'I had a life. I lived. I loved': Photo of Fort Pulaski bricks made by enslaved persons brings to life those long forgotten

(Fort Pulaski National Monument)

Fort Pulaski National Monument’s Facebook post this week showing fingerprints embedded on bricks is a poignant reminder of the anonymity of enslaved persons who literally built much of the country.

Some 25 million bricks were shipped to Cockspur Island east of Savannah, Ga., during construction from 1829-1847. Most were made by enslaved people, officials said. A close-up photo shows two bricks – one gray and one red – located in the embrasure of Casemate 16.

“Men, women, and children spent each day laboring to make bricks for a fort built to protect the port made rich from their labor," reads the post, which has been shared more than 460 times. "Though it took eighteen years for Fort Pulaski to be completed, the names and stories of the enslaved people who made the bricks for the fort have been hidden and, in many cases, lost.”

Park guide Elizabeth Smith said enslaved people played a large role in the construction and maintenance of Fort Pulaski, "though sadly very little information is known about any individuals or even what it was like."

Fort Pulaski was a US Army coastal defense fort when it began operations; it was considered invincible because of its design and construction.

Rifled shot pulverized Fort Pulaski (Picket photo)

When the Civil War broke out, local militias and Rebel troops took control. A year later, rifled Union cannons penetrated the bricks and brought about the surrender of the masonry fort on April 11, 1862. It was the end of an era for that type of construction.

According to the park’s post, the work behind making all those bricks was laborious.

“Often times while making the bricks, fingerprints and even handprints would be left behind and hardened into the brick. These fingerprints serve as a tangible reminder that while the architecture and the military history of the fort may be impressive, there is another vitally important story that sits right in front of our eyes if we only just look for it.”

A commenter on the Facebook post left this eloquent message: “These fingerprints say to us, ‘I had a life. I lived. I loved. I had human hands, and these hands touched and loved and labored, though they were enslaved. My hands were no different from your hands. I lived. I was worthy of freedom, dignity and love. Remember me.”

Smith told the Picket that the red bricks were made in Baltimore and Alexandria, Va. 

“The grey bricks, however, were made right here in Savannah on the Hermitage Plantation, hence the nickname Savannah Greys. The Hermitage relied on the enslaved men, women and children to make the bricks, which is most likely when the fingerprints were left in the bricks.”

Newspaper advertisements are often the best source for finding information for the fort's construction era, Smith says. Joseph Mansfield (right) -- the Army officer in charge of the construction of the fort for 14 of the 18 years -- regularly posted in local newspapers seeking additional workers, she says. The wages, of course, were paid to owners of the enslaved.

-- “Notice: Persons having demands for the wages of Negroes employed in the service of the U.S. at Cockspur Island, are requested to call at the city hotel this day at 9 o’clock, when they will be paid.” (From The Savannah Daily Georgian, June 8 and July 7, 1830)

Fort Pulaski, 2d. August, 1836
“The wages to be paid for prime slaves on the Fortifications at Cockspur Island from the 14th Inst. will be fixed at 14 dollars per mouth and found -- the owner to lose runaway time only, and the Government to furnish physician and medicine. Any be withdrawn from the works in one day’s notice. -- Jos. K. F. Mansfield Lt. Corps. Engs.” (From the Daily Georgian)

Smith said hardly any names of the enslaved associated with the fort's operation are known.

"Research into the story of the enslaved is ongoing … and hopefully one day we’ll be able to share a lot more of these stories …  in order to present a better rounded and full history of all the people who made Fort Pulaski. But while we don’t have names or stories themselves, we have many fingerprints throughout the fort to remind us that there is a deeper story, one that we still have to rediscover and tell."

The Casemate 16 embrasure is in Pulaski’s southeast corner, which took the most damage during the Union bombardment in April 1862. “You can still see that damage in this embrasure in the width of the window and the lack of bricks. The fingerprints and handprint in this embrasure used to be hidden beneath a layer of bricks, but the battle damage removed those bricks and exposed the fingerprints and handprint," Smith said in an email.

Embrasure where the fingerprints are located (NPS)

After it fell during the Civil War, Fort Pulaski became a place of hope for freed slaves rather than a symbol of their suppression.

Orders issued by a Union general a few days after the Confederate garrison surrendered declared slaves held in Southern states forever free. Hundreds of former slaves gained their freedom at Fort Pulaski and Cockspur Island, which became a final destination, one of the most southern points, on the vast Underground Railroad network.

