Union Siege Battery No. 1

Near this site stood the first of twenty-two artillery positions the Union army established to bombard the Confederate fortifications of Spanish Fort. Confederate forces there were under Brig. Gen. Randall Gibson. Battery Tracy, Battery Huger, and Old Spanish Fort had been built on the shores of the Blakeley River to block the Union navy from gaining access to the Mobile Delta, and a two-mile-long horseshoe-shaped earthwork with five artillery redoubts was added to protect the water batteries from a land invasion. On March 27, 1865, Maj. Gen. Edward Canby's Union Army of West Mississippi completely surrounded the Confederate garrison. During the thirteen-day siege, Canby placed the XIII Army Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, on his left, and Battery No. 1 anchored Granger's corps, whose men came from Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Vermont, and Wisconsin. The 1st Indiana Heavy Artillery, armed with four 8-inch howitzers, and the 6th Michigan Heavy Artillery, armed with four 10-inch siege mortars, manned Battery No. 1.

Spanish Fort, Alabama · United States