Running the Gauntlet at Fort Morgan (Civil War) | History Traveler Episode 165

[Music] all right well as you can see we're starting off this video a little bit different from how we normally start off this area that you see behind me is mobile bay and during the civil war this spot right here is going to be the site of one of the most famous naval battles of the civil war [Music] all right now i know that it's not a whole lot to look at out here but this was the site of one of the most famous naval battles of the civil war so if you look off in the distance on the horizon right there that is fort gaines where we just came from and over there on the horizon line kind of over that dude's right shoulder is where fort morgan would be located so this whole area in between would have been seated with naval mines from the confederacy blocking off mobile bay [Music] i mentioned that this whole area had confederate mines or torpedoes what they call them at the time all throughout the bay well back here close to fort morgan there was one little channel that was left clear for blockade runners and in august of 1864 this is the area that afroferrica is going to try and blast through to open up the uh the area of mobile bay and to the deep south all right we're approaching the end of our destination here we're going to hop off and then go take a look at fort morgan [Music] [Applause] [Music] we just got up here to fort morgan fort morgan the construction on it started in 1819 and it was completed in 1834 and uh i know a little bit about fort morgan and its role in the civil war but somebody who knows a lot more than me there's this guy right here this is uh josh from the youtube channel history savior 1941 and he actually used to work here uh so anyway we're gonna go ahead and take a little bit of a look around the the fort kind of look at how the confederates lived and then kind of explore how this fort played a role in the battle of mobile bay all right well obviously what we are looking at here is the tunnel that is going into fort morgan and uh during the civil war era there would have been two big old iron doors here and you can see the the hinges here still but this was what was called a third system fortification and of all of the third system fortifications uh this is the only one that had a tunnel like this now fort morgan saw service in the civil war spanish-american war world war one world war ii and if you let me adjust my lighting a little bit here if you look you can see the remnants of uh some rail tracks well that was from the spanish-american war they would bring supplies and ammunition in on on the wharf and then bring it into the fort through this tunnel all right we're gonna go ahead and go on into the fort now hey uh also here coming into fort morgan we we have a a frog guarding the gate [Music] and here is the entrance to fort morgan so you can see they have the completion date of 1833 up there on the entrance to the fort and one quick thing that that i wanted to note so if you look here you can see there's the outer wall here's the tunnel that we just walked through and uh right here on the fort itself well you'll notice that there are places where howitzers would have been positioned well this you might wonder you know why would these howitzers be placed where they're firing on their own walls on the inside well if enemy troops were able to get over the wall or come through the tunnel these are positioned in such a way that they can look down the walls and fire canister or grape shot on anybody who is attacking the fort when you're in the fortification like this and this happened during the august siege of the union troops in 1864 is that you will not only have a naval um bombardment of this fortification but you also have a land attack and a land operation now that is what this structure behind me is for this is basically your first most defense for your riflemen that were inside the fort so the infantrymen armed with the muskets the enfield rifles at the time would have been right here and that is a breast high wall that would help protect them as in front of them you couldn't see the fortification from the outside but they were fire on the troops that were attacking and then you would step down you had a tear plane that was on the bottom it was a flat surface so where they were shooting from was elevated you would step down and reload your lock or your rifle because these rifles you got to remember took a long time to load it not like a modern rifle that has magazine fed you had to load one round at a time a good soldier during the civil war could fire three shots in one minute now all these men were required to do that but when you're in a heated battle you can't really do that you can't think for the most part so these guys would step down to try to give themselves a little break not to get shot and then they would reload the rifle step back up onto the breast wall and fire another round now the troops that were moving around as you can see this is not a big spot so they had to have a way to maneuver around this wall and then there was a lower plane on the terror plane that they were actually used to make their movements around the wall while the guys have clearance on the top to be able to shoot over the breast wall [Music] all right so we just got into the the fort here and uh dang as you can see like this place is just cool as heck it almost feels like a roman ruin uh or something like that now whenever you're looking at these forts they actually had like a dual tunnel system running around the perimeter so here's one right here and then if i make my way over here well you can see here is the other tunnel system and then here is the outer wall so the your howitzer or your can would have been positioned right here next to that outer wall your gun crews would have been using this tunnel system right here well they have to have powder they have to have ammunition and you don't want those guys getting in each other's way so all of the powder and all the ammunition would have been run through these tunnels right here and would have been servicing the guys who are operating the howitzers right here [Music] now i can't go into this room but here's an example of what one of these howitzer setups would have looked like so you can see it's set up on a wooden plank that that pivots so that you can cover like a full 45 degree angle to the left or to the right that gives us a little bit better idea of how these guns would have been operated right now we are moving from the casemate into the darkness here this is the powder room and as you can see it's uh pretty sealed off and for good reason if you had powder in here well this is a very sensitive area now originally this would have had a wooden floor and they wouldn't have had nails binding the floor down it would have been wooden pegs the reason for that is