Fort McRee

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Drawing from 1861 of the fortifications of Pensacola Bay.

Fort McRee was a fortification of the US Army named after the Colonel of the United States Army Engineers William McRee in 1840 for the defense of the port and the bay of Pensacola (Florida) . Its ruins lie on the eastern foothills of Perdido Key opposite the headland of the Santa Rosa Island peninsula in the immediate catchment area of ​​the Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola .

history

The fort was built between 1834 and 1839 in the usual way of brick (masonry). It was a three-storey artillery fort with a detached battery (water battery) as the outwork. The entire facility was on a stretch of coast called Foster's Bank. After completion, the armament was set at 122 cannons, but their installation could only be started between 1843 and 1845. However, since the wooden floor of the second battery deck had already begun to be too modern at this point and the load-bearing capacity had become a problem, it is uncertain whether the assembly was completed.

The first troop occupation took place on May 2, 1842 by the I Company of the 3rd US Artillery (Regiment). In July of the same year, the F Company of the 7th Infantry Regiment was added as an infantry crew. The manning fluctuated constantly, but was reduced significantly in October 1845 when the majority of the artillerymen were moved to Louisiana .

After the Mexican-American War , barracks were built in the hinterland near Fort Barrancas , so that from then on the fort was no longer needed as a troop shelter. From then on there was also no longer any permanent crew. The fort (like all coastal forts) was only manned for training purposes. The background for this regulation lay in the serious shortage of personnel, as the entire US armed forces numbered only 10,417 men on December 1, 1853. This practice remained unchanged until the outbreak of the civil war .

Fort McRee's water battery

Civil war

At the beginning of the civil war, the crew of all three forts of the Pensacola port fortifications consisted of a weak company of the US infantry under the command of Lieutenant Adam J. Slemmer , who was also the senior officer of the Union troops on site. (The actual commander, Captain John H. Winder, had already resigned and joined the Confederate .) Since Fort Pickens, on the tip of the Santa Rosa Peninsula, was the easiest to defend, Slemmer made up his mind to join his troops to withdraw there. After all war equipment that could not be taken had been made unusable, the forts of Barrancas and McRee were abandoned, the crews escaped on the night of January 9th to 10th, 1861 with boats to the peninsula. Already occupied on January 12, troops of Florida - and Alabama - militia the fort.

For the next seven months the forts fired at each other without causing any damage worth mentioning. On October 9, 1861, the commander of the Confederate States Army , General Braxton Bragg , carried out an attack on Fort Pickens, but it failed. Thereupon the commander of the Union forces, Colonel Harvey Brown, ordered an attack operation, which should be directed against the Fort McRee as the main target. On the morning of November 22nd, 1861, the artillery bombardment of Fort Pickens and the two warships USS Niagara ( steam frigate ) and USS Richmond ( steam loop ) began. The Confederate guns returned fire and inflicted severe damage on the USS Richmond . Due to a fire in one of the batteries that initially went unnoticed, Fort McRee was forced to stop the fire at around 5 p.m. Due to the onset of the ebb and falling darkness, the two warships had to withdraw shortly afterwards.

After the day's fighting ended, General Bragg requested a status report from the fort's commandant, Colonel John B. Villepique. He reported that he was in a dramatically bad situation, as the walls were badly damaged, half of the cannons were unusable and the powder supplies were stored unprotected. He sees himself unable to resume the artillery duel and asks for permission to abandon the fort and blow it up. Since Bragg was aware of the moral effect of such an action on his own as well as on the enemy troops, he rejected the request.

On November 23, 1861, at 10:00 a.m., another artillery attack began from Fort Pickens and the USS Niagara . Fort McRee stopped firing. Since the Union troops could not conquer the fort by infantry, their commanders stopped the attacks that evening. Fort McRee had been defeated and was no longer artillery worth fighting. Large parts of the wall had collapsed and whole parts of the wooden battery decks had been destroyed by fire. During the civil war, the fort was no longer involved in combat operations. After retreating from Pensacola in May 1862, the Confederates set the remains of the fort on fire. Nothing is known about any repairs by Union troops.

post war period

Fort McRee went unnoticed for the next 30 years. In the years 1871–1872 only two breakwaters were raised to counteract the erosion of the beach. The cost was $ 191.29.

In 1875, the commandant of Fort Barrancas received the order to remove 50,000 bricks from the structure of Fort McRee. This material was to be used to create sidewalks and repairs to Fort Barrancas.

A group of businessmen volunteered to buy the fort in 1885 for $ 500. However, this offer to buy was rejected by the Army Corps of Engineers as the remaining bricks would be of greater value if they were used for repairs to the surrounding military buildings.

As part of the renewed coastal fortification, a battery position for two 8- inch (20.3 cm) cannons was built in the immediate vicinity west of the fort . This battery was named after the defender of Fort Pickens Battery Slemmer . In the following year another battery was built (Battery Center) and equipped with two rapid-fire guns (of unknown caliber). On September 26 and 27, 1906, a hurricane largely destroyed the battery systems, which were then deactivated and only manned by one guard. After the USA entered World War I , the Battery Slemmer's two cannons were removed and used as railroad guns in France. In the 1920s, the Battery Center's two remaining cannons were no longer deemed necessary and removed. Fort McRee fell into a deep slumber again.

Last military use

When the Second World War broke out , Fort McRee was once again included in the military planning. It was intended to set up a battery with two 6 inch (15.2 cm) guns on the site. Before the installation called Battery 233 could be realized, the war was over and the project was abandoned.

After that there was no longer any need for coastal fortifications and in 1947 Fort McRee, together with the deactivated Fort Barrancas, was handed over to NAS Pensacola. Until 1971, the facilities were still managed by the United States Navy and then handed over to the National Park Service , where they are now part of the Gulf Island National Seashore . This ended the 140-year military history of Fort McRee.

Fort McRee today

Left to its own devices for decades, exposed to storms and erosion, Fort McRee has fallen into disrepair. There are only remnants of the foundation left. It can only be reached on foot or by boat.

Sister forts

swell

Coordinates: 30 ° 20 ′  N , 87 ° 19 ′  W