2021 quick trips

Time to walk around Fort Morgan as it looked when it was left to the state of Alabama in 1948 as an historical site. Once the Civil War was over, fortresses like this one didn’t play a role in the defense of the homeland since the enemy would come from the Gulf of Mexico and Mobile Bay with guns that would easily blast holes through the brick like a hot knife through butter. Do you have on your hiking shoes? Now we get to look at what we’ve been reading about and how wars were fought over the years.

When coming from land, the enemy would have had to walk through this dark tunnel (this picture was lit by my flash) to get to the main gate. The change from the dark tunnel to the bright sun would have been hard on the soldiers as their eyes had to adjust from darkness to sunlight.

But let’s start at the real beginning of the fort that was built the way forts were built in the first half of the 1800s. From the following picture, the enemy coming up to the fort for a land assault couldn’t have easily seen what they were about to take on. It’s so peaceful looking.

This cleared ground that slopes upward toward the fort acts as a defensive barrier, protecting the fort’s walls from direct artillery fire. This area is called the *glacis*.

The access tunnel through the glacis originally had a sand floor. Doors on either end of the tunnel were closed during periods of attack.

The narrow tunnel opening would deter rows of soldiers from entering at the same time, causing them to spread them out. See how dark the tunnel is?

The tunnel opening on the left opens out on a dry moat that surrounds the fort and provides a means of moving about the fort during an attack.

See the brick wall on the left? That’s what is covered by the grassy area sloping upward that we saw earlier. If attackers had tried to go over the wall instead of through the tunnel, they’d have quite a drop down to the ground.

A drainage system, called a cunette, goes all the way around the mote. We’ll talk about the battery in the back of the picture in a future post.

The main entrance to the fort is called the Sally Port (the word “Sally” comes from a Latin word that means a military maneuver by a defending force to harass isolated or vulnerable attackers before retreating to their own defenses.)

The date over the door, 1833, commemorates the year the fort was named for General Daniel Morgan, a Revolutionary War hero. Engineers completed construction the following year.

So who was General Morgan? Here’s some info from Wikipedia. “Daniel Morgan (1735/1736 – July 6, 1802) was an American pioneer, soldier, and politician from Virginia. One of the most respected battlefield tacticians of the American Revolutionary War of 1775–1783, he later commanded troops during the suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion of 1791–1794.” His use of snipers was very effective but controversial.

These 2 rooms in the Sally Port are where the fort’s defenders could harass isolated or vulnerable attackers before retreating inside the fort.

The floor in this picture that needs repair shows how well built the fort is by all the layers of brick.

The craftsmanship of the fort’s brickwork is still visible, especially in the interior chambers that we’ll see soon.

The white stalactites and stalagmites around the inside of the fort (where Barney is pointing) is calcium lime that was used in the brick mortar during the construction. The lime and seashell were excavated across the Bay on Dauphin Island.

The Sally Port opens out to this central grassy area. The curved openings are called casemates.

Casemates are the arched rooms inside the fort designed as protected gun positions for the cannons but were often used for storage and living quarters.

This shows the height of the casemate openings.

An opening in the back for a howitzer to shoot through.

We’ll go inside these casemates in just a bit. For now, let’s stay outside.

stabilizing casemates

Even before the fort was completed in 1834, water continually seeped in through the casemate arches. In spite of 8 attempts to solve the problem, the leaks were still happening in 1858 when the project in the following sign began.

The cracks in the casemate ceiling on the fort’s eastern side may date to 1864 when this part of the fort endured the artillery fire from the Union’s guns. Expansion and contraction from cyclical heating and cooling also probably contributed to the problem.

Work done by the state of Alabama when it took over the responsibility for maintaining the fort found that the water leaks were also forcing sand into the cracks that put pressure on the fort’s inner (parade) walls, compounding the problem. Hurricane Katrina made these cracks worse.

citadel (1825-1865)

After the Civil War, the citadel was in ruins.

