Fort Barrancas

BEGINNING OF THE BLOCKADE, 1861—THE STARS AND BARS OVER BARRANCAS

INSIDE FORT BARRANCAS

In these hitherto unpublished Confederate photographs appear the first guns trained upon the Federal fleet at the beginning of the blockade. The fort lay about a mile west of the United States Navy Yard at Pensacola and commanded the inner channel to Pensacola Bay. When Florida seceded, January 10, 1861, about 550 Florida and Alabama State troops appeared before the barracks of Company G, 1st U. S. Artillery, 60 men. These retired into Fort Barrancas, after an attack upon that fort about midnight had

been repelled. This was the first fighting of the war. Meanwhile Lieut. A. J. Slemmer, commander at Fort Pickens across the inlet, was removing the Barrancas garrison and their families. He succeeded in getting all safely across in a vessel to Fort Pickens, and the guns of Fort Barrancas bearing upon the channel were spiked. The Florida and Alabama troops occupied the fort on the 12th and began mounting twenty-five 32-pounders, which threatened Fort Pickens until the Confederates abandoned the works, May 9, 1862.