The first shots of the Civil War, it could be said, were not fired at Fort Sumter in April 1861, but three months earlier in Pensacola FL.
On January 10, 1861, Florida became the third state to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy, and that made US Army Lieutenant Adam Slemmer a target. Slemmer was in command of the coastal defenses at Pensacola, one of the US Navy’s largest bases on the Gulf of Mexico. He had already received word that Confederates in nearby Mobile AL had seized the Federal forts in that harbor, and he knew that the local state militia troops would now try to take the four Pensacola forts under his command—and he only had 82 men to defend them.
Two of the harbor forts were just small outposts. The third, Fort Barrancas, had been rebuilt after the War of 1812. The fourth, Fort Pickens, was larger and had more massive walls, but it had been empty since 1850 and was in disrepair. Nevertheless, Slemmer decided that Pickens, with its commanding position at the mouth of Pensacola harbor, was the most defensible, and on the night of January 10 he gathered all his men, what guns and cannons they could, and moved from Fort Barrancas to Fort Pickens. He immediately set his men to work repairing and strengthening the walls and setting up the cannons. The Confederates, meanwhile, moved into the now-empty Fort Barrancas. On opposite sides of the harbor mouth, they were only a mile and a half apart.
Although Abraham Lincoln had won the 1860 election, he had not yet assumed office, and James Buchanan was still President. His orders to Slemmer were simple: avoid a conflict if possible, but hold as much of the harbor fortifications as he could.
For a time, the two forces watched each other warily. On January 12, four Confederate officers approached under a flag of truce and demanded that the Federals surrender, on the grounds that the fort was now the property of the Confederate States of America. Slemmer, in turn, responded that he was under the orders of the United States Government. The next night, a small group of men was seen lurking outside the fort’s walls—they were Confederate militia who were reconnoitering the defenses. One of the Confederates fired a potshot at the fort’s walls, which was answered by one of the Union defenders. Though neither of them hit anything, they were the first exchange of fire between Federals and Confederates of the Civil War.
The next morning, January 15, another group of delegates approached the fort under a flag of truce. This time, it was headed by Colonel William Chase, the commander of Florida’s state militia. In an ironic twist, Chase had, decades ago as a young military engineer, helped design and build Fort Pickens. Now, he demanded that the Federals surrender that fort, offering them safe passage back north. Once again, Slemmer refused, and when another offer of safe passage came two days after that, Slemmer simply replied that he had no reason to change his previous answer.
President Buchanan, meanwhile, had dispatched Captain Israel Vogdes on the sloop Brooklyn to deliver supplies and reinforcements to Fort Pickens. But while the Brooklyn was on its way, Florida’s former Senator Stephen R. Mallory, now a member of Confederate President Jefferson Davis’s cabinet, sent word to Washington DC that, although the Confederates would allow food and medical supplies to enter Fort Pickens, they would not attack Slemmer’s position unless the Federals tried to reinforce the fort with more soldiers or weapons. So when Vogdes reached Pensacola on February 6, he received orders not to land any reinforcing troops.
The resulting standoff lasted for two months, as both sides studiously avoided any actions that might provoke the other and start a conflict that neither side really wanted. But on March 3, 1861, President Lincoln assumed office, and his Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, ordered an expedition to be sent from New York City, under the command of Colonel Harvey Brown, to reinforce Slemmer at Fort Pickens with four companies of troops. Brown left New York on April 1 and sailed down the coast and around Florida, stopping briefly at Forts Taylor and Jefferson, near Key West, which were also being held by Union forces. By the time Brown reached Pensacola on April 17, Confederates in Charleston SC had fired upon Fort Sumter, and the two sides were now at war.
Brown assumed command from Slemmer, and assessed his situation. With his reinforcements and with the Navy crews on ships in the harbor, he had about 2500 men. The Confederate forces around him numbered about 6,000, and they also had a new commander, Brigadier General Braxton Bragg.
Bragg made his move on the evening of October 9, landing a raiding party of 1000 troops on tiny Santa Rosa Island, where the Federals had established a small gun battery. After destroying the Union camp and inflicting 67 casualties, the Confederates withdrew.
The Federals did not respond until November 22, but it was thunderous. Federal batteries in and around Fort Pickens opened a heavy barrage on the Confederates in Fort Barrancas, who returned fire. Between the two forts there were 110 heavy coastal guns, including Columbiad smoothbores and James rifled cannons; the Federal ships in the harbor also opened fire. Some accounts say the bombardment could be heard 125 miles away. After two days of near-constant fire, both forts had been damaged. Then on New Years Day 1862, a Confederate steamer attempted to enter the harbor and was fired upon by the Federal batteries. Again the cannons at Fort Barrancas responded, and the resulting barrage lasted until 2am the next night. One of the Federal shells hit the Confederate powder magazine at Fort McRee, completely destroying it.
The “Battle of Pensacola” then settled into what might be loosely termed a “siege”. While the forts occasionally traded some cannon shots, the harbor was dominated by the US Navy, the Confederates were unable to move anything in or out by sea, and there was little doubt what the outcome would be. General Bragg left and took most of his troops with him—they would meet General Ulysses Grant at Shiloh. On May 7, 1862, a new Federal fleet under Admiral David Farragut (later of “damn the torpedoes” fame) entered Pensacola harbor, and the remaining Confederates fled. The city remained in Union hands for the rest of the war, and Fort Pickens was used to hold Confederate POWs.
Today Fort Barrancas functions as the Visitors Center for the Gulf Islands National Seashore. I had originally planned to visit Fort Barrancas, but unfortunately when I got here the Navy Base was on a lockdown, which happens occasionally, and getting in is a long process of waiting for a background check. So, since Fort Pickens is similar to Barrancas in its construction and also features prominently in the story, I went there instead. Fort Pickens is a separate National Park, on the other side of the mouth of Pensacola Bay. Tourists can explore the brick Fort, the batteries of naval cannons, and the additional batteries that were later built during the Spanish-American War.
Some photos from a visit to the fort: