Siege of Fort Blakeley April 6th 2019

MOBDEnut

Corporal
Joined
Apr 24, 2017
The Siege of Fort Blakeley will be held on April 6th 2019. A highly authentic reenactment held on the same grounds, and exact positions the units interpreted fought on in April 1865. Come out and see a great show, and help support the park. Reenactors by invitation only.






51045090_10156697451470310_4597135850344546304_n.jpg



Units to be portrayed
Federal: 37th Illinois Infantry, 83rd Ohio, 34th Iowa, and 15th Mass. Btty,
Confederate: 1st-3rd Missouri Cav dismounted (Consolidated), Abbay's Mississippi Battery, and the 16th CS Cav



Historical Background- Provided by Roger Hansen

After Farragut’s capture of Mobile Bay in August 1864, plans were prepared for the final capture of the city and it railworks, shops, ammunition, and logistical stores. However, with the exception for Richmond / Petersburg, Mobile was the strongest fortified city in the south at the time and the Navy could not attack the city without a large land force. Because of river forts and batteries surrounding the city, the navy could not get within firing distance of the city. Then again, several set backs for the Federals had occurred in Louisiana and Arkansas which delayed concentrating troops quick enough for an early aggressive campaign to follow up the navy victory in the fall of 64. The department commander, US Maj Gen Canby, who was to organize the campaign had also been wounded by a sniper on the Mississippi River in November. A bold attempt was conducted in December 1864 with 4000 cavalrymen and 4 batteries to cut the rail lines north of the city. But that failed in a tactical defeat on December 10, and allowed the Confederate Army of Tennessee, retreating from Nashville, Tennessee, to be re-supplied in Corinth from the Mobile stores (and according to Ed Bearss enabled the Army of Tennessee to remain in the field).

Four thousand infantrymen, elements of the 13th Corps, were added to the campaign in late December and all concentrated at Pascagoula, Mississippi, under General Gordon Granger for a possible strike on Mobile’s western works. However, efforts soon bogged down with skirmishes on bad roads and in swamps flooded in recent rains. At the time, only 3000 cavalry, reserves, and heavy artillery were available to man the extensive western works of Mobile. On January 19, 1865, US Grant ordered Canby to take Mobile. As a result, Canby had the 8000 troops at Pascagoula evacuated by the end of January 1865 (where they were within 20 miles of the Mobile’s western works) as he assembled 45,000 troops of the 13th and 16th Corps and Hawkins’s Separate Division of USCT at Fort Morgan and Pensacola for a campaign on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay.

Immediately after the navy capture of Mobile Bay in August, the graycoats began fortifying the eastern shore of Mobile Bay to protect several large earthen batteries in the marsh that secured the backdoor river route to the city. Forts Tracy and Huger (pronounced Hugee), known as the Apalachee Batteries, were protected from Farragut’s naval forces by torpedoes and heavy guns, but were very vulnerable to land forces from across the river. As a result, land fortifications were started in earnest on high ground that could protect the Apalachee Batteries from land forces at two locations. These locations were four miles apart around an old Florida Spanish Fort (1815) and around a deserted town site (Blakeley).

In January through March 1865, basically two divisions of infantry, and almost all the field artillery of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, were transferred to the defenses of Mobile giving General Maury a total of 10,000 troops. By mid-March 1865, 6000 Confederates had been moved from Mobile across the bay by river boats, to the works on the eastern shore at Blakeley, Spanish Fort, and the Apalachee Batteries. Union Major General Canby 32,000 troops from the Mobile Point area on March 17 and besieged the 2500 Confederates at Spanish Fort on March 27. In support of Canby’s move was over 25 vessels of the West Gulf Coast Blockading Fleet including 5 monitor / ironclads under Acting Rear Admiral H.K. Thatcher (Admiral Farragut’s replacement). At the same time, a column of 13,000 troops under Major General Frederick Steele left Pensacola on a wide northerly march that circled back to Blakeley from the north. On April 1, Union cavalry attacked the 46th Mississippi Infantry picketing the Blakeley front and by April 2, Steele’s soldiers of the 13th and 16th Corps and Hawkins’s Division of USCT began siege operations against the 3600 Confederate troops at Blakeley. Fort Blakeley was composed of nine separate redoubts connected by trench works along a two mile front and were manned by General Cockrell’s Missouri and Mississippi Brigades and Thomas’ large brigade of Alabama Reserves. The garrison of Blakeley was commanded by Brigadier General St John Liddell.

