Hussey & Latham Fort Pulaski Memorial
Chatham County, Chatham County, Georgia
Marker Inscription
This memorial commemorates the act of Lieutenant Christopher Hussey of the Montgomery Guards and Private John Latham of the Washington Volunteers, the first volunteer regiment of the state of Georgia while under fire during the bombardment of April 11, 18… transcription continues on the marker
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The Story
In the spring of 1862, Union gunners on Tybee Island opened fire on Fort Pulaski, the brick fortress guarding the sea approach to Savannah. Over roughly a day and a half of shelling on April 10–11, newly developed rifled cannon breached walls once thought impregnable, and the Confederate garrison—drawn from Georgia volunteer companies like the Montgomery Guards and the Washington Volunteers—surrendered. This memorial singles out the courage of two of those defenders, Lieutenant Christopher Hussey and Private John Latham, who stood to their duty while shells fell around them.
Why it matters
The 1862 bombardment proved that rifled artillery could shatter masonry forts, instantly making the great brick coastal fortifications of the era obsolete and reshaping military engineering. Markers like this preserve the individual valor behind a battle that changed how nations defend their shores.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the spring of 1862, the Civil War was barely a year old, and the Union was tightening a naval blockade meant to strangle the Confederacy's trade. Savannah, Georgia, was one of the South's most important Atlantic ports, and the key to Savannah was Fort Pulaski—a massive brick fortress standing on Cockspur Island, where the Savannah River meets the sea.
Forts like Pulaski were the pride of American coastal defense. Built over decades of the antebellum era, with walls of brick many feet thick, they were considered all but impregnable. The prevailing wisdom held that no cannon then in service could batter down such masonry from a safe distance. A young Robert E. Lee had worked on the fort's defenses as an army engineer years before the war.
By early 1862, Union forces had quietly seized nearby Tybee Island and spent weeks hauling heavy guns across the marshes, often under cover of night. The Confederate garrison inside Pulaski—Georgia volunteers drawn from local companies—settled in for what they expected to be a long standoff. They did not yet know that the ground of warfare had shifted beneath them.
People & events
On the morning of April 10, 1862, Union batteries on Tybee Island opened fire across the water. Among the guns were newer rifled cannon—their barrels grooved to spin the shell for far greater range and accuracy than the smoothbore artillery the fort was built to withstand. Round after round struck the same stretch of wall, and slowly, impossibly, the brick began to crumble.
The bombardment carried into April 11. As shells tore into the fort and a breach widened toward the powder magazine, the defenders faced a grim choice. This memorial remembers two of them by name—Lieutenant Christopher Hussey of the Montgomery Guards and Private John Latham of the Washington Volunteers, remembered here among Georgia's first volunteer companies—singled out for standing to their duty while the fort was under fire.
The inscription itself survives only as a fragment, and much of the personal detail of that day is lost to the record. What it preserves is the essential thing: that behind the sweeping story of a battle stood individual men who held their posts as the walls came down around them. By the end of April 11, with the fort breached and its garrison exposed, the Confederate commander surrendered Pulaski to spare his people.
Its place in the American story
The fall of Fort Pulaski was a small battle with an outsized legacy. In little more than a day, rifled artillery accomplished what military engineers had believed impossible: it shattered a first-class masonry fort from a distance. The news traveled fast, and the lesson was unmistakable.
Almost overnight, the great brick coastal fortifications that guarded American harbors were rendered obsolete. Armies on both sides of the war, and observers far beyond it, absorbed the point and began rethinking how coasts and cities could be defended. The age of the towering brick fort was ending, giving way to earthworks, concrete, and eventually steel.
For Savannah, the capture tightened the Union blockade and pushed the port further out of the war. For military history, Pulaski marks one of those rare, sharp moments when a single engagement proves an old certainty wrong—and the individual courage this memorial honors is the human face of that turning point.
If you visit
This corner of Chatham County sits in the low, watery landscape where the Savannah River spreads toward the Atlantic—marsh grass, tidal creeks, and wide coastal sky. It is the kind of place where the distances of that 1862 duel become real: look out over the water and picture gun crews on one shore firing at a fort on the other.
A memorial like this rewards a slow reading. Take a moment with the names it carries, Lieutenant Hussey and Private Latham, and remember that markers like this one exist to keep ordinary people from vanishing entirely into the summary of a battle. The inscription is weathered and incomplete, which is its own quiet lesson in how history survives—in the fragments we choose to preserve.
The stop pairs naturally with a broader exploration of the Savannah area's Civil War and coastal history. Combine it with a walk along the water and some time reading the surrounding landscape, and a single roadside marker becomes a window onto the day masonry forts met the modern gun.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Lieutenant Christopher Hussey
- · Private John Latham
Related events
- · Bombardment of Fort Pulaski (April 1862)
Themes & tags
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