2021 quick trips – part 17: overview of Fort Morgan from 1868 to today, constant changes

The heyday of Fort Morgan was during the Civil War, but it became important along the Gulf Coast again during the Spanish-American War and the 2 world wars. What we found really interesting about this time were the introduction of the BIG guns that found a home here. As we tour the fort itself, we’ll see where these mammoth guns called home.

During these years, constant upgrades and modernizing needed to be done at Fort Morgan.

• 1868: The 15th U.S. Infantry regiment leaves Fort Morgan almost abandoned. Attempts were made between 1843-1875 to upgrade defenses, but finances to finish the construction weren’t available.
• 1898: Fort Morgan is reactivated to defend Mobile during the Spanish-American War (don’t know much about this war so we’ll investigate it).
• 1898-1904: Fort Morgan’s concrete batteries (Bowyer, Thomas, Duportail, Dearborn, and Schenck) are put into service and manned by U.S. Army Coast Artillery Corps companies.

• 1910: Fort Morgan is the largest permanent U.S. military base in Alabama with 600 soldiers stationed here.
• 1917-1919: More than 2000 soldiers come here for training for WWI. The 1st Trench Mortar Battalion Company B trained here for the Muese-Argonne offensive in France.
• 1921: After WWI, Mort Morgan is deactivated and placed in a caretaker status. In 1924, the U.S. Army caretaker detachment was withdrawn, and the fort was abandoned.
• 1934-1937: The WPA and the Alabama Transient Corps work on reconditioning and improving the fort during the Depression. The first paved highway leading into the fort from Gulf Shores is completed. Some 500 men were put to work restoring the brick and grounds surrounding the fort.

• 1941: The U.S. Navy reoccupies Fort Morgan as a Harbor Command Station and ammunition storage facility.
• 1942: Some of the U.S. Army’s 50th Coast Artillery Regiment reactivates the fort’s defenses against German U-boat activity in the Gulf. The fort is now referred to as a “post” in the documentation.
• 1944: Mobile’s harbor defenses are deactivated as the war ends, and Fort Morgan is declared surplus by the U.S. Navy
• 1946: Fort Morgan is turned over to the State of Alabama as an historic site.

Fort Morgan from the end of the Civil War to the end of the century

Brick forts after the Civil War were obsolete because of the rapid advances in weapons technology since the cannon balls could go through the brick like soft butter. Around 1870, the Army started upgrading the nation’s coastal forts by adding gun batteries made of brick and protected by earth. By the mid-1870s, however, this work stopped because congressional funding stopped. Many of these seacoast forts were left to deteriorate until the 1890s.

The Chief’s analysis is “[This] site is of great importance, but will not be of much value as a defensive work until the contemplated water batteries for heavy ordnance along the western and southern shores are completed.”

BIG guns at Fort Morgan from the turn of the century to the early 1920s

The change from wood to iron in shipbuilding happened slowly, mainly because using steam power required new techniques and experience. The general use of iron for warships began when the shell gun was developed, creating the need for armor such as on the Monitor Ironclads that we saw in the previous post about the Battle of Mobile Bay.

As European naval powers grew after our Civil War and our own coastal defenses were deteriorating, the U.S. military and Congress got to work. In 1885 President Cleveland ordered the creation of a fortification board directed by the Secretary of War Endicott to review our status and recommend changes for a modern coast defense program.

• An integrated system of dispersed, individual batteries made of reinforced concrete.
• Each battery, designed for a specific defensive mission, would mount large (!) breech-loading, rifled guns on “disappearing” carriages, heavy rifled mortars, or small caliber rapid-fire guns.
• Advanced fire control systems to allow gun crews who couldn’t see their targets miles out at sea be able to fire accurately.
• Fields of electrically detonated mines, planted by specially designed vessels, to keep invading warships out of protected harbors and under the guns of the heavy artillery.

undersea mines

Coast defenses began depending on “silent weapons.” Electrically detonated undersea mines started to play an important part of our coastal defenses during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Mines were stored on shore during peacetime. During wartime, they were placed underwater in predetermined “fields” by specially designed mine-planting ships. The role of these weapons were to:

• Destroy or damage any warship that entered the field.
• Aid coast defense artillery in repelling naval attacks.
• Prevent enemy ships from entering a harbor under cover of darkness, fog, or smoke screen.
• Channel and hold enemy vessels within the zones of fire from the guns of the fort’s concrete batteries.

