This historic shot, from December of 1864, shows that Fort McAllister was once an impressive fortification! Don't get me wrong, it's fairly impressive these days too, but this looks positively daunting. Union General William Sherman captured Fort McAllister with relative ease (a fifteen-minute battle seems to define the term "relative ease") on December 13, 1864, and this pic was taken while the Union army was in the process of "dismantling" the fort before moving on to Atlanta. Of course what we actually see here are some boys in blue lounging in the shade...likely, local "freed" slaves were given the task of dismantling the fort.

This photograph comes to us courtesy of the Library of Congress. Thank you oh thank you, LOC.gov.