Many of the men who arrived at Fort Pulaski became members of the 1st and 3rd South Carolina Volunteers in the Federal army, seeing action late in the war.

March Haynes, a man who was born into slavery and, upon gaining his freedom after the surrender of Fort Pulaski, remained in the area in order to spy for the Union army and assist other enslaved individuals in their own quests for freedom. "Many of these men, women, and children remained on Cockspur Island throughout the war and took up residency in the old construction village," says Smith.

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According to the museum, Havers has extensive museum, research library, archival and not-for-profit management experience with an academic background in military history and strategic studies. -- Article

'Deafening noise' of war: Researchers find more evidence of Battle of Ruff's Mill near Atlanta, gather artifacts and soldiers' accounts

Crew member uses ground penetrating radar (The Lamar Institute)

With the help of letters, diaries and homeowners who allowed excavations in their back yards, archaeologists are beginning to fill in details of a July 4, 1864, battle that occurred just outside Atlanta.

Analysis of November 2020 field work, including artifacts recovered at the Ruff’s Mill site, is well underway.

Thus far, the project, led by the Lamar Institute, a nonprofit archaeological group based in Savannah, has been able to document Union and Confederate positions and areas of attack and defense, trenches, possible camp areas and some boundaries of the fighting.

The Battle of Ruff’s Mill (Nickajack Creek) occurred in what is now the Concord Covered Bridge Historic District near Smyrna, Ga. It was one of several brief clashes waged as Union forces under Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman continued their relentless push on Atlanta after a setback at Kennesaw Mountain.

Recovered bullet at Ruff's Mill site (The Lamart Institute)

Rita Elliott, education coordinator for The Lamar Institute, told the Picket that research has yielded much about the plan of Federal attack. The project has located diaries and letters to and from soldiers in Ohio, Illinois and Indiana regiments and has communicated with descendants of men who took part in the battle. The team is trying to learn more about Confederate units, including those from Georgia, but they have fewer documents from which to work, she said.

“What continues to surprise me is the huge number of troops involved in the Battle of Ruff's Mill, both on the frontal assault and those large numbers backing them up,” Elliott wrote in an email.

“It is mind-boggling to imagine thousands of troops marching through the small hamlets and farms of Cobb County in 1864, attacking, defending, withdrawing and scavenging along the way. The deafening noise of the battle; the war zones of annihilated woods and trenched agricultural fields and pastures; the use of isolated farmhouses and other structures as sharpshooter outposts, headquarters, and hospitals; and the despoiling of livestock and possession would have resulted in the Ruff's Mill community becoming an unrecognizable area of unbelievable destruction.”

Much of the work is being funded by the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection, which awarded the Lamar Institute a $96,000 grant to document the boundaries and features of the battle. The work has included extensive research off-site.

The institute applied for the grant after local homeowner Philip Ivester contacted them and showed officials a collection of Civil War bullets and other relics he’s found on his property over the years.

Ivester told the Picket he assisted the Nov. 2-22 field work in neighborhoods that dot the battleground (click GBA map at left to see July 3-4, 1864 lines).

“Not having an archaeological background, I enjoyed learning the methodical process of the field work. There are a lot of details in laying out a site for GPR (ground penetrating radar) work -- slow methodical work,” Ivester wrote in an email. “It also takes a long time to record latitude, longitude, depth, etc. for metal-detected finds but it allows you to understand who was where and what they were shooting at to get a better picture of Civil War battles.”

Officials have stressed the importance of the community’s participation in the work -- by allowing access to researchers and archaeologists. And residents and private landowners came through, providing about one third of the acreage covered.

Elliott said 10 volunteers supplemented the work of three professional archaeologists. The project has been supported by the Cobb County government, historical societies, museums and volunteers.

Documenting a metal detector find

As far as procuring new information about the battle, the team located and documented numerous trenches that were not recorded on Civil War maps, or had been noted in the wrong position, Elliott said.

Charlie Crawford, president emeritus of the Georgia Battlefields Association, says Ruff’s Mill has gotten little attention because it was a brief incident between much more notable events -- namely the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain (June 27) several miles north and the crossing of the Chattahoochee River by Federal forces (July 9) to the southeast.

After his army had repulsed Sherman at Kennesaw Mountain, Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston once again had to resort to delaying tactics and a slow retreat toward Atlanta. “Johnston occupied the Smyrna Line principally to buy time for his wagons to retreat behind the Chattahoochee, and he did not intend to hold the line once that was accomplished,” said Crawford.

