Qualla: Fort Morgan

Fort Morgan: Introduction

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Two contractors died trying to build it. Benjamin Hopkins of Vermont was struck down by yellow fever in 1819, having barely broken ground. Samuel Hawkins of New York followed him to the grave in 1821, the project still unfinished. It took the Army Corps of Engineers, a captain named Rene Edward De Russy, enslaved laborers, and another thirteen years before the massive pentagonal fort at the tip of Mobile Point was finally handed over to its first garrison in March 1834. Designed by Simon Bernard -- a former military engineer for Napoleon -- Fort Morgan was built to guard the narrow channel into Mobile Bay, and for the next century it would do exactly that, absorbing the firepower of every major American conflict from the Civil War to World War II.

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Fort Morgan: Before the Masonry Walls

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Fort Morgan's story begins with a predecessor. After the Spanish departed Mobile in April 1813, the United States erected Fort Bowyer, an earth and wood redoubt on Mobile Point named for Colonel John Bowyer. In September 1814, Fort Bowyer repulsed a combined British naval and lan...

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Fort Morgan: The Blockade Runner's Friend

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Eight days before Alabama officially seceded from the Union, Colonel John B. Todd led four companies of volunteers to capture Fort Morgan before dawn on January 3, 1861. The Confederates turned the fort into a linchpin of Mobile Bay's defense, mounting 18 of their heaviest guns -...

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Fort Morgan: Damn the Torpedoes

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The morning of August 5, 1864, brought the battle that would define Fort Morgan forever. Admiral David G. Farragut led his Union fleet past the fort's guns and into Mobile Bay in one of the Civil War's most famous naval engagements. After the battle, U.S. Army forces under Major ...

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Fort Morgan: Five Batteries and a Battleship Bombardment

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Abandonment and decay followed the Civil War, but the Endicott Board under President Grover Cleveland revived the fort in the 1890s. Between 1895 and 1900, Fort Morgan received five modern concrete batteries equipped with fire control, electricity, and communications. Battery Bow...

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Fort Morgan: Ghosts in the Masonry

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Department of War turned Fort Morgan over to Alabama in 1946, and the Army walked away for good in 1947. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960, the fort today is maintained by the Alabama Historical Commission, its thick walls still bearing the scars of 19th-century...

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