Located 22 miles west of Gulf Shores on the mouth of Mobile Bay and at the end of Fort Morgan peninsula is Alabama State Historical site, Fort Morgan. At Fort Morgan, there is a museum and a self-guided walking tour of the fort. Sherry and I just happened upon this landmark when we were out for a drive. From the road, it looked really cool but when we reached the gate we saw the Fort was only open until 5 pm. So we decided to come back another day when we would have lots of time to explore.

The Fort

Fort Morgan has been guarding Mobile Bay since 1834. Construction started in 1819 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. However, most of the construction was actually done by African American slaves.

Because of the Fort’s location and lack of available materials, the Fort was not finished until 1834. Fort Morgan was used during the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I, and World War II. In 1944 Fort Morgan was abandoned for the last time. By 1946 it was turned over to the state of Alabama as a historic site. In 2007 Fort Morgan was listed as one of the “ten most endangered battle sites.”

Water has been seeping through the walls and ceiling of the fort so long stalagmites and stalactites have formed like in a cave.

Above are where the cannons shot out of the fort. In the pictures, you can see the 1/2 circle tracks they used to turn the cannons to aim them in the right direction.

Looking out the cannon turret, all you can see is the glacis. The glacis is the ground around the fort to protect the fort walls from direct enemy fire. They had to have spotters to tell them where to shoot because they could not see the targets over the glacis.

Behind some of the gun turrets, there were fireplaces to help keep the soldiers warm.

In this area, there were cannons nicknamed disappearing guns. They would raise up and shoot, then lower so the soldiers could reload them in the protection of the walls. The disappearing guns shot 1,000-pound shells over 8 miles. It took 84 soldiers to operate one disappearing gun. They could shoot 9 shells in 3 minutes.

Housing in Fort Morgan

The Museum

Hotchkiss Exploding Shell

As seen in the photo above, the Hotchkiss exploding shell was used from the Civil War through WWII. The components of the shell can be seen in the photo below.

First the Canon was packed with gun powder, then the shell was loaded. When the powder was ignited, the cup was forced into the main body of the shell, compressing the softer lead sabot. This caused the sabot to expand into the groove of the rifling in the barrel, wich cussed the bullet to spin, making it more accurate like a spiral football.

Upon impact, the Hotchkiss fuse ignited the open cavity filled with gun powder and the main body of the bullet exploded. Sometimes the cavity was filled with gun powder and shot or shrapnel.

Exploding mortar shells had large wood fuses that were lit before the shell was loaded into the cannon. I would think loading a burning fuse into a cannon loaded with gun powder would cause a few premature ignitions.

I know this was a very long blog, but there is so much more we could write about. However, we will end it here and highly recommend that you go to visit Fort Morgan for yourself because there is probably some info we have incorrect and a whole lot we left off. Even some experts don’t agree on what some things were and how they were used.

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