By Roger Allen

 

Pooler was originally referred to simply as Station #1. The Central of Georgia Railroad?s President William Gordon named the town for Robert Pooler, the young surveyor who laid out the path of the Central of Georgia Railroad. On December 8th, 1864, the armies of General William Tecumseh Sherman were advancing through Effingham County towards the city of Savannah.

The 15th Corps was marching down both sides of the Ogeechee River to cut the Savannah And Gulf Railroad; the 17th Corps was busy tearing up the Central of Georgia Railroad throughout West Chatham while being bombarded by the retreating flatcar artillery; and the Headquarters Right Wing of Major General Howard was waiting at Eden. Ahead of them lay a little-known sleepy town of some 200 individuals.

Confederate Commander General Hardee had arranged some 10,000 Confederate troops over a fifteen mile line. Sherman?s men were given the task of clearing ?torpedoes?, or Confederate land mines, from the many approaches to Savannah?s defenses. Sherman ordered the use of Confederate captives to clear these mines ?or get blown up, he didn?t care.? These mines had either friction trip-wires or pressure sensitive fuses.

On December 9th, Sherman established his temporary headquarters in the railroad hamlet of Pooler?s Station. He waited two days while the rest of the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Seventeenth and Twentieth Corps assembled for the siege of Savannah. He ordered his troops to bivouac near the Louisville Road after discovering a line of rebel parapets stretching as far as the eye could see, and accompanied some of his forces as they reconnoitered the Louisville Road area.

The place selected for his troops? encampment: the site of the present day Tom Triplett Park on Highway 80. These woods soon held the blankets of some 30,000 Union troops, who had just finished a march from Atlanta to the city of Savannah. They needed a rest, so they set up earthen mounds upon which they erected their tents out of the low-lying muddy terrain.

Just to the side of the encampment were the tracks of the Central Of Georgia Railroad depot, and some 300 yards further to the east was the advance line of the Union forces. While his troops assembled, Sherman traveled to Hilton Head to meet with Major General John Foster (Commander, Federal forces, Port Royal) and Admiral John Dahlgren (Commander, South Atlantic Blockading Squadron) to discuss possible options for the attack on Savannah.

General Hardee stages a remarkable evacuation of his army so that it could stand to fight again in a place of its own choosing. He ordered a series of three pontoon bridges to be constructed across the Savannah River to South Carolina. Using rice boats commandeered from nearby plantations: Hardee?s forces strung the first from West Broad Street to Hutchinson Island; the second, from Hutchinson Island to Pennyworth Island; and the third, across the Back River to the South Carolina shore. The evacuation goes without a hitch.

As Sherman is returning to Pooler, he is informed that the rebel camp is empty, save for a few smoldering camp fires. As such, the siege ended when Savannah Mayor Richard Arnold surrendered to the advance Union forces on December 12th, thereby avoiding reducing the city to what would have been certain ruin.