Fort Gaines

[ErnieMac]

Great series of photos. Thanks for posting.

 

[18thVirginia]

Taking aim at the rigs

 

[18thVirginia]

Bakery on left, Blacksmith Shop on right.

Interior of Blacksmith Shop

 

[AndyHall]

Charles DeWitt Anderson, the Confederate officer who surrendered Gaines, is buried in the cemetery near my home. He was the first cadet appointed to West Point from the newly-admitted state of Texas and, although he didn't graduate, nonetheless received a commission in the Army and served for several years on the frontier. After the war he worked as an engineer for both the federal and local governments, and was serving as keeper of the Fort Point Lighthouse here when he died in 1901.

 

[rhettbutler1865]

These are wonderful, thank you! It must be incredibly hard maintaining our historic forts by any salt water- between storms, tides, erosion and salt it's a wonder these are left in any kind of condition, so lucky to have them! Was it a little eerie like some are, SO empty where once men were so living so closely together?

I was thinking the same thing...it is amazing it has been able to be preserved in any condition. Thanks, JPK.

 

[18thVirginia]

Brickwork on the Sallyport showing the two rows of the brick walls.

 

[hrobalabama]

Thanks for the photos. As a young boy living in Mobile, there was no bridge and the only way to reach it was by boat.
I had seen the outside many times going fishing but did not visit until the bridge was finished. In the war, Fort Gains played a very minor role and thus was not damaged. However, across the channel, Ft. Morgan was the center of attention. Admiral Farragut past the guns of Ft. Morgan and then troops were landed at Navy Cove and a heavy bombardment took place.
Ft. Morgan was a wreck. Then in the 1890's, most coastal forts were upgraded with coastal "disappearing guns ." and concrete reinforcements.

 

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

I've enjoyed these photos, it's been years since I was at Fort Gains.

 

[Mild53]

View attachment 67488

Quartermaster's Office

Looks like a nice warm day.... thanks for posting.

 

[18thVirginia]

NW Bastion near the entrance to the fort.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Not sure his is correct, listed in LoC as ' Fort Gaines '.

 

[rickvox79]

This was one of my favorite parts of my visit to Fort Gaines...

 

[18thVirginia]

Thanks, Rick. If you can't find your Gaines photos on the site, feel free to add more of them here. What I love about photography is that we all find little unique and interesting things or perspectives that the next person overlooked.

 

[unionblue]

Thanks, Rick. If you can't find your Gaines photos on the site, feel free to add more of them here. What I love about photography is that we all find little unique and interesting things or perspectives that the next person overlooked.

Yes! Yes!

More pictures please!

Very Sincerely,
Unionblue

 

[18thVirginia]

Officer's Quarters on left, kitchens in the back

 

[18thVirginia]

Fort Gaines, aerial view.

 

[18thVirginia]

Fort Gaines Surrenders

http://dauphinislandhistory.org/ft_gaines/ft_gaines_surrender_expand.htm

 

[AndyHall]

Not sure his is correct, listed in LoC as ' Fort Gaines '.

View attachment 67597

That's most definitely NOT Fort Gaines at the entrance to Mobile Bay; it may be a different Fort Gaines somewhere else. The geography is completely different.

_____

Added: This LoC image is listed as Fort Gaines, Tenleytown, D.C.:

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/npc2008010886/resource/

 

[AndyHall]

LoC image. The first three seated officers are (l. to r.) Army General Gordon Granger, Admiral David G. Farragut, and Farragut's Flag Captain, Percival Drayton (of the Drayton Hall Draytons, natch). The fourth seated officer and the two standing, I don't know. Only Farragut is identified on the LoC site.

The caption written on the back of the image is a garbled mess:

This photo was taken Aug. 1864 on porch of commandant's house. Lt. Gaines during conferences on placing a battery of the Hartfords' 9th Dahlgren's guns in the rear of Ft. Morgan. ​

What I believe it shows is a meeting on the porch of the Commandant's House at Fort Gaines, discussing the placement of Hartford's IX-inch Dahlgrens on the rear (east) side of Fort Morgan, to assist in the siege of that position. This would date the photo between August 8, 1864, when Gaines fell, and August 22, when Granger's troops began their bombardment of Fort Morgan. Farragut and Granger got on fairly well; the admiral wrote of the general, "Granger is more of a man than I took him for, [he] attends to almost all the work so far as keeping others up to their mark." The navy eventually lent Granger four Dahlgrens, with crews to man them from Hartford, Brooklyn, Lackawana and Richmond. Farragut also sent Lieutenant Herbert Tyson from Hartford to take charge of the guns on shore, so possibly Tyson is one of the other officers shown. The four naval guns were placed in two positions, about 1,400 and 1,500 yards from the fort's walls, collectively designated "Battery Farragut."

The meeting must have been prior to August 19, as well, because on that date Drayton mentioned the planned battery when he wrote to an old friend, warning him not to be taken in by over-optimistic speculation in the North about the Mobile campaign:

However your neiqhbours feel, don't allow yourself to be too sanguine about [the capture of the city of] Mobile. Fort Morgan has at least to be taken first, as until then not a man can be spared for anything else. We are getting a naval battery of four nine inch guns to bear upon it, but you know how difficult breaching is where the glacis entirely protects the scarp, and if the garrison has any endurance, the place must be carried by regular approaches and finally assault. At least our passage of the forts is the single piece of good luck this year. Everywhere else we have either been beaten or remained pretty much at a stand off.​

Morgan actually fell four days later, without the assault anticipated by Captain Drayton, saving a great many lives on both sides.

 

[18thVirginia]

Thanks for that, Andy Hall. I saw that photo at the little museum at Fort Gaines and tried to find it at LOC, but wasn't very successful. Especially as I had to spend some time unlocking my computer from whatever gremlins had taken over and trying to get the photos off my husband's "improved" cellphone.

They don't have a lot of original photos at their museum, but have copied and presented period photos from other sources, with explanations. Pretty cool.