Also on April 2, the city of Selma, Alabama, with all its arsenals and ammunition stores were captured from General Forrest and he was compelled to retreat to the west. Not only did this dash all hopes that his troops would raise the siege on the Mobile front, but it also caused the Confederates to husband their ammunition in the continuing trench fight, as their source for future munitions was destroyed.

At sunset on April 8, 1865, after a 13 day siege, a Union brigade night attack breeched the far left of the Confederate works at Spanish Fort and a lodgment was made. However, most of the Confederates were evacuated in the confusion of a counter-attack and cover of darkness to Mobile using river boats. Embarrassed that the Rebel troops had slipped out of works only to re-man the defenses of the city of Mobile, Canby ordered the works at Blakeley to be stormed. If the troops at Blakeley were allowed to be evacuated to Mobile, General Maury could man the inner works of Mobile with 9000 veterans and Canby would have to re-start his campaign all over again to take the city. General Maury in Mobile had already initiated plans to evacuate the Blakeley garrison the night of April 9, just as soon as all the Spanish Fort troops had been off loaded his limited supply of river steamers in Mobile.

After US reinforcements arrived at Blakeley from Spanish Fort in the afternoon of April 9, the Federals assaulted with 16,000 at 5:30 p.m. (with 10,000 in reserve) and took the works after a half hour fight.

For two days the river forts bombarded Spanish Fort and the US Navy while the 3300 prisoners were transported by ship to Ship Island and Fort Gaines as prisoners of war. Because of the loss of this manpower, and superior pressure being applied to the river forts, General Maury decided to evacuate Mobile. After removing all military stores in Mobile by trains to Meridian, Maury had the magazines at Huger and Tracy blown on April 12 and Mobile was evacuated. US General Gordon Granger, commander of the 13th Corps, crossed Mobile Bay and landed on the Shell Road south of Mobile that same afternoon and accepted the surrender of Mobile from Mayor Slough.

Over the next 30 years, a total of 14 Medals of Honor were awarded to Union soldiers for their conduct at Blakeley and Spanish Fort.

For more information see: Andrews: Campaign of Mobile, 1866; the Official Records of the War of Rebellion; and just this year Brueske: The Last Siege, 2018. Historical Blakeley State Park website: www.blakeleypark.com.

Interesting Facts on the Mobile Campaign

1. Most US Vessels sunk in one campaign: Six vessels of the US Navy were sunk by torpedoes in their efforts to breech the defenses on the river near Spanish Fort. The double monitor USS Milwaukee and single monitor Osage were sunk March 27 and 28, the tinclad USS Rodolph April 1, and the gunboats USS Ida and USS Sciota the following week with total casualties of 9 killed and 16 wounded. The USS Rose was sunk 2 weeks after the battle ended. Some navy officers believed the overall navy commander, Rear Admiral Thatcher, was personally responsible for not taking to time to install mine spars on all his ships operating in the river.

After the battle, over 100 barrel water mines, weighing 150 pounds each, were removed from the waterways and bay between where the naval battle had been fought in August 1864 and the April 1865 sieges. One of those injured while removing the mines was Acting Master Martin Freeman. Freeman had been awarded the Medal of Honor by Admiral Farragut in October 1864 for service as the pilot that led the Union fleet into Mobile Bay through the narrow channel under heavy fire. He is buried at Pascagoula, 30 miles from Mobile.

2. Confederate Gunboats: Two ironclads CSS Tuscaloosa and Huntsville, and the gunboat CSS Morgan, supported the defenses of Blakeley from the river and frequently fired their Brooke Rifles into the Union siege lines, especially in the north. Most of their operations were by indirect fire using night and day signals from a naval staff officer, Lieutenant Mills, who was assigned to General Liddell’s army staff at Blakeley. The Tuscaloosa and Huntsville were scuttled April 12. Their location is known and the vessels are under 10 foot of silt.

3. Communications: The Union forces had instant communications. Telegraph lines were run to each Division Headquarters along the entire Blakeley and Spanish Fort front and each headquarters had its own telegraph operator.

