Federal troops occupied the abandoned locations and made ready to blockade or attack Fort Pulaski. In early December, Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Sherman, who commanded more than 12,500 men in the islands, requisitioned siege guns for the proposed attack and landed a permanent garrison on Tybee.

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During this time, it was correctly assumed in Savannah that the real objective of all this Federal action on the coast was the capture and closure of the Georgia seaport–an assumption that brought such panic to Savannah residents that many fled to inland towns and cities. But Southern militarymen–particularly those at Fort Pulaski, including Colonel Charles H. Olmstead, the fort’s commander–were sure the fort could successfully defend itself against both naval attack and land bombardment.

Robert E. Lee, who was then a brigadier general in charge of Confederate forces in South Carolina, Georgia and east Florida, wholeheartedly agreed; the fort’s thick walls could not be breached by cannon, he said. In early November, Lee arrived in Savannah and personally took charge of defense procedures. On two different occasions that month he made detailed inspections of the fort, gave specific instructions about its defense and, forseeing the danger of attack from the rear, ordered big guns to be mounted at certain points on the ramparts.

The Federal expedition to capture the coastal islands was a joint Army-Navy operation, with the naval squadron and convoy under the command of Captain Samuel F. Du Pont. In late December 1861, Du Pont, in an effort to strangle the commerce of Savannah, sank stone-loaded vessels across channels of the Savannah River and stationed gunboats in Warsaw and Ossabaw sounds, cutting off all possible avenues of “back-door entrance” to the port.

About this same time, Sherman decided it would be a good idea to make a direct attack on the city of Savannah by traveling through the winding waterways that led into the Savannah River above Fort Pulaski, thus bypassing the fort. Since this plan required naval transportation, protection and assistance, Sherman, in his usual abrasive manner, insisted that Du Pont agree to it.

Du Pont, after a reconnaissance of those winding waterways, felt Sherman’s scheme to be impractical and dangerous. The difference of opinion between the two commanders became so inflamed that it finally resulted in Sherman’s removal from the campaign. But long before he departed in March 1862, he gave the orders that established a tight loop of batteries and gunboats around Fort Pulaski.

The steamboat Ida, employed as the supply ship for Fort Pulaski, made her last run down from Savannah on February 13, 1862. On that run, she was fired on nine times by heavy guns the Federals had secretly set up on the north bank of the river. Hit but not sunk, she raced on full steam as shots splashed around her, and reached the fort, but did not attempt a return trip up the Savannah River.

On February 15, the Federals completed another battery on the south bank of the river, and also sealed off the main creek waterway connecting the river with the coast. They also destroyed the telegraph line connecting Cockspur Island with Savannah. Fort Pulaski was thus cut off from all assistance; supplies and reinforcements could not reach the fort, nor could its garrison escape to the mainland.

When Fort Pulaski was cut off, the garrison was formed of five companies with a total of 385 officers and men–one company of the Oglethorpe Light Infantry, three companies of Georgia Volunteers and one company of Georgia Regulars, all under Olmstead’s command. The fort had 48 guns, placed to command all approaches. On January 28 it had been provisioned with six months’ food supply.

Federal military leaders could not agree whether to take Fort Pulaski by force or simply wait and starve the garrison into surrender. Finally they were influenced by the Northern press’s clamor for action and by the insistence of military strategists that a quick capture of Savannah was vital. Before the end of February the commanding general of the army ordered that all efforts of the entire coastal expeditionary force be devoted to the reduction of Fort Pulaski.

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