Fort Morgan is a historic masonry pentagonal bastion fort at the mouth of Mobile Bay, Alabama, United States. Named for American Revolutionary War hero Daniel Morgan, it was built on the site of the earlier Fort Bowyer, an earthen and stockade-type fortification involved in the final land battles of the War of 1812. Construction was completed in 1834, and it received its first garrison in March of the same year.
Fort Morgan is at the tip of Mobile Point at the western terminus of State Route 180 (Alabama). It and Dauphin Island, on which Fort Gaines is situated, enclose Mobile Bay. The Alabama Historical Commission maintains the site.
War of 1812
After the departure of the Spanish from Mobile in April 1813, the United States built an earth and wood redoubt on Mobile Point, ultimately naming it Fort Bowyer after Col. John Bowyer, who completed the construction before leaving in 1814. In September 1814, the fort withstood a British naval and land attack, known as the First Battle of Fort Bowyer. The British returned in February 1815 after their defeat at the Battle of New Orleans and again launched an attack that became known as the Second Battle of Fort Bowyer. This time they were successful, with its American garrison surrendering the fort. Before the British could continue their attack towards Mobile, Alabama, they received word that the Treaty of Ghent, ending the war, had been signed on Christmas Eve, 1814. When word of the treaty's ratification arrived shortly thereafter, the British withdrew. The site was a logical one for a more substantial fort that could defend itself from landward and protect the entrance to the bay, leading to Fort Morgan replacing Fort Bowyer.
Construction
After the War of 1812, the United States began a program to strengthen its seacoast defenses. As part of this program, in 1818, the U.S. Army contracted with Benjamin Hopkins of Vermont to build a large masonry fort on Mobile Point after a design by Simon Bernard, who had been a military engineer for Napoleon. However, Hopkins died a year later in a yellow fever epidemic, having accomplished little. The following contractor, Samuel Hawkins of New York, died in 1821 before completing anything on the project. The U.S. Army turned the task over to the United States Army Corps of Engineers under Captain René Edward De Russy. Using enslaved laborers, De Russy made some progress before he became sick in 1825 and turned the work over to his deputy, Lieutenant Cornelius Ogden. Ogden completed the work in March 1834 and turned the fort over to Captain F.S. Belton, commander of Company B, 2nd U.S. Artillery. This unit remained at the fort for about a year and a half before its transfer to Florida to assist in the Second Seminole War. Multiple concrete arches have been embedded into the walls of Fort Morgan from the beginning of the American Civil War to today.
Civil War
Eight days before Alabama declared secession from the United States, Colonel John B. Todd attacked the fort with four companies of Alabama volunteers, capturing it before dawn on 3 January 1861. The Confederates then proceeded to strengthen the defenses of Mobile Bay. The key point was the Main Ship Channel opposite Fort Morgan, as this was the only approach where the water was deep enough to permit major warships to pass. To defend this area, the Confederates placed 18 of the fort's heaviest guns (including two 7-inch Brooke rifles and two British-made 8-inch Blakely rifles) so that they could bear on the channel. They also built redoubts and trenches east of the fort to impede any attack via land. Lastly, they complemented the land defenses with a small flotilla consisting of the ram , and three gunboats, , and , all under the command of Admiral Franklin Buchanan.
Fort Morgan provided protective fire for blockade runners during the war. All 17 vessels that ran out of the bay eluded capture, as did 19 of the 21 that attempted to enter. After Confederates observed U.S. Army soldiers in the Sand Island Lighthouse reconnoitering Fort Morgan, the fort fired on the island, destroying the lighthouse.