The Confederate forces also had instant communications to their headquarters. Generals Gibson at Spanish Fort, General Liddell at Blakeley, and General Maury in Mobile all had inter-connected telegraph lines. This line also had a station on Battery Huger which assisted in the fire direction of that facility. The Huger telegraph station also communicated with the Confederate river steamers that made daily supply runs to Blakeley and Spanish Fort, before returning to Mobile with the dead and wounded.

4. Hospitals: Each Union division has its own hospital with the main hospital of the Military Division of the Mississippi set up south of the Union siege lines near Spanish Fort (at the location of present day Bass Pro Shop). Most of the wounded, including wounded Confederates prisoners, were moved April 11-12 by steamer from Starke’s Wharf on Mobile Bay to hospitals in New Orleans. Confederate wounded and dead were taken daily March 26 – April 8, to Mobile by use of river steamers. Burials: US dead are buried in the Mobile National Cemetery and the Chalmette National Cemetery in New Orleans. CS dead are in Magnolia Cemetery in Moble and Greenwood Cemetery in New Orleans. No cemeteries were established on the battlefields because of their remote locations.

5. Confederate Cavalry – Armistead’s small cavalry brigade (half dismounted), manned the advanced rifle pits at Blakeley in front of Redoubts 1, 2, 3, and 4 from April 2 to April 5. On April 5, with the exception of some couriers of the 8th Alabama, the cavalry was withdrawn from the works and transferred on steamers to Mobile by order of General Maury.

6. Wooden Mortars: Federal troops of Carr’s and Benton’s Divisions at Spanish Fort made four 12 Pounder mortars using three foot length logs cut from sweetgum trees and banded with steel. These were used in the advanced trenches to log shells 50 to 100 yards. One of these is on display at the Jefferson Barracks Museum and another at a museum in Michigan. Diaries state that Confederates at Spanish Fort also made a few sweetgum mortars.

7. Sharpshooters: The garrison at Spanish Fort included a 10 man “company” of sharpshooters armed with .45 caliber Whitworth and Kerr Rifles. They were complimented on doing “good work”. On April 5, Liddell requested that Gibson send him “half the Whitworth men” to Blakeley. No records indicate whether they were sent.

8. Small Arms Ammunition Expended: Canby reported that he expended 680,000 rounds of small arms ammunition in the Mobile Campaign. Expended does not mean “shot” from a musket. Thousands of rounds were dropped or otherwise abandoned due to damage or troop movement.

9. Shirt Sleeve Attack: The 68th USCT was the only unit given formal permission to conduct the assault (on Redoubt 1 at Blakeley) in their shirt sleeves - without fatigue coats.

10. Wounded: Just a few days before the siege operations started, a soldier in Gates’ Missouri Brigade remarked that upon performing a survey, everyman in the small brigade had been wounded from 1 to 6 times in previous battles and a number were performing duties with only one arm including the brigade commander.

11. Blakeley or Blakely ? Almost all maps, references, diaries, official correspondence, and land plats used the spelling of “Blakely”. However, careful study of the family name of the man the place was named for confirms it was Josiah Blakeley. Blakeley was site of the first steamboats built in Alabama; was visited by Andrew Jackson several times in his campaigns, and President Jefferson Davis stayed there in October 1863.

12. Land Mines: Torpedoes were used at Spanish Fort and even more extensively at Blakeley. Blakeley was the most heavily mined battlefield in the Civil War. They were planted in the roads and in lines on prominent hills that would likely be occupied by the enemy. The mines were of two types: The Raines pattern that had a plunger designed to be activated when stepped on; most specimens found were 12, 24, and 64 Pounders. The Federals were seriously offended by their use and considered them to be outside the bounds of civilized war. Documents indicate that about 20 Union casualties were inflicted by the devices, most at Blakeley during the assault and immediately afterwards. Confederate prisoners were made to dig them up after the final battle.