I think that the enemy’s just knowing we had such defenses would be a good defense.

Battery Bowyer

Fort Morgan’s first concrete battery was started in 1895. It mounted four 8-inch breech-loading rifles on “disappearing” carriages. At a total cost of $275,000 ($8,610,577.38 today), the battery was ready for service in March 1898 at the start of the Spanish-American War. While the battery was manned during this war with Spain, it never had the opportunity to fire at the enemy.

With the threat of war with Spain early in 1898, the U.S. Army stationed troops at Fort Morgan as a way to protect the port of Mobile before the modern concrete batteries with their breech-loading guns were completed. This time began the fort’s longest continuous period of military occupation, the Coast Artillery era, that lasted until the post’s 1st closure in 1923.

When the war ended in late 1898, the Army stepped up the expansion of Fort Morgan’s coast defense mission and dealt with the needs of a rapidly increasing permanent garrison.

But what was the Spanish-American War about? Time to digress again; thanks, Wikipedia.

The Spanish-American War was an armed conflict between Spain and the U.S. in 1898. Hostilities began after the internal explosion of the U.S.S. Maine in the Havana Harbor in Cuba, which led to our intervention in the Cuban War of Independence.

However, the National Park Service website gave a different view of the start of the war. “After a few quiet months, anchored in Havana Harbor, the Maine suddenly exploded, killing 262 American sailors. Spain denied blowing up the Maine, but a US Navy investigation concluded that the explosion was caused by a mine. The cause of the explosion remains a mystery, but American journalists and Assistant Secretary Roosevelt, at the time, felt certain that it was a Spanish act of war. Shortly thereafter, war was declared.”

The main issue was Cuban independence. Revolts had been occurring for some years in Cuba against Spanish colonial rule. The U.S. backed these revolts when we entered the Spanish–American War. There had been war scares before, but in the late 1890s, American public opinion swayed in support of the rebellion due to reports of concentration camps (death estimates range from 150,000 to 400,000 people) set up to control the populace. Yellow journalism (the old word for fake news) exaggerated the atrocities to further increase public fervor, and to sell more papers (Hearst corporation).

The 10-week war was fought in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. The U.S. naval power would prove decisive, allowing expeditionary forces to disembark in Cuba against a Spanish garrison already facing nationwide Cuban insurgent attacks and further wasted by yellow fever. Theodore Roosevelt resigned his post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy and petitioned Secretary of War Alger to allow him to form a volunteer regiment. While Roosevelt could have led the regiment, he had his friend, Leonard Wood, lead the Rough Riders. Spain sued for peace after naval losses. 

The result was the 1898 Treaty of Paris that was negotiated on terms favorable to the U.S. The treaty allowed the U.S. to have temporary control of Cuba and it ceded ownership of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine Islands to the U.S. The cost of the Philippines was a payment to Spain of $20 million ($610 million today) by the U.S. to cover infrastructure owned by Spain.

back to Battery Bowyer

12-inch breech loading

On March 18, 1898, construction of a concrete battery began to mount two 12-inch breech-loading rifled guns for a cost of $50,000 ($1,584,421 today). Because of the Spanish-American War urgency, materials intended for another project were transferred to Fort Morgan for building this battery. By 1900 the structure was almost complete, except for installing its two 12-inch rifles.

The following information is from a website I found (waymarking.com) about the 12-inch guns.

On June 4, 1900, the battery was turned over to the Artillery by the Corps of Engineers and was named Battery Duportail. Its design followed a common practice of the Endicott system of incorporating modern concrete batteries into existing, outdated masonry fortifications. The battery was constructed across the fort’s parade ground and used the old structure to provide additional protection. After the battery was completed, the southern half of the old fort, along with the dry moat, was filled with earth and rubble. At the same time the breast-height wall and the gun emplacements that ran along the southern half of the fort were leveled to clear an unobstructed field of fire toward the Gulf of Mexico.

