Tybee Island: Forts, Lighthouses & Low Country Boil at Sunset

Fort Pulaski is required knowledge for anyone interested in American military history, and it is a remarkably accessible and well-interpreted site. Construction began in 1829 under the engineering supervision of a young U.S. Army lieutenant named Robert E. Lee, his first professional assignment; the fort took 18 years and 25 million bricks to complete and was considered, by the standards of the day, absolutely impenetrable. The 7-foot-thick brick walls were designed to withstand smoothbore cannon fire indefinitely. On April 10-11, 1862, Union General Quincy Gillmore deployed newly developed rifled artillery — guns with spiral grooves cut into the barrel that impart spin to the projectile, dramatically increasing range, accuracy, and penetrating power — at a range of 1,650 yards from the fort's southeast face. In 30 hours of bombardment, the rifled guns punched through the 7-foot wall, exposing the fort's powder magazine and forcing Confederate surrender before a single Union soldier had crossed the moat. The engagement was observed by military attaches from European powers, who immediately began the demolition of their existing masonry fortifications. The age of brick and stone defensive works — which had dominated military architecture since the Roman Empire — ended in a day and a half of fire on Cockspur Island at the mouth of the Savannah River. Today you can walk through the breach in the southeast wall, see the scarred casemates, cross the drawbridge over the moat, and tour the restored interior of the fort with its excellent NPS interpretive exhibits. The surrounding earthworks and the moat are intact, and the fort's setting — on a low marshy island at the edge of the Savannah River mouth — is atmospheric and beautiful.

The Tybee Island Lighthouse, at 145 feet and 154 steps, is the oldest and tallest lighthouse in Georgia — and the oldest light station site in the state, with a lighthouse documented here since 1736. The current structure dates to 1867, rebuilt after Confederate forces damaged it during the Civil War to prevent it from guiding Union shipping into the Savannah River. The 1867 tower uses a first-order Fresnel lens, a massive array of precisely angled prisms that focus the light source into a beam visible 18 miles at sea. The 154-step climb is not strenuous and the view from the lantern gallery is the finest available on the Georgia coast: the Savannah River entrance, the barrier island chain curving north to South Carolina, Little Tybee Island's unmarked wilderness to the south, and on clear days the South Carolina barrier islands beyond. The keeper's cottage at the base of the tower is preserved with period furnishings and open for tours.

Tybee's south-end beach is the most accessible and most popular stretch of the island, anchored by the 1891 pier that extends 700 feet into the Atlantic. The beach is wide and clean, with mild-to-moderate surf depending on conditions, and the pier provides a vantage point for watching dolphins in the surf zone, brown pelicans diving, and the regular parade of container ships and tankers transiting the Savannah River entrance just to the north. The beach is excellent for shell collecting in the wrack line after high tide.