13. Executions following formal Courts Martial: On March 14, 1865, Frank M. Hoover, Co. D, 22d Louisiana Infantry was executed by a 21st Alabama firing squad at Spanish Fort after a month long courts martial for crimes against civilians. On March 26 and 27, the 21st Alabama was heavily engaged at Spanish Fort in the opening battles of the siege, then withdrew to Blakeley. On March 31, while the Union forces were maneuvering in rear of Blakeley and actively besieging Spanish Fort, two more soldiers were executed by firing squad by the 21st Alabama at Blakeley. The soldiers, Privates Elijah Wynn and Thomas Elam of Co. F, 21st Alabama, were executed by members of their company. The 21st Alabama was from the Mobile area and these soldiers had deserted their post together in September 1863 with all their equipment and arms.

14. Hawkins’s USCT Division: Confederate Redoubts 1 and 2 were besieged by 5000 troops of General Hawkins’s Division of US Colored Troops. These troops participated in the march from Pensacola to Blakeley and the regiments were most raised in Louisiana of liberated slaves.

15. Battleflags: 13 Confederate battleflags flags were captured during the campaign, and at least one garrison flag in the downtown area of the town of Blakeley . Of that number, 10 were captured directly from their bearers under combat conditions and 8 individuals were awarded Congressional Medals of Honor associated with their captures. Of all the Confederate battleflags carried during the campaign, most were either Second National flags or 12 star St Andrews Cross flags that were of Mobile manufacture. However, 4 Texas regiments in Ector’s Brigade carried flags patterned after the standardized 13 star flags carried in the Army of Northern Virginia. As a matter of fact, these were the only Army of Northern Virginia flags carried in the entire Army of Tennessee in the western armies. Colonel Young of the 9th Texas Infantry Regiment had the flags made in Richmond in 1864 for the brigade. Two of the 4 flags were captured during the night attack at Spanish Fort on April 8. Surprisingly, a flag captured at Redoubt 4 was a small First National and was believed to have been carried by the artillery battery there.

16. Grant’s Spy. Colonel Cyrus B. Comstock, USMA Class of 1855; Chief Engineer during Vicksburg Campaign and assigned to Grant’s personal staff in March 1864. In March 1865, General U S Grant had him assigned directly to General Canby’s staff. This was the third mission whereas Grant had assigned Comstock directly to a field commander’s staff beginning a campaign so he could receive unfiltered telegraphs on the campaigns’ progress.
 
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Reminder to all this coming weekend.

Come and visit an amazing event and park, this year the Consolidated 1-3rd MO Cav Dismounted will be recreated to the man. The Federals are the largest ever at the park to date. Redoubt 4 of the CS works has been completely reconstructed, with bomb proofs, 4 guns, and obstacles with period correct osnaburg sandbags. If you want to see a great end of the war battle, and step on the same grounds they did, while watching reenactors recreate the actions of both US and CS even during the tours! Than this is the event for you! No big tent camps no bagpipes, the reenactors will be in the moment portraying life as it was in 1865 during the siege.

Can we get this event on the main page please!
 
Last edited:
Reminder to all this coming weekend.

Come and visit an amazing event and park, this year the Consolidated 1-3rd MO Cav Dismounted will be recreated to the man. The Federals are the largest ever at the park to date. Redoubt 4 of the CS works has been completely reconstructed, with bomb proofs, 4 guns, and obstacles with period correct osnaburg sandbags. If you want to see a great end of the war battle, and step on the same grounds they did, while watching reenactors recreate the actions of both US and CS even during the tours! Than this is the event for you! No big tent camps no bagpipes, the reenactors will be in the moment portraying life as it was in 1865 during the siege.

Can we get this event on the main page please!
Sounds great.
 
Too bad it's only on Saturday. I already have plans on Saturday.

My Father and I did reenacting for many years and we have been considering getting back into it but really haven't found any groups around here in Pensacola.
 
Wish I could be there. Maybe another year. It is the same weekend as the Baton Rouge Civil War Round Table Symposium which I committed to some time back. Lotta activity in the Spring campaigns.
 
The Siege of Fort Blakeley will be held on April 6th 2019. A highly authentic reenactment held on the same grounds, and exact positions the units interpreted fought on in April 1865. Come out and see a great show, and help support the park. Reenactors by invitation only.






