Historic Sites of Savannah and Charleston

Mar. 2022

Rainbow Row, Charleston, SC

There are so many historic sites in the eastern states. We are going to be seeing a lot of forts and historic homes this year!

When I started planning our route and figuring how long we would stay in each place, based on time it would take to see the sights we particularly wanted to see, I failed to add extra days in case bad weather forced a change in plans. Out west last year, the drought meant we rarely had to reschedule due to rain. Consequently, I forgot spring in the east means rainy days. All that to say, we didn’t have enough good weather days while we were in Savannah to see everything we wanted. Thankfully, we will be staying in the area again in late fall, so hopefully we will be able to visit more sites at that time.

In the Savannah area, we camped at Fort McAllister State Park. During the Civil War, the Confederate Fort McAllister defended Savannah, and successfully thwarted Union attacks, until General Sherman’s army captured it in Dec. 1864. Fort McAllister is one of the best-preserved Confederate earthwork forts. Now, the state park has a self-guided trail that explains the purpose of each part of the fort, such as the hot shot furnace, where iron cannonballs were heated red hot, and then loaded with tongs into a gun that would fire the cannonballs toward ships, in order to set the ships on fire.

The wooden palisades were designed to slow a land attack.

The fort lies along the Ogeechee River, which was like glass the day we toured the fort. This was the nicest day, weather-wise, that we had during our visit.

We did manage to visit Savannah when it wasn’t raining, just overcast. We walked all around large Forsyth Park, which is surrounded by historic homes. Then, we found more small squares also surrounded by beautiful homes. The whole area was filled with live oaks draped in moss. Since it was a cloudy day, it was kind of gloomy beneath all those big trees!

The fountain at Forsyth Park

After leaving Savannah, we headed up the coast to Charleston, SC. We crammed as much as we could into our stay, as there was so much to see. As soon as we finished setting up the RV, we headed to Boone Hall Plantation. This site has been a working farm for well over 300 years. The current house is not the original—it was built in the 1930’s. The oak alley, however, was begun in 1743. Brick slave cabins built around 1800 have survived and now contain exhibits. We went on a guided tour of the house, but photography was not allowed inside.

There were formal gardens in front of the house.

There were quite a few camellia bushes blooming in the formal gardens.

Serpentine wall. One of the brick slave cabins can be seen behind the green bush.

Smokehouse built around 1750, the oldest surviving structure on the plantation.

Next day, we took a ferry to Fort Sumter, the site where the first shots of the Civil War were fired. The fort was originally 3 stories tall, but after years of bombardment during the war, it was reduced to mostly rubble, and after the war, was partially rebuilt by the Army.

This is all that’s left of Fort Sumter. A museum is next to the stairs in the center.

Union shell embedded in the brick wall

On the ferry ride back, several dolphins swam right in front of the boat. It was as if they were racing with us—very cool to see, and according to someone who works on the ferry, that happens quite often.

On our last day in Charleston, we went to Rainbow Row, and then visited two plantations.

The homes on Rainbow Row weren’t always painted in pastel colors. Most were built in the late 1700’s, but after the Civil War, they became run-down, until they were bought by several people in the 1920’s and 30’s and restored. It was then that they were painted in the pretty pinks, yellows, greens, and blues we see today.

We also visited Drayton Hall and nearby Magnolia Plantation, which are situated across the Ashley River from Charleston.

Drayton Hall, circa 1738, the oldest plantation house in the U.S. that’s open to the public, is being preserved rather than restored to a particular time period, so the house is empty. We took a self-guided audio tour that told what was known about the Drayton family and their enslaved workers. This plantation house is the only one on the Ashley River to have survived the Civil War.

Just down the road is Magnolia Plantation, which has been owned by members of the Drayton family since 1676. The original house was burned down during the Civil War, and the current house was undergoing restoration when we were there, so we skipped touring it, and just toured part of the extensive gardens. There were quite a few azaleas in bloom in mid-March. These gardens are popular, but they were not our favorite, by any stretch. Just not my taste.

From here, we travelled to inland South Carolina and to north Georgia, the subject of my next post.