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Engraving of wartime Fort Pickens. Fort Pickens is a historic pentagonal United States military fort on Santa Rosa Island in the Pensacola, Florida, area. It is named after American Revolutionary War hero Andrew Pickens. It is the largest of four forts built to defend Pensacola Bay and its navy yard. [2]
Santa Rosa Island is a 40-mile barrier island in the U.S. state of Florida, thirty miles from the Alabama state border. At the western end stands Fort Pickens, which in the first week of January 1861 had a garrison of only one company, Company G of the 1st Regiment, US Artillery.
William Henry Chase (June 4, 1798 – February 8, 1870) was a Florida militia colonel during the events in early 1861 that led to the American Civil War (Civil War). On January 15, 1861, on behalf of the State and Governor of Florida, Colonel Chase demanded the surrender of Fort Pickens at Pensacola, Florida and of its U.S. Army garrison.
The city and Fort Barrancas were the site of the 1814 Battle of Pensacola. Fort Pickens was completed in 1834. It is one of the few Southern forts to have been held by the United States throughout the American Civil War. Andrew Jackson served as Florida's first territorial governor, residing at the capital of Pensacola.
Some historians suggest that these were the first shots fired by United States forces in the Civil War. On January 10, 1861, the day Florida seceded from the Union, the garrison evacuated Fort Barrancas to the dilapidated but more defensible Fort Pickens.
As state governor during the Fort Sumter crisis, he sanctioned the decision to fire on a ship bringing supplies to the beleaguered United States Army garrison, and to the bombardment of the fort. After the war, Pickens introduced the motion to repeal South Carolina's Ordinance of Secession, a short speech received in silence, in notable ...
Fort McRee, the closest fortification to Fort Pickens and a road block to any attempted assault on Pensacola, was to be the primary target. [2] Starting on the morning of 22 November 1861, Fort McRee was bombarded heavily by Union forces at Fort Pickens, and by two ships, Niagara and Richmond.
Slemmer knew that Fort Pickens was easier to defend and so he spiked the guns at Barrancas, loaded ammunition and supplies on a flatboat, and moved his company across the bay to Fort Pickens. The Union held the fort throughout the Civil War. The Confederacy stationed soldiers from Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi at Fort Barrancas. While a ...