Battery Duportail’s rifles were mounted on carriages. These powerful artillery pieces were over 36 feet long and weighed 52 tons. With a powder charge of 268 pounds, the gun could fire a 1,046 pound projectile 8 1/2 miles.

While the Buffington-Crozier carriage was named for the 2 American ordnance officers who perfected the design, it was more commonly known as the “disappearing carriage.” The carriage consisted of 2 massive swing arms that supported the gun. The swing arms elevated the gun into firing position above the battery’s concrete wall by releasing a 30-ton counterweight into a pit beneath the carriage. When fired, the recoil pushed the gun to the rear and downward into the loading position behind the concrete wall. This concealed the gun from the view of an enemy at sea and protected its crew from enemy fire.

Battery Duportail served as a major component of Fort Morgan’s defenses until it was decommissioned in 1923. The battery’s two 12-inch guns remained in place until 1942 when they were scrapped.

becoming a modern military base

Between 1899 and 1910, the Army built nearly 100 buildings at Fort Morgan. Many were workshops and warehouses for the fort’s growing coast defense mission. Other buildings supported the garrison and provided services for the soldiers and their families who came with them to live on the post (note: not “on the fort”). Support buildings included a hospital, post-exchange, power and ice plant, gymnasium, and housing for officers and enlisted men.

The garrison at this time was made up of enlisted soldiers of the Regular Army. Many served a single enlistment before returning to civilian life. One of these men was Sergeant Bouche from New Orleans who enlisted in 1910 and retired in 1940.

Civilian government employees at Fort Morgan worked for the Corps of Engineers, the Quartermaster Corps, the Lighthouse Service, and the Post Office Department.

A school for children of soldiers garrisoned here was held in the post chapel.

WWI

Within a week of declaring war on Germany on April 6, 1917, President Wilson established the Committee on Public Information. Its job was to influence the American public to support the war effort through newspapers, motion pictures, and posters.

The following posters were intended to inspire men to enlist, instill fear or hatred for the enemy, and convince citizens to financially support the war effort by buying “Liberty Bonds.”

Do any of these posters look familiar to you?

As we’ve said before, Fort Morgan played its part in WWI by serving as an artillery training base with 2000 troops on post. Also, the 1st Trench Mortar Battalion Company B trained here for the Muese-Argonne offensive in France.

WWII

As the U.S. believed it would be pulled into a world conflict, guarding the port of Mobile and its expanding ship-building industry became a military priority.

Fort Morgan was reactivated as a military post in November 1941. Throughout the war, the Navy coastal minesweeper U.S.S. Guide continually sailed from Fort Morgan to search for mines that enemy submarines would have laid at the entrance to Mobile Bay, as well as provide security for incoming ships.

The spring and summer of 1942 were the most challenging for the garrison. During these months, German U-boat operations in the Gulf reached their height. The garrison received constant reports or submarine sightings and debris washing ashore. Each report had to be verified by patrols and debris recovered.

In April 1942, the Army’s Battery F’s 155mm GPF long range artillery pieces arrived, along with other pieces to defend Mobile. In the following picture, a gun crew of Battery F service their 155mm artillery piece right after firing from a prepared position at Fort Morgan.

(The Cannon de 155 Grande Puissance Filloux (GPF), built in 1917, was a WWI-era French-designed 155 mm gun used by the French and the United States Armies during the first half of the 20th century in towed and self-propelled mountings.)

This unit served here until January 1944 when it was deactivated and the troops were transferred to other artillery units.

While Fort Morgan was silent during the war, many of the Army, Navy, and Coast Guard personnel who served here went on to see action in Europe and the Pacific. With the end of WWII, Fort Morgan’s long career as the guardian on Mobile Bay came to an end.

uniform of the day during WWII

The typical field uniform for the artillerymen serving here was cotton coveralls tucked into canvas leggings. Their headgear is the sun helmet for tropical climates.

Now that we know the history of Fort Morgan, it’s time to go outside and look at the fort itself.