The citadel originally sat in the center of Fort Morgan. The structure had 10 sides, each with a room. The 3 levels of rifle loop holes could be used to defend the structure if the fort should fall. The center of the citadel had a courtyard with 2 water cisterns and its own rifle loop holes in case the citadel was stormed. (A loophole is a protected small opening that allows a firearm to be aimed and discharged, while providing cover and concealment for the shooter.)

Completed in 1825 as a defensive barracks, the citadel could house 400 soldiers. During the Union shelling on August 22, 1864, the pine beams in the citadel’s roof caught fire and burned out of control, forcing the Confederate soldiers to dump about 60,000 pounds of cannon powder into the fort’s water cistern to prevent the powder from exploding. As the citadel continued to burn the next day, Fort Morgan’s garrison surrendered to Union forces.

After the surrender, portions of the bricks from the citadel walls were used for repairing damage done during the siege. The rest of the structure was razed in the 1880s and the debris used as a break water on the east end of Dauphin Island. The Mobile Point Lighthouse was also heavily damaged in the fighting and later torn down. We’ll see the lighthouse location when we’re walking around the outside of the fort.

laundresses’ quarters

According to the following sign, Confederate officers hired soldiers’ wives in March 1861 to wash the clothing of the garrison. Such quarters as those in the next picture usually housed 2 women and their children since their husbands lived in the barracks. Even though the women were paid more than their soldier husbands, the officers looked down on them, describing them as “red armed wives . . . with broods of unkempt urchins who raced around the big black kettles that bubbled over wood fires.”

However, according to the description under the picture from 1862, a laundress had to be married to an officer. Not sure what the real story is, but it would make more sense for the women to be married to the soldiers rather than the officers.

One officer, however, tried to have the laundresses placed outside the fort because of the conditions inside that they had to endure: “Consider how distressing must be the life of the lady thrown into such close proximity to rude, vulgar men forced to hear the obscene remarks distressing to her and her children.” Sounds like they didn’t have much discipline in the ranks.

While each woman had to present a certificate verifying that they were of good character, they could be dismissed for such reasons as fighting and being disrespectful to officers.

An idea of what a laundress’ “home” could have looked like. All of their laundry work would have had to be done outside.

So what did it take to do laundry for the soldiers during the Civil War—on either side of the conflict? The answer is, a lot of hard work over a time period of about 3 days for 1 load of laundry. One website I found listed the 7 steps for doing laundry at army camps in the 1860s. I’m so glad for my conveniences!

first step – mend clothes before washing them. Uniforms got ripped or torn, and some soldiers went days or weeks wearing damaged uniforms. These holes had to be repaired because they became larger during the washing process. Then these clothes were soaked overnight in warm water, or “blood warm” water as they called it [interesting description of the feel of the water] to get the clothes ready for removing stains.
second step – remove stains. Household books and magazines of the time had plenty of suggestions for removing stains, such as stale bread, liquid paraffin (wax), alcohol, and lemon juice. The item chosen to remove the stain was based on the fabric, the dye (color), and nature of the stain. Once the stain was treated, the clothes were allowed to soak until wash day, one to two days later. But . . . if the clothes were soaked too long, they would go sour, and if they were not soaked long enough, more work would be needed to get the dirt out.
third step – using soap on wash day. Clothes were transferred to tubs of heated rainwater and turned inside out. The laundress added soap to the water and rubbed soap on the dirty spots if they were still visible. The laundress made her own soaps from soap-making recipes in household help books or from information handed down generation to generation.
fourth step – the scrub board. This demanding step required muscles and was time consuming. She would rub each piece of clothing against the board until the garment was clean. Once the scrubbing was done, the garments were rinsed thoroughly and wrung out. Fortunately, the hand-cranked wringer developed in 1847 made this task a lot easier for some laundresses who could afford them.
fifth step – boiling the clothes; yes, boiling them. The laundress boiled the clothes to kill the lice and other small bugs in the clothes. Considering the unsanitary conditions in the army camps, boiling was very important for the company laundress. She then removed the clothes from the boiling water with a laundry stick and rinsed them 3 times in hot water, allowed to cool, and then rinsed one time in cold water.
sixth step – bluing as a form of bleaching. The laundress put a solid material made from indigo, ultramarine, or Prussian blue pigments into several pieces of cloth to make balls. The balls were dipped in the water to turn it sky blue. The clothes were then placed in the blue colored water to turn the yellowish color left behind from the soap to a more acceptable gray-white color.
seventh step – drying. The laundress would then hang the clothes on the lines, spread them over bushes, or lay them on the grass to dry in the sun. Drying had to be timed so that the clothes would be taken in while still slightly damp, rolled neatly, and placed in a basket until they were ironed. During the Civil War, ironing cost about three cents for each shirt ($.90 cents today), and many soldiers saved their money for other things, but the officers were happy to pay the extra charge for ironing. In 1861 a $.03-cent coin was available.

