Fort Morris State Historic Park

Not all National Park sites are open seven days per week. And some that may be open may not have tours or run ferries every open day. When I am making up an itinerary for a trip, I need to account for the hours (and days) each unit I wish to visit is open. Sometimes it can be a bit of a puzzle to get all the visits into a workable order that does not involve lots of extra driving or days with no site to visit.

But sometimes, one or the other is unavoidable, and November 13 was such a day. I was heading back to the south from Charleston, with one park in Georgia and four parks in Florida to visit. Because of both park hours and the distance I had to drive to reach those remaining parks, I chose to make this a “travel” day.

Even so, it was not that far to travel and I would have most of the day with nothing to do. A check of the Internet and I found two Georgia State Historical Parks along my intended route. Two more historic forts along the Atlantic coast! Why not!!

The first park was Fort Morris State Historic Park, located on Blackbeard Creek (arg) south of Savannah. This fort was built to protect the major port city of Sunbury.

Where??

In pre-revolutionary Georgia, a fairly large city existed here named Sunbury. It competed with Savannah to the north for port capacity. This made the city, and by extension, the fort a target for the British.

During World War II, US General Anthony McAuliffe, commanding surrounded troops in Bastogne was given an ultimatum to surrender. His reply of “Nuts” became perhaps the best rebuke ever issued by an American officer.

At Fort Morris, I may have heard the second (though less famous) rebuke. While defending the fort, Colonel John McIntosh was confronted by several ships of the British fleet, who demanded he surrender the fort. His reply? “Come and Take It!”. The British decided to leave instead.

Unfortunately, two months later they captured Savannah and returned by land to capture Sunbury and Fort Morris. Most of the population fled the city, never to return. Fire claimed much of the remaining city and over the next 200 years, nature had reclaimed most of the former city.

The fort remained with a very small contingent through the Civil War years, but it was finally abandoned permanently in 1865. Today, the embankments remain, while trees grow inside and atop to former fort.

I arrived just in time to catch a musket-firing demonstration by a park employee in a uniform of the Revolutionary War period. He gave a description of the musket he had, and the several steps required to load, prime, and fire it.

After his first shot, he reloaded as quickly as possible, with no explanation, to emphasize both how long it took to reload, and how quickly (relatively speaking) an experienced soldier could do so. The single shots were fairly loud and release a lot of smoke. One can imagine what a full battlefield might have sounded, looked, and smelled like.

After I followed a short trail around the outside of the fort, along the river, and back to the Visitor’s Center, I left the park and headed south for the second Georgia park of the day.

Steve