The Battle of Spanish Fort took place from March 27 to April 8, 1865, in Baldwin County, Alabama, as part of the Mobile Campaign of the Western Theater of the American Civil War.
After the Union victory in the Battle of Mobile Bay, Mobile nevertheless remained in Confederate hands. Spanish Fort was heavily fortified as an eastern defense to the city of Mobile. Fort Huger, Fort (Battery) Tracey, Fort (Battery) McDermott, Fort Alexis, Red Fort, and Old Spanish Fort were all part of the Mobile defenses at Spanish Fort.
Union forces embarked on a land campaign in early 1865 to take Mobile from the east. Maj. Gen. E.R.S. Canby's XIII and XVI corps crossed the Fish River at Marlow Ferry, and moved along the eastern shore of Mobile Bay forcing the Confederates back into their defenses. Union forces then concentrated on Spanish Fort and Fort Blakeley, five miles to the north. On March 27, 1865, Canby's forces rendezvoused at Danley's Ferry and immediately undertook a siege of Spanish Fort. The Union had enveloped the fort by April 1, and on April 8 captured it. Most of the Confederate forces, under the command of Brig. Gen. Randall L. Gibson, escaped and fled to Mobile, but Spanish Fort was no longer a threat.
Fort Blakeley continued to fight after Spanish Fort's fall on April 8. However, as early as April 1, when Spanish Fort's fall became inevitable, Union forces had begun moving north in order to concentrate on Fort Blakeley, which eventually succumbed late on April 9 in the Battle of Fort Blakeley.
The fall of Spanish Fort and Fort Blakeley permitted Union troops to subsequently enter Mobile unopposed after the Army of Mobile evacuated the city, occupying it on April 12, 1865.
Map of Spanish fort and vicinity, drawn under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel V. Sheliha
Jordan, Daniel W. III (2019). Operational Art and the Campaign for Mobile, 1864-1865: A Staff Ride Handbook (PDF). Fort Leavenworth, Kan.: Combat Studies Institute Press, US Army Combined Arms Center. ISBN 9781940804545. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 12, 2020. Retrieved June 12, 2020.
Update to the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission Report on the Nation's Civil War Battlefields - State of Alabama
Conflicts around Mobile during the War Between the States
Paul Brueske (2024). "Digging All Night and Fighting All Day, The Civil War Siege of Spanish Fort and the 1865 Mobile Campaign." El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas-Beatie. ISBN 978-1-61121-710-0.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
This page covers Fall of Fort Blakeley — Final Assault April 9 1865. A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Wikipedia source.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in the US, drawing on NRHP records, battlefield archives, census history and geological data to tell the full story of a place.