The whole process of the next step of ironing during the 1860s is more than I want to cover in this post, even though ironing while watching a movie is one of my most favorite things to do. Look for the information online if you’re interested.

soldiers’ quarters

In early 1861, after the state of Alabama took over the fort, they purchased lumber for bunks, blankets, straw for bedding, and lamp oil for their soldiers living here at Fort Morgan.

The soldiers stored their weapons and equipment on racks at the ends of the bunks. In April 1861, around 1075 soldiers lived together here at Fort Morgan.

Here’s an idea of what the soldiers’ quarters looked like, but it sure doesn’t look like their barracks in the previous picture that was taken at the fort in 1863.

As we continued walking, we saw one of the two powder magazines in the corner of the fort.

This bastion-shaped room in the corner of the fort held up to 60,000 pounds of black powder. Small openings in the wall provided air circulation to keep the powder dry.

inside the casemates

Originally a “casemate” was an armored room in the side of a warship from which a gun would fire. Here in the fort, casemates are these high arched ceiling rooms designed to be bombproof from which a gun could be fired in case of an enemy siege.

Later these rooms were used for storage of the fort’s supplies and as temporary housing for large garrisons.

Howitzers were set up in many of these casemates that opened up to the dry moat. Do you see the large flat stones in a semi-circle on the floor? They are for these large guns.

This hallway opens up to the different casemates. See the effects of water seepage on the walls?

Some of the ceilings had these track lines in the ceiling. The tracks were used for moving large containers of heavy artillery to where it was needed during the BIG gun era (future posts). It’s like a railroad track on the ceiling.

ordnance sergeant

This casemate became the ordnance storage area.

In the U.S. Army, each military post had only 1 ordnance sergeant who was responsible for the care of arms, ammunition, and other military stores. Usually a gunsmith by trade, he would remain busy by ensuring that the fort had the right amounts of ammunition, spare parts, and target materials.

This picture of an Ordnance Sergeant in the U.S, Army is from 1864.

These sergeants are non-commissioned officers reporting to the commanding officer. They have their own uniforms and are included in the weekly and monthly reviews and inspections.

flank casemate

Each of the fort’s 10 flank casemates looking out to the dry moat area and contained two 24-pounder flank howitzers. A howitzer is a large-ranged weapon that’s between the size of an artillery gun (that has smaller, higher-velocity shells fired at flatter trajectories) and a mortar (that fires at higher angles of ascent and descent). These howitzers could cause major damage to opposing infantry.

bricked-in casemate because of the howitzers

This gun is one of the original flank howitzers of the fort. It
could fire down the exterior walls on attacking infantry.

In a previous post we talked about an “embrasure” that’s an opening between 2 solid parts of a wall so a soldier could fire his gun through the opening that’s like a slit and feel fairly safe that he couldn’t be shot himself. This is an example of an embrasure.

going upstairs

As we walked to the 2nd level of the fort, the views were amazing.

Looking out to Mobile Bay and down to the parade ground.

See the 2 large circles in the grass? They are two of the fort’s cisterns. These circular water wells under the parade ground would fill by collecting rainwater from the gutters on top of the fort. Luckily the area gets many heavy rainstorms from the Gulf of Mexico. Two more cisterns elsewhere in the fort served the soldiers who were here.

view of the Gulf of Mexico with a ship on the horizon

The corner of the fort in the bottom left of this picture is where the Panama Gun Mount was located.