that civil war soldiers at the time wore shoes called brogan's that had a metal heel plate on them well if you for some reason uh hit one of those nails with your shoe and it creates a spark well that could get explosive so soldiers couldn't even wear shoes in here they would wear like a silk sock and if you look right here well these aren't loopholes for shooting these are vents that are designed to basically keep keep this area you know with airflow and to keep the powder dry but yeah this is the powder room [Music] what we are looking at right now is the area of the fort where the ordinance sergeant would work out of so the ordinance sergeant was in charge of ammunition and arms and everything like that so you can see there's some ram rods there you can see some cannon balls over here and if we back up and look over in this direction well here's a closer look at one of those wooden gun carriages that i was talking about earlier and you can see these wheels down here where they could traverse this whole mechanism and aim the artillery piece wherever they wanted and then if we if we back up here now here's an old mortar carriage and these are all original pieces pretty interesting now here's something pretty cool that if you didn't know it was here you would just walk right by it but uh here some confederate soldier uh decided to carve in the date that he was here in 1861. kind of cool there's something here at the fort that i haven't mentioned but i do feel like i need to briefly touch on anytime you see one of these concrete structures well that is not original to the forts that wouldn't have been here during the civil war this is what we refer to as one of the endicott period forts so this would have been built during the late 1800s there are other videos where where you can see me go through some of these endicott structures but uh for this video we're mainly going to stick to you know the the part that deals with the battle of mobile bay during the civil war all right so we've been looking at some of the the lower parts of the fort here now we're going to go up to the bastion along this insanely steep set of stairs so this is where the the guns that would be battling uh you know any ships coming through or uh any soldiers approaching from the east this this is where those guns would be located and holy cow i've always been told that people in the civil war were short but man these steps are not for short people much less taller people but wow this is cool all right well these are the gun positions on the western side of fort morgan facing mobile bay so you can see up here you know they have these spots where the the gun cradles would be there's the pivot point and then you would have this track along here to where you could traverse the guns and uh yeah this this is the side of the fort where most of the action is going to be taking place during the battle of mobile bay so we're gonna head up to that platform there and get a little bit better look at where the battle took place so right there are the gun positions on the west side of fort morgan and right out here in front of us is where one of the greatest naval battles of the civil war took place the battle of mobile bay now you can see this tower here in front of me during the civil war there would have been a lighthouse there so on august 5th farragut and his fleet would have made their way right through here the water line would have been closer to the tower then and there would have been just a narrow channel where his uh where his ships would be avoiding the torpedoes out in the bay and as they were moving through there in the distance it might be a little bit hard to see but there's a yellow buoy that is where the uss tecumseh hit one of these torpedoes blew it 20 feet out of the water and then it rolled over and and sank and at that point there is a fierce bombardment between the confederates and the union that takes place right here they end up pushing through they take on the css tennessee and end up overpowering that and then they end up in mobile bay where they they rest for a little while before kind of moving back over here to the area of the fort and initiating a siege but right here this is uh this is where it all went down [Music] all right so the area that i'm moving into now is a casemate on the western side of fort morgan and uh so the guns here would have been facing mobile bay and on august 5th as admiral farragut and the other union ships were were moving into mobile bay well they were firing on the fort and in this room there was a significant amount of damage so anywhere where you see white that is the original part of the fort and in these areas like here and here well that is where the wall was taken out there there was an explosion in here so it's hard to tell on camera but the the floor is is really kind of messed up in here uh but there was an explosion you can see spots where you know like shrapnel and everything hit the brick and and busted it up and here's another spot here where the wall was taken out so yeah quite a bit of battle damage right here on the western side of fort [Music] morgan so what i'm looking at now is the interior of fort morgan and and this looks different than what it would have looked like during the civil war during the civil war you can kind of see a little bit of a discoloration in the grass i don't know if you can see it on camera or not but there would have been a giant structure here called the citadel which would have housed like up to 400 troops well on august 22nd whenever farragut started bombarding the fort uh well the citadel caught fire if you have a big fire where there is a lot of powder and ammunition that's a bad deal so if you look right here this was an old cistern so the confederate troops started bringing the powder out dumping it into the cistern so that it wouldn't explode because of the fire citadel ended up burning down and confederates ended up surrendering the fort [Music] all right well there you go uh that was historic fort morgan right here at the mouth of mobile bay if you ever come to alabama whether it's to gulf shores or orange beach or anything like that make sure that you take time to come out to fort morgan because right here is where one of the greatest naval battles of the civil war took place i learned a lot today i learned a lot from from josh that i didn't know you know stuff about these sports so always picking up something new so be sure to go check out his channel as well and as for now off to the next place [Music] [Music] look at this lazy bird hitching a ride across mobile bay instead of flying like everybody else [Music] you

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 28,001

Rating: 4.980464 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

Id: 394F057QXK4

Length: 21min 1sec (1261 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021