Fort Blakeley: Civil War Battle in a Ghost Town | History Traveler Episode 166

[Music] well in the past couple of episodes uh we were down at the mouth of mobile bay exploring a couple of forts uh fort morgan and uh fort gaines both of which were very pivotal and instrumental in the battle of mobile bay well after the union gained control of both of those sports they were looking to kind of drive into the state of alabama well protecting the city of mobile and the the rivers that that would take the union into the heart of the confederacy was a fort that was residing on the site of an old ghost town well we are here today and we're going to be exploring the largest battle ever fought in the state of alabama at fort blakely [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay so the town of blakely was really one of the first major towns in this area a man by the name of josiah blakely came from connecticut in the early 1800s and he settled into the area but at that time it was up under spanish control with spanish west florida and then in 1813 after the war of 1812 started the area came up up under up under american control and he purchased some land and he started plotting with the hiring of a surveyor a town site and then he started selling those slots to people to build on and settle in that town on january the 6th 1814 the town of blakely was permanently established as this town and this city a name for josiah blakely shortly after january 6 1814 josiah blakely died and never was able to see the things that was going on here at the town but here at blakely there were many many things that were taking place here the town was here because the tensile river lies right here and there's a lot of steamboat traffic steamboats were being built here and there was a lot of commerce going on here and being built here actually baldwin county alabama's first courthouse was established here there was a newspaper called the blakely sun and a lot of merchant stores that were established here to sell goods and groceries to the inhabitants so blakely quickly began to rise but it didn't last long here at blakely as it was becoming a bigger and bigger town there was something called the yellow fever epidemic that hit this area as well as larger cities all across the south portion of the united states blakely fell victim to that so all the commerce all the people that lived here couldn't keep up they kept dying of the disease until finally there was no one in the town left and they all ended up leaving blakely for good in the 1840s and then by the late 1840s blakely was nothing more than just a ghost town no one was left here but the balwin county courthouse remained so people will come into blakely for court other than that they will leave and then came the american civil war now we're going to get to the fortifications here in a minute but i wanted to show this tree here in blakely because this is the old hanging tree so right there off of that limb if you were convicted of a crime here in blakely and you were sentenced to death well this was this was the last stop right here so we have a a witness tree right here at fort blakely [Music] well i've now moved over on to the actual battlefield here at blakely and if you look behind me you can see that if you come to blakely you are going to see really some of the most well preserved earthworks of any battlefield in the united states it really is quite remarkable so we were just in the town of blakely surrounding the town of blakely on its outer perimeter were nine readouts so the confederates were defending this place with all that they could uh the war is winding down things are getting really desperate the federals knew that they had to take this place because if they get to the tensile river then they're going to have access up into the heart of alabama so throughout the end of march and the beginning of april you can think of the union as like a big boa constrictor kind of just moving in and and squeezing more and more uh in on this position and on april 9th of 1865 it's all going to bust loose right here in this very spot now in order to better understand this battle it's really helpful to look at a map and they have some interpretive signage up here that i want to show before we get to some of these readouts right now here's the interpretive signage that i was talking about and this really helps to understand the battle of blakely a little bit more so here is the town of blakely where we started out it is right here along the blakely river and forming kind of a t here is the tensau river so this is the area that the confederates are desperately trying to attack and that the union really wants to get access to because it's going to give them access to the heart of alabama so surrounding this area of blakely are nine readouts so these are defensive earth works and felled trees and shivota free and sharpened sticks and all kinds of different things that that are basically trying to keep the union out of this area so again there's going to be nine readouts this is readout number one number two number three number four number five we are currently at readout number six seven eight and nine [Music] [Music] so right now i'm emerging from what the union positions would have been in front of readout number six which is right in front of the union line here's something that is crazy about the assault on april 9th the the union soldiers coming out of this position were charging over open ground through the blakely cemetery so a lot of those people who died of the yellow fever in blakely were buried right here the union troops this is kind of eerie to me are charging across a graveyard to the confederate positions and one of those grave markers is still here all right take a look at this this is really pretty interesting this is the grave of major george peters it says major george peters of the us army he was the second son of general absalom peters so this was a military family of new hampshire departed this life at fort gadsden where he was in command looks like he died november 28th of 1819 so this guy most likely as a major would have been in the war of 1812 and uh u.s soldiers charged right by his grave in that direction towards readout number six all right we're going to go over there and take a look now [Music] all right so i've moved back now to the confederate position because i want to show things from the confederate point of view at this spot on the battlefield so the the union would have been attacking from this direction right out there is where i was just standing and here are all of the confederate earthworks so you can see there's kind of a bit of a trench right here in front they would have had downed trees they would have had sharpened sticks anything to defend this part of the line now they they have a trail and uh josh was already kind of blazing the path there but they have a trail where you can go across these works so i want to get over here on the back side i actually just jumped a couple deer whenever we were coming up through here too and if you move back here well this is what things would have looked like from the confederate position and something about the alabama troops that were here what did you say 62nd and 63rd yeah okay so the 62nd and 63rd alabama we're here this is towards the end of the war things are getting a little bit