This circular concrete gun mount was built during WWII. It facilitated the mounting and rotation of a 155mm gun so it could fire on a wider area. Of 2 mounts built for the fort during the war, only this one remains and is covered today by grass.

After WWI, a versatile gun and its carriage were adapted for coast defense. While its range was wider than other large guns at the time, it couldn’t track moving targets very well. This deficiency was corrected by the 1920s circular concrete gun emplacements in the Panama Canal Zone.

With these simple, inexpensive Panama mounts, the 155mm GPF was an effective alternative to older, more complex weapons in large concrete batteries such as Battery Duportail.

During WWII, two of Battery F’s 155mm GPFs were mounted on 2 Panama mounts built on top of Fort Morgan. The one we just saw on Bastion 4 is the last mount here.

A 155mm GPF mounted on a Panama Mount in New Orleans National Museum of WWII.

This 155mm GPF is on display outside of the fort.

A view of the Bay in the background, and more gun placements are on top of the casemates.

In front of the fort in Mobile Bay is the minefield where the Confederates placed their Fretwell-Singer torpedoes across the Bay for protecting for the main shipping channel. (We read about these torpedoes in a previous post.)

During the Endicott era, electronic mines were place here that could be detonated from Battery Thomas that we’ll see in the next post. We talked about the Endicott era and the modern military system he developed in the previous post.

Battery Duportail

In 1898, construction started on a concrete gun emplacement across the parade ground from the front entrance. It had two 12-inch breech loading rifles known as “Disappearing Guns.” The gun used 268 pounds of explosive to fire a 1046-pound shell up to 8-1/2 miles.

When the armament was mounted in 1902, this was the most powerful battery on the post. The guns were mounted on disappearing carriages that lowered the guns behind a protective concrete wall for reloading.

We’re looking down on the area where the gun was mounted and reloaded safely behind the concrete wall.

The Battery was deactivated in 1923, and the guns were scrapped in 1942 during WWII.

Firing Battery Duportail’s two 12-inch guns was done by an Emplacement Officer and 84 enlisted men. An additional 18 officers and men tracked targets and spotted the “fall of shot” in the water. These specialists included a Battery Commander, a Range Officer, Observers, Plotters, and others.

Soldiers drilled almost every day on these large guns, training for an attack that never came. While the guns were never fired in battle, every year the soldiers had a practice firing with live rounds and full powder charges.

In April 1908, the 75th Company of the Coast Artillery set a post record when they fired 9 shots from the 2 guns in only 3 minutes and 5 seconds.

Barney is pointing out one of the large rings in the concrete that held the gun in place.

This covered-up ladder in the corner allowed the soldiers to move in and out of the battery quickly.

This sign has more about the Battery Duportail that we haven’t read about before.

Battery Duportail was built as an Endicott Period concrete coastal gun battery. This system used highly accurate weapons mounted in concrete structures to attack enemy warships.

The structures were hard to see from the water and were first used during the Spanish-American War in 1898.

The battery was constructed within Fort Morgan’s walls and into portions of its casemates. Part of the battery structure covers the ground where the original 3-story citadel stood. Guns were on the 2nd level, and magazines and intel rooms were on the 1st level. Hoists moved the heavy projectiles between the 2 levels.

*top:* a gun ready to fire
*bottom:* a hoist for lifting shells to the 2nd level
*right*: power plant

Battery Duportail was equipped with an electrical power plant from the outset. Originally the power plant had a single generator for lighting and powering the shell hoists and retracting motors on the gun carriages. So how were these shells moved? Read on.

Projectiles were stored with their points to the wall for easy inspection and for placing fuses. The lowest tier of projectiles was usually laid on a pair of timber skids that were 3 or 4 inches thick. A similar skid was placed between successive tiers.

This drawing is about storing and moving the shots for the 12-inch battery.

To easily put the projectiles in their rows and then getting them ready for the guns, trolley rails were fastened to the ceiling, passing over the center of gravity of the projectiles in each row.
A trolley transported the projectiles to the loading table.
A shot elevator then moved the projectiles to the gun’s loading platform where they were placed on a shot cart and wheeled to the breech of the gun for loading.