View attachment 261848


Units to be portrayed
Federal: 37th Illinois Infantry, 83rd Ohio, 34th Iowa, and 15th Mass. Btty,
Confederate: 1st-3rd Missouri Cav dismounted (Consolidated), Abbay's Mississippi Battery, and the 16th CS Cav



Historical Background- Provided by Roger Hansen

After Farragut’s capture of Mobile Bay in August 1864, plans were prepared for the final capture of the city and it railworks, shops, ammunition, and logistical stores. However, with the exception for Richmond / Petersburg, Mobile was the strongest fortified city in the south at the time and the Navy could not attack the city without a large land force. Because of river forts and batteries surrounding the city, the navy could not get within firing distance of the city. Then again, several set backs for the Federals had occurred in Louisiana and Arkansas which delayed concentrating troops quick enough for an early aggressive campaign to follow up the navy victory in the fall of 64. The department commander, US Maj Gen Canby, who was to organize the campaign had also been wounded by a sniper on the Mississippi River in November. A bold attempt was conducted in December 1864 with 4000 cavalrymen and 4 batteries to cut the rail lines north of the city. But that failed in a tactical defeat on December 10, and allowed the Confederate Army of Tennessee, retreating from Nashville, Tennessee, to be re-supplied in Corinth from the Mobile stores (and according to Ed Bearss enabled the Army of Tennessee to remain in the field).

Four thousand infantrymen, elements of the 13th Corps, were added to the campaign in late December and all concentrated at Pascagoula, Mississippi, under General Gordon Granger for a possible strike on Mobile’s western works. However, efforts soon bogged down with skirmishes on bad roads and in swamps flooded in recent rains. At the time, only 3000 cavalry, reserves, and heavy artillery were available to man the extensive western works of Mobile. On January 19, 1865, US Grant ordered Canby to take Mobile. As a result, Canby had the 8000 troops at Pascagoula evacuated by the end of January 1865 (where they were within 20 miles of the Mobile’s western works) as he assembled 45,000 troops of the 13th and 16th Corps and Hawkins’s Separate Division of USCT at Fort Morgan and Pensacola for a campaign on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay.

Immediately after the navy capture of Mobile Bay in August, the graycoats began fortifying the eastern shore of Mobile Bay to protect several large earthen batteries in the marsh that secured the backdoor river route to the city. Forts Tracy and Huger (pronounced Hugee), known as the Apalachee Batteries, were protected from Farragut’s naval forces by torpedoes and heavy guns, but were very vulnerable to land forces from across the river. As a result, land fortifications were started in earnest on high ground that could protect the Apalachee Batteries from land forces at two locations. These locations were four miles apart around an old Florida Spanish Fort (1815) and around a deserted town site (Blakeley).

In January through March 1865, basically two divisions of infantry, and almost all the field artillery of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, were transferred to the defenses of Mobile giving General Maury a total of 10,000 troops. By mid-March 1865, 6000 Confederates had been moved from Mobile across the bay by river boats, to the works on the eastern shore at Blakeley, Spanish Fort, and the Apalachee Batteries. Union Major General Canby 32,000 troops from the Mobile Point area on March 17 and besieged the 2500 Confederates at Spanish Fort on March 27. In support of Canby’s move was over 25 vessels of the West Gulf Coast Blockading Fleet including 5 monitor / ironclads under Acting Rear Admiral H.K. Thatcher (Admiral Farragut’s replacement). At the same time, a column of 13,000 troops under Major General Frederick Steele left Pensacola on a wide northerly march that circled back to Blakeley from the north. On April 1, Union cavalry attacked the 46th Mississippi Infantry picketing the Blakeley front and by April 2, Steele’s soldiers of the 13th and 16th Corps and Hawkins’s Division of USCT began siege operations against the 3600 Confederate troops at Blakeley. Fort Blakeley was composed of nine separate redoubts connected by trench works along a two mile front and were manned by General Cockrell’s Missouri and Mississippi Brigades and Thomas’ large brigade of Alabama Reserves. The garrison of Blakeley was commanded by Brigadier General St John Liddell.

Also on April 2, the city of Selma, Alabama, with all its arsenals and ammunition stores were captured from General Forrest and he was compelled to retreat to the west. Not only did this dash all hopes that his troops would raise the siege on the Mobile front, but it also caused the Confederates to husband their ammunition in the continuing trench fight, as their source for future munitions was destroyed.

