Explosive Shells
At Fort Morgan, Alabama. Fort Morgan is a brick coastal defense fort completed in 1834 to help guard the entrance to Mobile Bay. I visited this place on June 15, 2021.
A Federal strategy during the American Civil War was to seize all Confederate seaports, to be done as resources allowed. In Alabama, Mobile's turn came in August, 1864. The main entrance to Mobile Bay was guarded by two brick forts, Fort Morgan to the east and Fort Gaines to the west. On August 5, 1864, a Federal naval squadron rushed past the defensive mines and cannon at Fort Morgan, to enter the bay and defeat the Confederate warships there. Once inside, ground and naval Federal forces over the next three weeks attacked and captured Fort Gaines and then Fort Morgan. With the bay entrance lost, the Confederates could no longer use the port of Mobile, but the city itself did not fall until the following year, at the end of the war.
Explosive Shells
At Fort Morgan, Alabama. Fort Morgan is a brick coastal defense fort completed in 1834 to help guard the entrance to Mobile Bay. I visited this place on June 15, 2021.
A Federal strategy during the American Civil War was to seize all Confederate seaports, to be done as resources allowed. In Alabama, Mobile's turn came in August, 1864. The main entrance to Mobile Bay was guarded by two brick forts, Fort Morgan to the east and Fort Gaines to the west. On August 5, 1864, a Federal naval squadron rushed past the defensive mines and cannon at Fort Morgan, to enter the bay and defeat the Confederate warships there. Once inside, ground and naval Federal forces over the next three weeks attacked and captured Fort Gaines and then Fort Morgan. With the bay entrance lost, the Confederates could no longer use the port of Mobile, but the city itself did not fall until the following year, at the end of the war.