# Presentation: 215960

## Fort Pulaski NM:Battery Halleck

- John M., Emily, Mike R.,
- Mike W., Matt, Carol
- Module 440, March 2008

## Site significance

- Fired first shot on Pulaski
- Last remaining battery

## Links

- Battery Park
- Reviewed the panels in the park
- Looked at content, perspective, view
- Discussed the other “non-interp” panels – park map/orientation, Tybee panel
- Battery Park link to Battery Halleck
- “Now go see the real thing”

## Battery Halleck

- main topic for significance: first shot from the last surviving battery
- we don’t own it, we don’t have a site plan, we don’t have a resource pack, we don’t have staff,
- we have archaeological survey, mike’s brain, documents and maps, we have first hand accounts

## Management (as we guess)

- Charlie wants to open as quickly as possible with visitor access to the site – at parking area upright for orientation (including brochures, which may be a staff issue), walking from battery park (safety); wayside panels; full size visual model long term, including full models of guns and platforms, etc.

## Issues

- Short-term give access
- Budget: 250,000
- Upright (Bunting) 7,000
- Wayside 1  $7000
- Trail
- platform
- Parking
- Limited space
- Resource impact
- Safety
- Turn around place

## Process Model (for wayside as interpretive media)

- Tangible:
- Battery site (events at battery site)
- last example of a battery (arch persp) that exists on what was the union line for this battle/siege of Fort Pulaski

## Intangibles & Universals

- preservation, perspectives, technology, engineering, conflict, war, struggle (physically moving in the environment), struggle between people, machismo (indestructibility notion), secrecy, innovation, fear, unknown (first combat), homeplace (effect of drastically different environment), health/sickness/long term physical injury, life, death, exhaustion, mental strain, physical strain, humor about the situation, failure,

## Audience

- General audience
- May not have visited Fort Pulaski or Battery Park
- May not know big story

## Theme

- At Battery Halleck, untried troops ventured into the unknown frontier of battle, overcoming their inexperience and environmental conditions to construct the battery that brought weapons to bear on Fort Pulaski.
- (yes, it is long...)

## Connections

- #1 – The mortars were heavy and combined with the marsh conditions and the need to move the guns in the dark in secrecy, was a monumental task.
- Tangible: mortars, weight, environment
- Intangible: secrecy, burden, strategy
- Method: historic night image sling cart, artwork or reenacted sling cart photo, text

## Connections

- #2 – The Georgia marshes were completely foreign to the untried CT soldier, who were unprepared for the environment.
- Tangible: marsh, soldiers
- Intangible: fear, unknown, health/sickness, physical exhaustion
- Method: text, graphics

## Panel Text

- (3 sec. ) Exhausted
- (30 sec.) Untried troops endured two months of back-breaking labor to prepare for what would be  the thirty hour battle for Fort Pulaski.
- (3 min.) The soldiers of the 7th Connecticut regiment toiled in stealth  each night, secretly building the  battery on Tybee Island. Hidden from the Confederates by the tree line, under cover of night, the eight ton mortar was slung from a carriage that bogged down in marshy conditions. Tons of beach sand were carried from the beach to create what little protection they would have from Confederate fire.

## Panel Text

- Quote as graphic
- “...I well remember, exhausted by the unceasing labors night and day for two weeks, especially the exertions of the previous night, and the unremitting toil of the day, we began to long for darkness and rest.”
- 2nd Lt. Alonzo Williams, 3rd Rhode Island heavy artillery

## Draft Panel

## Wayside Plan

- Parking lot – 2 pieces
- interp panel we just discussed
- 3-D terrain and fortification map

## Panel Locations

## The Other Panels

- Parking lot
- 2 panels either (1) double-sided, (2) V shaped panel
- First panel
- (2-sided for coming and going
- Orientation
- Archaeology
- Some interp elements (including historic maps, photos, quotes)
- Second panel
- Other things to do
- Park map with sites
- Take home message (preservation)

## The Other Panels

- 3-D terrain map based on archaeology plan with illustration of site or as reconstruction of site
- accessible
- at trail end platform (powder magazine)
- Stopping here protects resource while showing highlights

## Recommendations

- Parking
- Signs
- Stop signs and turn around spot
- Gate location
- Don’t open entire peninsula
- Site bulletin