Old Fort Jackson
Begun in 1808 under Thomas Jefferson and finished in 1812, Old Fort Jackson is the oldest standing brick fortification in Georgia, raised on the Savannah River to guard the city's approaches and later abandoned by Confederate troops as Sherman closed in during December 1864. Today a National Historic Landmark operated as a museum by the Coastal Heritage Society, it is best known among ghost-hunters for Private Patrick Garrity, a Confederate soldier said to have bludgeoned his superior, Lieutenant George Dickerson, with a musket near the drawbridge before drowning in the moat as he fled. Visitors and staff report his half-formed apparition lingering at that same spot, visible only from the waist up. Others describe phantom footsteps pacing the ramparts and a creeping sense of being watched, attributed to the many soldiers who served and died within these walls.
📍 1 Fort Jackson Road, Savannah, GA 31404, Savannah, GA · Get directions