily from 9AM to 5PM.  

You can go throughout the yards either on a guided tour or you can venture around by yourself.  

Your tour really starts when you park your car.  The grounds are absolutely beautiful!  You start down paths walking to the entrance and you also see the moat.  Now, go ahead and raise your hands my friends.

How many of you want a moat around your house?  I’m raising my piggy hoof.  I think it would be kind of cool for sure.  I bet back in the day they didn’t have solicitors knocking on their drawbridges – snorts with piggy laughter!

 Now when everyone first got there, they heard loud noises that sounded like cannon shots.  But, upon further investigation, mom/dad found out that actually it was from muskets being fired at a kind of show and tell.  Even the guy shooting the musket, was dressed in attire from the Civil War days.  Cool huh?  

But after the shots of the musket, things were silent.  Mom said that you could close your eyes, smell the musket from when it was fired, you could feel the wind blowing around you, the water hitting the moat and you could almost visualize life as it was in the fort.  Mom might have said a moan from a soldier could also be heard.  Was the place haunted?

The fort was built in 1861 and is still in remarkable condition.  You do see some of the stonework falling inside of the casemates as you can see in the picture with the fireplace.  But overall, it is still an overwhelming fort.

 Some people – like Fozziemom and Fozziedad – climbed onto of the fort to get a better view and to take some amazing pictures over the wall looking out over the water.  If you look closely at the picture with the cannon, those two specks at the top – that would be Fozziemom and Fozziedad the adventurers.

.

♦

And as Fozziemom was taking pictures, mom captured her in a picture of her own.  This is Fozziemom in her glory, aimed and ready to shoot something fantastic.

So the question remains. Is Fort Pulaski haunted? Is it spooky – yes. Do you pick up “feelings” of days gone – yes. Mom said they could close their eyes and hear and picture in their minds the activity that happened once upon a time.

Since mom/dad have been back home, I’ve done a lot of research on Fort Pulaski.  To my amazement, there have been many encounters with the unknown at the Fort over the years.  There was a story about a mother and son visiting the fort that were crossing over the draw bridge to enter into the fort.  They met a Confederate sentry dressed in uniform with his sword.  They spoke to him about his outfit and the fort.  The mother then inquired about a restroom and he advised that he could not leave his position to show her.  She thanked the man and with her son she continued into the fort to ask about the restrooms.  There she was advised that the restrooms were at the entrance.  She became upset and told the man about the soldier she spoke to at the drawbridge.  The man advised her that they had no soldiers dressed in Confederate uniforms at the fort.

Then there was a time that a group of Confederate reenactors placed a wreath at the graves in 1994.  They then settled down for the night and camped out.  During the night, a young 12 year old boy couldn’t sleep and was walking around the fort.  Nearing the graves, he saw a figure of a Confederate soldier in uniform on his knees near the grave they had put the wreath.  The soldier had his hat in his hand, then stood and faded away into the air.

Then during further research, I learned that an actor that you might have heard of did a movie at Fort Pulaski back in 2009.  The movie was called The Conspirator and the actor was Robert Redford.

It’s up to you to decide if it’s haunted or not.  Maybe someone needs to let the worker at the shop know that there has been some cases of mysterious sightings.  It was definitely an adventure!

Edit