On July 4, 1864, Brig. Gen. John Fuller’s brigade with the 16^th Corps, supported by Sweeney’s division, attacked works held by Rebels in Hood’s command at Ruff’s Mill. “The Southerners fell back and dug in. Union casualties in this action totaled 140 killed and wounded. Confederate losses are not reported,” writes historian and author Stephen Davis.

That night, Johnston withdrew troops to their next position, even closer to the river.

Elliott said the research thus far as identified dozens of regiments from Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, Kentucky and other states taking part in the battle.

Attack of Fuller's Ohio brigade at Ruff's Mill (Wikipedia Commons)

The team came across a letter from Confederate Cpl. Frank E. Blossman, of Company A, 6^th Texas Infantry in Cleburne’s division. Blossman provided a vivid account of a Federal assault in nearby Smyrna on the same day.

“They came with the best yell I ever heard come out of Yankee throats, and at first I really thought they meant to interest us but when they came within a hundred yards our boys answered with a shout of defiance. This angered the Yanks, and the officers commenced shouting: ‘Forward, men! Forward!’ Our men answered by shouting: ‘Come on, boys! Come on!’ Just then a Dutch officer shouted to the Yanks, ‘Trow avay de knapsacks!’ and our men shouted not to throw them off, as we wanted them.”

The attack ended in a Union retreat. (Interestingly, Blossman’s letter to back home did not reach his family until decades after the war, according to the 1899 Confederate Veteran magazine. Blossman was killed about a month after the battle.)

Elliott told the Picket the project’s aims include learning more about affected by the battle, including enslaved African Americans who built defenses for the Confederate army.

Artifacts collected by Philip Ivester (Courtesy of Brian Hall Photography)

“Our upcoming research will examine slave schedules and later census records to try to identify African Americans enslaved on area plantations before and during the war, and then freedmen and women in the area following the war,” she said. “This will contribute to our understanding of who may have been pressed into the service of the military building defenses or in support roles. Having these names may also help us research any records associated with them that may actually detail their roles in the war.”

A 1904 book indicated a man told Federal officers that he and about 1,000 other enslaved persons had worked to construct several miles of Confederate defensives lines outside Atlanta.

Elliott and others on the team did conduct four GPR surveys, but most of the field work involved metal detecting.

Historic bridge on Concord Road (Courtesy of Georgia Battlefields Assn.)

Ivester says individuals not from the area should not do any metal detecting; the land is either privately owned or belongs to Cobb County.

The battlefield was the scene of Rebel and Federal artillery firing, as well as small-arms fire.

“The ... obstacle to locating the battle has been the repeated metal detecting of the area over the past eight decades. This has removed many of the artifacts which have been redistributed across the SE and around the world, with no exact locations on where they were recovered or what they were,” Elliott said. “In spite of the lower density of artifacts on these sites, we were able to locate and document the exact positions of enough battle-related artifacts to uncover key components of the story.”

The archaeological team found artifacts ranging from 1 inch to 12 inches below the surface. They are mostly bullets and artillery shell fragments. The bullets will be studied for clues to their manufacture and which side used them.

“It is the location of these artifacts that undeniably tell the story of the military strategy. A limited amount of other arms and personal items were documented that help put a human face on the battle, such as a button, a pocket watch cover, an entrenching shovel,” Elliott said.

Analysis will enable the institute to create maps showing where every artifact was recovered, identifying Confederate and Union locations. “These maps can be compared with historic maps of the battle and used to corroborate, expand, or change the historical narrative, depending on what they tell us.”

Recording finds from metal detector survey (The Lamar Institute)

Elliott and her team are grateful for the support of private landowners.

“One thing we have yet to accomplish is to document a large number of artifact collections from the area,” she wrote. “If anyone has a collection from the area and can identify with certainty where their artifacts came from and would like us to document them, we would love to talk with them. We are currently in the process of documenting one extensive collection from the area. This collection is particularly important as the collector recorded the location of the finds.”

The Lamar Institute will continue its analysis and research for much of the year. After that, a draft report will be submitted to the National Park Service. The final report will include recommendations to the community on preserving sites and educating the public. A documentary film also will be made available.

Elliott said the project is thankful for all who have pitched in.

“It is an ongoing pleasure to work in a community that appreciates its historical sites and understands how archaeological documentation of its underground resources can help tell the story of our collective past -- no matter who we are.”

Thanks for playing 'Guess the Mystery Artifact' from a Civil War blockade runner! Johnny, what do we have for our lucky winner?

