Cisterns of the Construction Village
Fort Pulaski National Monument
Robert E. Lee, newly graduated from the
United States Military Academy at West
Point, joined Major Samuel Babcock of the
Army Corps of Engineers in 1829 to begin
work on building a construction village on
this site. Two years later Lee transferred to
Hampton Roads, Virginia. Due to failing
health, Babock was replaced by Lieutenant
Joseph K.F. Mansfield in 1831 who completed
the construction village. Mansfield remeined
in charge of all work on Cockspur Island until
1845 and deserves primary credit for the
construction of Fort Pulaski.
Drawing of Construction Village
The construction village contained the shops
and quarters required by workers building
Fort Pulaski. Enslaved African Americans,
rented from owners of neighboring rice
plantations, performed much of the hard
labor. Skilled masons and carpenters,
including freed African Americans, were
recruited not only in Savannah but were
also brought down each fall from Northern
States. Workers suffered from malaria
yellow fever, typhoid, dysentery, destructive
hurricanes and bone-chilling winter gales
during the eighteen years that it took to
complete the fort.
Fresh drinking water was an important
but scarce commodity in the salty
environment of Cockspur Island.
Pipes running off roofs of buildings
carried rainwater to round brick cisterns
where it was stored for drinking and
cooking. All that remains today are
these brick cisterns to remind us of
the construction village, which was
the scene of so much human drama.
Over the years harsh environmental conditions on
Cockspur Island took their toll on the wooden
buildings that comprised the construction village.
During a return trip to Fort Pukaski in 1861, then
Confederate General Robert E. Lee reported that
all of the temporary frame structures that he could
recall on the island were gone. The remaining
buildings survived the battle for Fort Pulaski in 1862
only to be completely destroyed during a hurricane
nineteen years later.
Marker can be reached from Islands Expressway (U.S. 80), on the left when traveling east.
Courtesy hmdb.org
