Fort Pickens walkaround

 

       Located in the far western reaches of the Florida panhandle Fort Pickens was one of the most important of the forts built to guard Pensacola Bay against naval intrusion by a foreign power. It is ironic that it never fired a shot at a foreign enemy but was held against a hostile rebel force throughout the entire American Civil War. It is also ironic that it achieved its ruinous state at the hands of the Federal military through a combination of underfunded budgets, neglect, poor engineering and a fire that culminated in a magazine explosion (during peacetime!). A further irony is that the one assault against the fort by land forces was conducted by none other than Col. William Henry Chase of the Florida rebel militia; Col. Chase had designed and constructed Fort Pickens in his previous job as a Captain in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

 Fort Wiki has a nice potted history here
National Park Service has a less-than-impressive site here
Starforts has a delightfully tongue-in-cheek entry here

 

located conveniently in sight of Fort Barrancas and the Spanish Water Battery 

(but inconveniently a long roundabout drive away from each other)

the two forts were supported by the now washed away Fort McRee

 the fort as it appeared during the Civil War

 

the sandbar islands that the fort is built on are extraordinarily flat and very low 

the fort seen from the northwest, 

the jagged tear where Bastion D once stood is on the left of the picture

 

one of the ugly Endicott System battery positions that are scattered around the island

 

a slightly closer view of the fort, the sheer size of the parapet cannon is striking, 

this picture was taken from several hundred yards away

 

panned slightly to the east; the gaping hole from the explosion of Bastion D becomes more apparent,

the damage was never repaired and the ruins were leveled to allow the movement of equipment for the building of an Endicott battery in the parade ground of the old fort

 

a slightly closer view

 

the western wall ends in a jumble of masonry

 

the grassy area in the foreground of the picture is where Bastion D once stood

 

the arch of the old sally-port is on the left of the opening 

and the ugly black mass in the center of the fort is Endicott Battery  Pensacola

 

looking east into the gorge, outbuildings crowd the space now

 

looking straight along the northwest wall of the fort, 

the explosion that removed Bastion D did provided a nice cross-sectional view of the wall

 

the parking lot obstructs a clear view of the end of the glacis with its counterscarp gallery

 

a slightly better look at the end of the gorge, the counterscarp gallery is on the left, the fortress walls proper on the right, try to ignore the modern red-brick building and the electrical box

 

the walls are liberally provided with cannon ports to sweep the bottom of the gorge

 

a glacis was only provided on the eastern side of the fort, the remaining sides looked over empty beaches and could be swept with fire as any landing force appproached

 

the main gate

 

the inside of the northern end of the ruined western wall

 

NPS does an excellent job of signage 

 

and they have some superb artwork as well

 

the interior condition of the fort is much rougher than Fort Barrancas 

due largely to its very exposed position on the water

 

a cannon port looking into the gorge

 

and one of the cannon that would have been doing the looking

 

32lbr cannon would have proven to be deadly  if any

 enemy troops had ever made it over the glacis and into the gorge

 

unlike Fort Barrancas, which intended to defend its gorge with rifle fire, every inch of the gorge and surrounding flat lands are swept with the fire of as many as a dozen cannon mounted at ground level

 

sorry about the poor quality of the photo

 

movement around the perimeter galleries was controlled by a large number of iron gates

 

another cannon position, the post and pivot system is still in the floor

 

looking through the cannon port, at the time of the Civil War there would have been no brush or housing and you would have seen the beached to the west quite easily

 

there were many modifications made to the original design after the war, 

here a gallery arch has been cemented closed and a crude doorway left in its place

 

ammunition bays in one of the connecting galleries

 

these must have been gloomy passageways before electrical lighting 

I would have had my doubts about using a candle in such tight confines with all that black powder

 

a small passageway for passing ammunition to the gun galleries

 

an assembly space in a bastion looking out into the gorge through a sally port

 

and the stark emptiness once you step through the sally port,

nothing but flat grass framed by brick walls with a cannon port every twenty feet or so

 

and looking west toward the counterscarp

 

the view south from the same position, 

this photo was take from almost exactly in the center of the gorge 

 

turned slightly the view now encompasses the formidable walls of the fort

this area would have been swept by the fire of a dozen 32lbr cannon  firing from gunports in the walls plus the massive cannon mounted on the parapet

 

the view north from the same position

 

stairways lead up onto the covered way

 

a dual stairway leads up into the ravelin

 

looking south along the top of the counterscarp from the ravelin

the gap in the brick wall is the entrance to the firing step along the top of the glacis

