Confederate Heritage Month! 
provided by the:
Georgia Division of The Sons of Confederate Veterans
Confederate History and Heritage Month Committee

OLD FORT JACKSON protected Savannah from seafaring invaders for nearly 100 years. When the fort was built in 1808, the nation's relationship with Britain had worsened. President Thomas Jefferson authorized its construction to protect Savannah from naval attack.

Today, Fort Jackson is the oldest standing fort in Georgia. Named for James Jackson, Revolutionary War hero and former governor of Georgia, it was built on the site of an earthen fort built in 1776.

No battles were ever fought at Fort Jackson, but it was manned during the War of 1812. It also protected Savannah from the Union Navy during the Civil War.

The ironclad ships, the Georgia and the Savannah, patrolled the river. Several “obstructions” were placed in the river to impede traffic.

These precautions all worked, and the Union Navy never got to Fort Jackson from nearby Fort Pulaski. However, Savannah fell when Gen. William T. Sherman’s troops entered the city from the other side.

For 40 years after the Civil War, the fort was used on a limited basis until it was decommissioned in 1905. Today, the site is owned by the state and managed and operated by the Coastal Heritage Society. “We interpret the fort,” says Michael Jordan, public relations director of the CHS.

The first fort wasn’t anything like Fort Jackson. “It had a dirt battery, and it had dirt walls,” Jordan says.

The fort is a popular tourist attraction, and holds considerable meaning for residents. As part of an annual Confederate Heritage Month tradition, three Confederate heritage groups donate a 6-foot by 10-foot “garrison flag” to fly over Old Fort Jackson.

The groups are Chapter 2 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Francis S. Bartow Camp 93 Songs of Confederate Veterans and the LaFayette McClaws Camp 97 Military Order of the Stars and Bars. Also called the First Confederate National Banner, the flag flew over Fort Jackson during the Civil War.

“It wasn’t just a Civil War fort, although that’s its main claim to fame,” Jordan says. “No battles were fought here, and there were no enemy troops here in the War of 1812. There was a fight once where a private knocked an officer in the nose and killed him.”

The fort was very important to Savannah residents. “It was the line separating Confederate Savannah from the Union troops,” Jordan says.

Source: Connect Savannah