At sunset on April 8, 1865, after a 13 day siege, a Union brigade night attack breeched the far left of the Confederate works at Spanish Fort and a lodgment was made. However, most of the Confederates were evacuated in the confusion of a counter-attack and cover of darkness to Mobile using river boats. Embarrassed that the Rebel troops had slipped out of works only to re-man the defenses of the city of Mobile, Canby ordered the works at Blakeley to be stormed. If the troops at Blakeley were allowed to be evacuated to Mobile, General Maury could man the inner works of Mobile with 9000 veterans and Canby would have to re-start his campaign all over again to take the city. General Maury in Mobile had already initiated plans to evacuate the Blakeley garrison the night of April 9, just as soon as all the Spanish Fort troops had been off loaded his limited supply of river steamers in Mobile.

After US reinforcements arrived at Blakeley from Spanish Fort in the afternoon of April 9, the Federals assaulted with 16,000 at 5:30 p.m. (with 10,000 in reserve) and took the works after a half hour fight.

For two days the river forts bombarded Spanish Fort and the US Navy while the 3300 prisoners were transported by ship to Ship Island and Fort Gaines as prisoners of war. Because of the loss of this manpower, and superior pressure being applied to the river forts, General Maury decided to evacuate Mobile. After removing all military stores in Mobile by trains to Meridian, Maury had the magazines at Huger and Tracy blown on April 12 and Mobile was evacuated. US General Gordon Granger, commander of the 13th Corps, crossed Mobile Bay and landed on the Shell Road south of Mobile that same afternoon and accepted the surrender of Mobile from Mayor Slough.

Over the next 30 years, a total of 14 Medals of Honor were awarded to Union soldiers for their conduct at Blakeley and Spanish Fort.

For more information see: Andrews: Campaign of Mobile, 1866; the Official Records of the War of Rebellion; and just this year Brueske: The Last Siege, 2018. Historical Blakeley State Park website: www.blakeleypark.com.

Interesting Facts on the Mobile Campaign

1. Most US Vessels sunk in one campaign: Six vessels of the US Navy were sunk by torpedoes in their efforts to breech the defenses on the river near Spanish Fort. The double monitor USS Milwaukee and single monitor Osage were sunk March 27 and 28, the tinclad USS Rodolph April 1, and the gunboats USS Ida and USS Sciota the following week with total casualties of 9 killed and 16 wounded. The USS Rose was sunk 2 weeks after the battle ended. Some navy officers believed the overall navy commander, Rear Admiral Thatcher, was personally responsible for not taking to time to install mine spars on all his ships operating in the river.

After the battle, over 100 barrel water mines, weighing 150 pounds each, were removed from the waterways and bay between where the naval battle had been fought in August 1864 and the April 1865 sieges. One of those injured while removing the mines was Acting Master Martin Freeman. Freeman had been awarded the Medal of Honor by Admiral Farragut in October 1864 for service as the pilot that led the Union fleet into Mobile Bay through the narrow channel under heavy fire. He is buried at Pascagoula, 30 miles from Mobile.

2. Confederate Gunboats: Two ironclads CSS Tuscaloosa and Huntsville, and the gunboat CSS Morgan, supported the defenses of Blakeley from the river and frequently fired their Brooke Rifles into the Union siege lines, especially in the north. Most of their operations were by indirect fire using night and day signals from a naval staff officer, Lieutenant Mills, who was assigned to General Liddell’s army staff at Blakeley. The Tuscaloosa and Huntsville were scuttled April 12. Their location is known and the vessels are under 10 foot of silt.

3. Communications: The Union forces had instant communications. Telegraph lines were run to each Division Headquarters along the entire Blakeley and Spanish Fort front and each headquarters had its own telegraph operator.

The Confederate forces also had instant communications to their headquarters. Generals Gibson at Spanish Fort, General Liddell at Blakeley, and General Maury in Mobile all had inter-connected telegraph lines. This line also had a station on Battery Huger which assisted in the fire direction of that facility. The Huger telegraph station also communicated with the Confederate river steamers that made daily supply runs to Blakeley and Spanish Fort, before returning to Mobile with the dead and wounded.

