Barrancas in Coastal Defenses

The U.S. Army built Fort Barrancas in the 1840s as one of four fortifications protecting Pensacola Bay and the navy yard from attack. Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island and Fort McRee on Perdido Key guarded the channel, while Fort Barrancas and its water battery on a bluff could support their crossfire and fire on ships entering the bay. Advanced Redoubt was built to protect the Navy Yard and Fort Barrancas from a land-based attack. During the Civil War, Confederates briefly held Fort Barrancas and exchanged gunfire with Federal forces at Fort Pickens. Forts Barrancas, Pickens, McRee, and Advanced Redoubt belonged to the Third System of coastal fortifications, the series of harbor forts Americans built between 1816 and 1870 after earlier first-system forts of the Revolutionary War and second-system forts built between 1789 and 1812.

Warrington, Florida · United States