|combatants1=Ft. Pulaski investment troops,<br/>Port Royal Expeditionary Force
|combatants2=Ft. Pulaski garrison
|commanders1=[[David Hunter]]<br/><br/>Major General, USA<br/>[[Quincy A. Gillmore]]<br/>Captain, USA
|commanders2=[[Charles H. Olmstead]]<br/>Colonel, CSA
|strength1=
|casualties2='''364'''
}}
The '''Battle of Fort Pulaski''' took place on April 10-1110–11, 1862, when troops were delivered to Tybee Island in Georgia in an effort to reduce the defenses of Savannah. The Union victory after a two-day siege also demonstrated the fact that solid, strongly-built fortifications - Pulaski was once considered a "third system fort" and believed to be invincible - could be reduced through the firepower of large-caliber rifled guns.
On February 19, 1862, Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Sherman ordered Captain Quincy A. Gillmore, an engineer officer, to take charge of the investment force and begin the bombardment and capture of the fort. Gillmore emplaced artillery on the mainland southeast of the fort and began the bombardment on April 10 after Colonel Charles H. Olmstead refused to surrender the fort. Within hours, Gillmore’s rifled artillery had breached the southeast scarp of the fort, and he continued to exploit it. Some of his shells began to damage the traverse shielding the magazine in the northwest bastion. Realizing that if the magazine exploded the fort would be seriously damaged and the garrison would suffer severe casualties, Olmstead surrendered after 2:00 pm on April 11.
The garrison of Union soldiers reached 600 during the initial occupation, but as the War dragged on it became obvious the Southern forces would not be able to retake the Fort. The garrison was later reduced to around 250. Late in the War the Fort would be made into a prison for a group of captured Confederate officers known as "The Immortal Six Hundred." Thirteen of these men would die at the Fort of enforced ill treatment. After the War ended Fort Pulaski continued as a military and political prison for a short while. It would house a Confederate Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of War, Assistant Secretary of War as well as three state governors, a senator and the man who had commanded the Fort after it had been taken by the South.
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!colspan=2 style="width: 100%; text-align: center; background-color: #F08080; color: black; "|'''Copyright Details'''
|style="background-color: #F08080;border-top: 2px #DC143C"| <small>File available from {{{1|[http://www.nps.gov/fopu/historyculture/battle-for-fort-pulaski.htm] </small>}}}.
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[[Category:American Civil War Battles]]