 

and west at the fort

a view north from the same position

an active fort commander would have had the brush cut back

a wise fort commander would have goats and sheep to graze it down

the small gray boxes on the top of the counterscarp are rifle galleries facing inward

 

looking northwest from the firing step

 

the inner face of the ravelin, the soil has eroded away rather badly

 

another entrance to the firing step, brickwork was needed to keep the sand in place

 

the inner lip of the ravelin

 

the firing step

 

part of the covered way foootpath

 

the southern terminus of the glacis

 

the modern road rudely interrupts the historic site

 

as it passes along the southern face of the fort

 

the vast earth-filled bulk of Bastion A

 

even at this distance the cannon ports on the inner face of Bastion E look menacing

 

 the view north along the gorge from the flank of Bastion A toward Bastion E

 

and the relative section of counterscarp and covered way

 

one last look through a sally port

 

then we turn our attention to the interior of the fort 

neglect and moisture are cruel

 

the interior entrance to the same passageway

 

the inner face of Bastion A 

much of the parade ground is filled with the bulk of the Endicott battery

making it difficult to see the outline of the original fort

 

apparently there were a lot of these guns here,

 at least there were a lot of these signs

 

the mutilated southwest wall, when the Army installed Battery Pensacola 

they built it too short to shoot effectively over the walls of the old fort,

 their answer was to remove everything above the tops of the gallery arches

 

leaving this mangled mess

 

they also shaved off the top of Bastion C

 

having done so allowed water to penetrate the structure when it rains which created this mess

 

the inside of the galleries were now open to the weather 

which has caused considerable decay

 

 

they certainly were ingenious back in the day

 

the stairway up onto Bastion C

 

another massive gun sign

 

one of Fort Pickens two fights 

the artillery duel with the Confederate occupied Fort McRee and Fort Barrancas

 

during the Civil War none of those buildings would have been there, just barren sand

 

and finally that massive gun we have heard so much about

 

a view toward another Endicott battery from Bastion C

 

the business end of that massive smoothbore

 

an idea of what the wall looked like before it was cut down

 

looking south from Bastion C

 

including the tops of the vaulted galleries

 

and back in toward the interior of the fort 

with the dark mass of the Endicott battery squatting on the parade ground

 

looking north from Bastion C toward where Bastion D once stood

 

the earthen face of Battery Pensacola crowds the inner face of the western walls

 

for the life of me I can't understand why you would 

paint any black which is going to sit in the Florida sun

 

gun crews must have hated it, 

everything would have been too hot to touch

 

the remaining portion of the parade ground

 

oh look! another massive gun!

 

it is a big one too

I love giant cannon

 

the northern face of Pensacola Battery

 

but back to the massive smoothbore, 

the pivot is nothing but a massive iron plug set into an even more massive lump of concrete

the stone trackway provides support to the traversing wheels

 

all steel construction (cast iron more likely with forged iron beams)

 

the winching mechanism for moving the gun back into battery after it had recoiled

the load-bearing wheels at the pivot end of the carriage

 

the pivot

 

a nicely preserved and presented Civil war era cannon,

 but totally devoid of any information 

readers Paul's Bods and Gary pointed out that this is a 10lb Parrot Rifle

 

Battery Pensacola

 

the working side of Battery Pensacola

 

a huge, ugly construction of concrete and steel

 

an inner passageway to a magazine

 

a part of the loading station, on the right is the wrecked

 lifting machinery for the massive 12" shells and charges

 

I haven't a clue on how this thing worked

 

the pit that the disappearing carriage sat in

 

overhead railway helped move the huge projectiles

 

it connected the magazine with the lifting station

 

the gun crews had to use less fancy ways to move between floors

 

almost every doorway was closed with steel blast doors

 

looking back at the inside of the north wall (what little remains of it) 

from the top of Battery Pensacola

 

that huge gap is where Bastion D once stoof

 

the top end of the ammunition lift

 

the steel grating is a later addition to keep people like me out

 

looking down through the lift at the machinery below

 

a steel blast door at the door of the stairs

 

looking upward from that door toward the gun position

 

the gallery beneath the gun deck

Battery Worth

 

Battery Worth used enormous mortars like  Fort DeSoto

 

the mortar positions were hidden in huge mounds of sand

 

sadly none of the guns remain

Battery Langdon

 

 

long before the Nazis started defacing the Normandy coast 

the US Army was building concrete reinforced gun emplacements in sunny Florida 

 

it really makes me sad that they keep the guns in this one

 

they could fire them once a year on the 4th of July!

 

this is what the rest of the island looked like before property developers got hold of it

 

 

the fort from above courtesy Google Earth

 

the same with the modern roadway and that horrible Endicott battery removed 

and the missing Bastion D traced out