Both Fort Morgan and Fort Pickens were built pre-Civil War. Fort Morgan was placed to protect Mobile Bay and Fort Pickens guarded Pensacola Bay.
Fort Morgan was held by the Confederacy at the beginning of the Civil War, but the Union knew that taking Mobile bay was important to the outcome of the war. One major battle was fought there- the Battle of Mobile Bay. Union Admiral David Farragut arrived with his fleet of wooden ships and ironclad Monitors (small warships). As the first of the vessels entered the harbor, the lead ship quickly sank. It turns out the harbor was littered with torpedoes. In the 1800s a torpedo was more like what we would consider to be a mine. They were essentially bombs, sitting beneath the surface of the water. When Farragut was informed of the torpedoes, he reportedly made the decision that taking the bay was more important than the risk and yelled out “Damn the torpedoes- full speed ahead!”. Pushing through the Confederate defenses allowed the Union to get into position to capture the fort.
Fort Pickens is located on Pensacola Bay and was held by the Union for the duration of the war. Across the bay, Fort McRee and and Fort Barrancas were held by the Confederates. For months the soldiers in these forts essentially had staring contests, with no movement, skirmishes or battles fought.
In late 1861, the Union finally started the action by bombarding the two forts with cannon fire. Unfortunately they were so far away that the cannon balls all landed in the bay. Most of the damage that was done to the opposing forts was accomplished by the warships that arrived to help. After two days of bombardment, over 6000 cannonballs had been fired, and in the end, the situation was essentially the same. The following year the Confederates decided that the forts were not worth defending, and their troops were needed elsewhere, so they abandoned Fort McRee and Fort Barrancas.
Paul and I have seen quite a few of these pre-Civil War forts across the country, and it turns out many of them either saw no action, ever, or very little. It has boggled my mind that time after time we find out that it took 12 –30 years to build a fort, and then that fort never fired a single shot in battle. I got my answer at Fort Pickens on the guided tour we took. At the time these forts were built, warfare hadn’t changed in any essential way in 100 years, so these forts were built solidly and painstakingly to withstand the weapons of the day and were expected to be viable for years to come. Unfortunately, by the time of the Civil War, advances in weapons had taken place that rendered these forts vulnerable and obsolete. One of the advancements was rifled cannons, which were much more accurate and could fire a projectile that traveled much further than their smooth barreled predecessors.
In later years some of the forts were modernized, creating a fort within a fort, to keep them viable for modern warfare.
What’s wrong with this picture? Although it was 77 degrees the day we arrived at Fort Pickens, the following day the weather took a turn for the worse and the high was only in the low 50s. Paul and I rode our bikes to the fort from the campground wearing our winter gloves, hats and jackets!