rough a lot of the guys occupying this part of the line would have been teenage boys who were being thrust into battle for the very first time and would have been taking on union troops coming from that direction right there [Music] real quick before we move on to the next spot uh this is another piece of interpretive signage here at readout number six showing all of the medals of honor that were awarded in the battle of fort blakely so a lot of them uh here's one for volunteering to lead an assault of readout number two there are several for you know capturing flags at different readouts uh but yeah there are several medals of honor that were awarded right here [Music] all right well we just left readout number six and we've moved to a different position along the line this is readout number two and as you can see uh it's a little bit more grown up here now in 1865 this area through here would have been manned by troops from from mississippi right now it's being protected by hordes of angry mosquitoes but if we move up through here a little bit well you can kind of see right through here where where this area has has been built up so union troops would have been attacking from this direction here behind me and confederate troops would have been right here in this spot all right i've just moved to a different position here at readout number two that's a little bit more open and as you can see this is a little bit more of a developed area we're right next to you know some some houses i can hear somebody weed eating but this is where an artillery emplacement would have been for the confederates at readout number two and if you look behind us well there is the blakely river something that is very interesting about readout number two is the union troops who were attacking this position were from the usct which stands for united states colored troops and they were from missouri and louisiana so former slaves who had been in missouri and louisiana joined up with the union army made it all the way down here to alabama and we're attacking these positions [Music] all right well i've moved up now to the area of readout number four and to me here at blakely this area right here is the best representation of what the the confederate earth works and defenses would have looked like uh on the evening of april 9 1865. so here in in the distance on that distant tree line behind me we can't go there because the road is washed out uh that is where the union position would have been and on april 9th the confederate earth right here are the position that they would have been launching their offensive against so again there is our confederate earthworks and i want to show you just the obstacles that the union is going to have to overcome in order to take that position now in the months preceding the battle the confederates had enslaved labor clear out about 800 yards in front of their position here at readout number four and then they would have had these tangled messes of felled trees with with the tops pointing outwards positioned all the way around so here let me let me just stand right here imagine trying to run through that well if the union soldiers are able to make it through those felled trees or when they are well then you get into this open area this open area would have had land mines you don't typically think of landmines being something that were used during the civil war but they were also you might notice these like pieces of logs and stumps just lying around out there well they had that here during the battle and they were stringing telegraph wire in between all of those logs to try and trip up the union soldiers and as they advanced across here you can imagine at this point they're in range of confederate rifles but before they can continue on they have to get past these sharpened sticks so whenever you get slowed up right here i'm probably 75 yards away from the works right now uh if you have to stop right here that has the potential to get deadly [Music] [Music] [Music] now once we make our way across this open area and we get up here to the earthworks well they would have a a ditch down here that you would have to go through they also have these embrasures where they would have cannon probably loaded up with a canister shot and another thing that they have over here that's made out of sharpened sticks is something called shavoda free and i don't know what that translates to in french and i'm probably mispronouncing it anyway but yeah they would also have these things so getting into those earth works was not going to be an easy task also the confederates are putting up signs telling the union soldiers to keep off of their earth works so that was uh going to serve as a bit of a deterrent as well not really [Music] okay now i've made my way around to the uh the inside of the readout here because whenever i'm going to these civil war places i always like to look at things from the the union point of view and also the confederate point of view so this is where the uh the artillery battery would have been so there would have been mississippi troops that were aligned up here and there would have been 16 000 union troops advancing across the field in front of them against 3 500 confederates so they're in a strong position but they're going to be vastly outnumbered by the union troops that are coming across this 800 yard gap here's something else behind these confederate earthworks that's kind of interesting they've reconstructed what one of the shelters might have looked like back here so right here is a battery and there's the shelter [Music] well the end result of the battle of fort blakely is as you might expect ended with a union win in spite of all of the the obstacles and the the withering fire that the union troops were facing they ended up just pouring over these works and overpowering the confederates now they ended up suffering about twice as many killed as what the confederates did but it did end in a union win ultimately i'm saying that the winners of the battle of fort blakely here in south alabama were the mosquitoes i think the mosquitoes defeated everybody but if you ever get a chance if you're ever in mobile or you're heading down to the gulf coast definitely make blakely one of your stops because you're going to see earthworks that are preserved unlike anything you'll ever see on any civil war battlefield and you'll learn something about a battle that uh oh maybe you didn't know about before but anyway as for now we're off to the next place [Music] the largest battle ever fought in the state of alabama at fort blakely oh my arm oh my gosh uh it's really helpful to look at a map and they have some interpretive signage up here that i want to show before we get to some of these readouts but this is where an artillery emplacement would have been at readout number two and if you look behind us oh there's the blakely river and there's josh as well [Music] you

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 41,783

Rating: 4.9528255 out of 5

Keywords: history, history travel, history traveler, history underground, civil war, battle of mobile bay, civil war navy, admiral farragut, civil war battle, fort morgan, alabama, mobile alabama, fort, fort blakeley, civil war alabama, travel

Id: RS4SfNI13tk

Length: 20min 41sec (1241 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 22 2021