4. Hospitals: Each Union division has its own hospital with the main hospital of the Military Division of the Mississippi set up south of the Union siege lines near Spanish Fort (at the location of present day Bass Pro Shop). Most of the wounded, including wounded Confederates prisoners, were moved April 11-12 by steamer from Starke’s Wharf on Mobile Bay to hospitals in New Orleans. Confederate wounded and dead were taken daily March 26 – April 8, to Mobile by use of river steamers. Burials: US dead are buried in the Mobile National Cemetery and the Chalmette National Cemetery in New Orleans. CS dead are in Magnolia Cemetery in Moble and Greenwood Cemetery in New Orleans. No cemeteries were established on the battlefields because of their remote locations.

5. Confederate Cavalry – Armistead’s small cavalry brigade (half dismounted), manned the advanced rifle pits at Blakeley in front of Redoubts 1, 2, 3, and 4 from April 2 to April 5. On April 5, with the exception of some couriers of the 8th Alabama, the cavalry was withdrawn from the works and transferred on steamers to Mobile by order of General Maury.

6. Wooden Mortars: Federal troops of Carr’s and Benton’s Divisions at Spanish Fort made four 12 Pounder mortars using three foot length logs cut from sweetgum trees and banded with steel. These were used in the advanced trenches to log shells 50 to 100 yards. One of these is on display at the Jefferson Barracks Museum and another at a museum in Michigan. Diaries state that Confederates at Spanish Fort also made a few sweetgum mortars.

7. Sharpshooters: The garrison at Spanish Fort included a 10 man “company” of sharpshooters armed with .45 caliber Whitworth and Kerr Rifles. They were complimented on doing “good work”. On April 5, Liddell requested that Gibson send him “half the Whitworth men” to Blakeley. No records indicate whether they were sent.

8. Small Arms Ammunition Expended: Canby reported that he expended 680,000 rounds of small arms ammunition in the Mobile Campaign. Expended does not mean “shot” from a musket. Thousands of rounds were dropped or otherwise abandoned due to damage or troop movement.

9. Shirt Sleeve Attack: The 68th USCT was the only unit given formal permission to conduct the assault (on Redoubt 1 at Blakeley) in their shirt sleeves - without fatigue coats.

10. Wounded: Just a few days before the siege operations started, a soldier in Gates’ Missouri Brigade remarked that upon performing a survey, everyman in the small brigade had been wounded from 1 to 6 times in previous battles and a number were performing duties with only one arm including the brigade commander.

11. Blakeley or Blakely ? Almost all maps, references, diaries, official correspondence, and land plats used the spelling of “Blakely”. However, careful study of the family name of the man the place was named for confirms it was Josiah Blakeley. Blakeley was site of the first steamboats built in Alabama; was visited by Andrew Jackson several times in his campaigns, and President Jefferson Davis stayed there in October 1863.

12. Land Mines: Torpedoes were used at Spanish Fort and even more extensively at Blakeley. Blakeley was the most heavily mined battlefield in the Civil War. They were planted in the roads and in lines on prominent hills that would likely be occupied by the enemy. The mines were of two types: The Raines pattern that had a plunger designed to be activated when stepped on; most specimens found were 12, 24, and 64 Pounders. The Federals were seriously offended by their use and considered them to be outside the bounds of civilized war. Documents indicate that about 20 Union casualties were inflicted by the devices, most at Blakeley during the assault and immediately afterwards. Confederate prisoners were made to dig them up after the final battle.

13. Executions following formal Courts Martial: On March 14, 1865, Frank M. Hoover, Co. D, 22d Louisiana Infantry was executed by a 21st Alabama firing squad at Spanish Fort after a month long courts martial for crimes against civilians. On March 26 and 27, the 21st Alabama was heavily engaged at Spanish Fort in the opening battles of the siege, then withdrew to Blakeley. On March 31, while the Union forces were maneuvering in rear of Blakeley and actively besieging Spanish Fort, two more soldiers were executed by firing squad by the 21st Alabama at Blakeley. The soldiers, Privates Elijah Wynn and Thomas Elam of Co. F, 21st Alabama, were executed by members of their company. The 21st Alabama was from the Mobile area and these soldiers had deserted their post together in September 1863 with all their equipment and arms.

14. Hawkins’s USCT Division: Confederate Redoubts 1 and 2 were besieged by 5000 troops of General Hawkins’s Division of US Colored Troops. These troops participated in the march from Pensacola to Blakeley and the regiments were most raised in Louisiana of liberated slaves.

