When the Civil War broke out, Savannah was believed to be most vulnerable to attack from the east, where an invasion could be mounted by troops landing on the banks of the Savannah River. The fear of Union attack intensified after Fort Pulaski was captured by Federal troops in April 1862. Even before the fall of Fort Pulaski, engineer William Boggs designed a line of interior forts and gun emplacements from the Savannah River on the east around the city to Laurel Grove Cemetery on the west. Among the most important of those fortifications was Fort Boggs. Located on strategic Brewton Hill, a ridge with the highest elevation east of the city, Fort Boggs was a large earthen stronghold commanding the view of river approaches to Savannah and armed with fourteen guns. The fort was, in the words of one Confederate officer, “one of the finest field works constructed on either side during the war.” To the south of Fort Boggs stood Fort Brown at the Catholic Cemetery, near the intersection of Skidaway Road and East Gwinnett Street. A smaller fortification, Fort Brown held eleven guns and guarded access to the city via Wheaton Street. Linking the two forts were seven lunettes of crescent-shaped mounds of earth, mounting a total of eight guns.
Although the forts east of Savannah were well-constructed, adequately armed and manned, they saw no action during the war because the feared invasion came from the west with Union soldiers under the command of Gen. William T. Sherman. Most of Brewton Hill and virtually all of Forts Boggs and Brown were destroyed over the years. In 1874, the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad Company excavated 100,000 cubic yards of earth in the vicinity of Fort Boggs. Additional grading reduced Brewton Hill to the slight elevation rise found today at the entrance to the Savannah Golf Club.
Lithograph from Illustrated London News
18 April 1863, The Illustrated London News.
Courtesy of Robert T. McAlister.
Frank Vizetelly, artist/special correspondent for The Illustrated London News, portrayed slaves building the earthen defensive works of Fort Boggs in this illustration published in 1863. Rice fields separated the heights of Brewton Hill from the river below. The City of Savannah is accurately rendered in the background.
Impressment Receipt, 1864
Papot Family Papers, MS 1792, Folder 1.
Courtesy of the Georgia Historical Society.
Confederate engineers in Savannah preferred forts constructed of earth and sand after seeing the devastating results of rifled cannon fire on the brick of Fort Pulaski in 1862. Earthworks withstood the impact of direct hits far better than brick and were easily repaired. Construction of the interior fortifications required moving vast amounts of sandy soil to form the gun emplacements. For that task, a large workforce was needed and slaves were the principal source of labor. Some planters loaned slaves for this work, but impressment of slaves began in 1862 because of the reluctance of some slave owners to volunteer their workers. In 1864, the Confederate Engineer Department impressed Ned, a thirty-seven-year-old slave, belonging to James Frazier, an engineer with the Central of Georgia Railway in Savannah. The receipt given to Frazier was dated December 10, 1864, only days before General Sherman entered the city.
Map of Fortifications at the Savannah Golf Club
Central of Georgia Maps, MS 1362, 196-61-03007.
Courtesy of the Georgia Historical Society.
In 1900, the Savannah Golf Club opened a nine-hole golf course on a 110 acre site that stretched from East Gwinnett Street and the Catholic Cemetery north towards the Central of Georgia Railway tracks. Five Confederate lunettes, standing unused for thirty-five years, were incorporated into the course design as bunkers to challenge golfers. The lunettes, identified as “old fortifications” on this map, retain their crescent shapes.
Architectural Sketch at Hillcrest Abbey Mausoleum
Courtesy of Hillcrest Abbey Memorial Park and Mausoleum.
As Hillcrest Abbey Memorial Park made plans to construct a mausoleum in the early 1950s, one real concern was to not disturb the remains of Fort Brown located at the proposed site. In 1951, an historical marker had been placed on a low mound of earth identifying it as part of the old fort. Consequently, the architectural plans took shape in such a way as to keep the mound intact.