(Courtesy of Fort Fisher State Historic Site)

The photo caught my eye immediately. Is that a clump of seashells? Or a weird formation from the moon’s surface? What the heck?

I was intrigued by an accompanying Facebook post Wednesday from North Carolina’s Fort Fisher State Historic Site, which posed this question:

Can you guess what this artifact is?

Hint 1: It came in via the blockade

Hint 2: Used by soldiers in battle

Hint 3: How many pieces are here?

We will reveal the answer tomorrow at 2pm.

I was all in after that -- and read the comments. Most of nearly a dozen readers claimed they were percussion caps for a rifle.

Bingo!

Sure enough, the Civil War site said in a Thursday update, the photo depicts about 300 tiny percussion caps, likely for an Enfield. They were packaged in a metal box about 3 inches wide and an inch deep. They went down with the blockade runner Modern Greece in 1862.

This painting is believed to depict the Modern Greece (NCpedia)

Percussion caps were critical to firing small arms during the conflict. They were made of copper and had a rim or flange. The cap would be placed at the breech, or back end of the gun. When the trigger was pulled, the hammer would strike the cap, causing a flame to ignite powder in the barrel, shooting a ball out of the muzzle.

The South, which had limitations in manufacturing, turned to other countries, notably England, for such items.

Swift blockade runners carried a mix of war materiel and goods to the port in exchange for exported cotton and other items. The ships carried items to and from Europe, largely via the Bahamas and Bermuda.

Bowie knife recovered in the early 1960s (FFSHS)

Enterprising owners took the risk of running the gauntlet of U.S. Navy ships trying to keep them away from vital ports, including Wilmington, which is about 15 miles north of the state park. But most of the runs succeeded and it was a lucrative business.

Wilmington was ideally situated for blockade-running. Located 28 miles up the Cape Fear River, it was free from enemy bombardment as long as the forts at the mouth of the river -- Fisher and Caswell -- remained in Confederate hands.

In June 1862, the Modern Greece, a screw steam freighter, was trying to reach an inlet for its final run up the Cape Fear River. The USS Cambridge and the USS Stars and Stripes opened their guns on the ship. That heavy fire forced the Modern Greece ashore and it ran aground.

The garrison at Fort Fisher and the Union ships traded gunfire, and it was soon apparent the damaged blockade runner’s career was over.

“You have Confederate troops trying to salvage, you have the Union navy trying to pull it from shore, to take the cargo and get prize money,” John Moseley, assistant site manager at Fort Fisher, told the Picket. (Union crews were offered rewards for the seizure of goods from failed runs.)

Today, numerous artifacts from the Modern Greece and other blockade runners are at Fort Fisher, and are rotated on display.

The shores off this part of North Carolina are littered with the remnants of such vessels. The Modern Greece was rediscovered in 1962 and the recovery of items soon began, with early diving by U.S. Navy frogmen.

“During the next two years, researchers from what's now our Office of Archives and History and the U.S. Navy recovered 11,500 artifacts from the Modern Greece shipwreck site,” says the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. “Work at the site led our agency to establish one of the nation’s first underwater archaeology programs.”

Among the recovered items are numerous Enfield rifles intended for Confederate units. Other artifacts were items meant for civilians.

A 2012 YouTube video on a web page about the Modern Greece features interviews with divers and others associated with the discovery of the shipwreck. “Some looked like you could almost shoot them,” one man says of the rifles, which had been covered in sand for 100 years.

The museum at Fort Fisher has shovels, tin sheets, medical supplies and tools, a Bowie knife and a jar of, yes, raisins.

Moseley says the Modern Greece wreck is about 600 yards northeast of the fort and several hundred yards offshore. Over time, the Atlantic Ocean has encroached onshore, taking away a large part of what was once the fort.

Artillery demonstration at fort several years ago (FFSHS)

Conservation work on Modern Greece artifacts continues at a state Underwater Archaeology Branch facility in nearby Kure Beach.

Assistant state archaeologist Stephen Atkinson told the Picket on Thursday that employees are working toward repackaging artifacts for transfer to a state storage facility in Raleigh for future curation and display.

“As for the wet artifacts, they still remain in our care at UAB, as we do not currently have the time/staff/funding/space to treat them all. (You’d be surprised what it would take to conserve hundreds of pick axes and hoe heads! Not to mention the muskets…),” he wrote in an email.

“So we make sure they are well taken care of in their tanks for now. We have not visited the wreck itself for some time but once the pandemic restrictions are lifted we plan to do a comprehensive condition assessment of all known blockade runners.”