15. Battleflags: 13 Confederate battleflags flags were captured during the campaign, and at least one garrison flag in the downtown area of the town of Blakeley . Of that number, 10 were captured directly from their bearers under combat conditions and 8 individuals were awarded Congressional Medals of Honor associated with their captures. Of all the Confederate battleflags carried during the campaign, most were either Second National flags or 12 star St Andrews Cross flags that were of Mobile manufacture. However, 4 Texas regiments in Ector’s Brigade carried flags patterned after the standardized 13 star flags carried in the Army of Northern Virginia. As a matter of fact, these were the only Army of Northern Virginia flags carried in the entire Army of Tennessee in the western armies. Colonel Young of the 9th Texas Infantry Regiment had the flags made in Richmond in 1864 for the brigade. Two of the 4 flags were captured during the night attack at Spanish Fort on April 8. Surprisingly, a flag captured at Redoubt 4 was a small First National and was believed to have been carried by the artillery battery there.

16. Grant’s Spy. Colonel Cyrus B. Comstock, USMA Class of 1855; Chief Engineer during Vicksburg Campaign and assigned to Grant’s personal staff in March 1864. In March 1865, General U S Grant had him assigned directly to General Canby’s staff. This was the third mission whereas Grant had assigned Comstock directly to a field commander’s staff beginning a campaign so he could receive unfiltered telegraphs on the campaigns’ progress.
I have heard that a Union Officer was killed by USCT after the battle while trying to protect Confederate prisoners. Have you ever read of or heard of this incident?
 
I have heard that a Union Officer was killed by USCT after the battle while trying to protect Confederate prisoners. Have you ever read of or heard of this incident?
Have read in one of the Missouri histories that the CTs briefly became uncontrollable and killed a number of prisoners after the battle and had to be restrained by their officers. However, did not recall mention of them killing one of their own officers.
 
Have read in one of the Missouri histories that the CTs briefly became uncontrollable and killed a number of prisoners after the battle and had to be restrained by their officers. However, did not recall mention of them killing one of their own officers.
I wish I could remember where I read or heard this. If memory serves me, it was that one Union Officer was killed and another wounded. Scripture says something to the effect ..that greater love has no man then this, that he lay down his life for his friends. How about the man that lays down his life for his foes? Not to get preachy or anything, I just think a man like this should be acknowledged if true.
 
Too bad it's only on Saturday. I already have plans on Saturday.

My Father and I did reenacting for many years and we have been considering getting back into it but really haven't found any groups around here in Pensacola.
You should look up the Independent Rifles.
 
I have heard that a Union Officer was killed by USCT after the battle while trying to protect Confederate prisoners. Have you ever read of or heard of this incident?

Talking with Brian DesRochers the main head of the event at the park. Says it did occur at Redoubt 2, the officer was killed along with some MS Soldiers. The officers before the assault lied to them and told them the Soldiers garrisoning the fort were the same ones from Ft Pillow. There are several books out there regarding the Mobile Campaign, that would be good for those interested in more details.
 
Talking with Brian DesRochers the main head of the event at the park. Says it did occur at Redoubt 2, the officer was killed along with some MS Soldiers. The officers before the assault lied to them and told them the Soldiers garrisoning the fort were the same ones from Ft Pillow. There are several books out there regarding the Mobile Campaign, that would be good for those interested in more details.
Thank you for verifying this incident. As I said in a pervious post this Union Officer should be honored for his courage and compassion.
 
Gen. C.C. Andrews: "The prisoners were generally treated with kindness. A colored soldier of the Fiftieth regiment found his former young master among the prisoners. They appeared happy to meet, and drank from the same canteen. Some of the Louisiana men, however, made an attack on the prisoners and were with difficulty restrained from injuring them. The latter almost invited attack by manifesting an unreasonable dread of the colored soldiers; huddling together in heaps, and acting as if their captors were wild beasts. Capt. [Frederick W.] Norwood and Lieut. [Clark] Gleason of the Sixty-eighth were wounded, the latter mortally, in their efforts to save the prisoners."

History of the Campaign of Mobile, Page 201
https://books.google.com/books?id=lOSHxLOy-8QC&source=gbs_navlinks_s
 
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