Fort San Carlos De Barrancas Essay

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Fort San Carlos De Barrancas is a National Historic Landmark. The word barrancas means "bluff" in Spanish. Sits on a bluff looking over the entrance to Pensacola Bay. The entrance is on Taylor Road half a mile east of the Museum of Naval Aviation. The English built the first fort in 1763. Coincidently captured by the Spanish during the American Revolution, who renamed it San Carlos de Barrancas which was built a second time in 1797 and built again in 1817. From 1839 through 1844, the United States built the current Fort Barrancas on the same site and has managed to include some of the forts original features. It was utilized during the Civil War, Spanish-American War, and the Second World War. The advantages of the forts location have caused …show more content…

Once it was built and armed, it was not even mandatory to man. Relatively this amazing fort used the old Spanish water battery as a base to toughen the walls and added a rifle gallery on top. The old wooden fort on the bluff was replaced with a much stronger brick design by Joseph Totten. Done by contracted slaves. Six million bricks were purchased locally. One of the more special features is found in the walls interior, which are accommodated by filling made up of sand open ended arches against curved retaining walls in the galleries. This system uses the natural slope of the sand to relieve pressure on the outer walls. Barrancas was assigned by Confederates abandoned the Pensacola forts in May of 1862. Barrancas was armed with new guns in 1894, but its occupation was taken over by new concrete forts built around Forts Pickens …show more content…

Winder. On January 8, under Colonel William Henry Chase demanded that the federal troops surrender the fort, but Lieutenant Adam J. Slemmer, acting commander in Winder's absence, had the troops fired warning shots meant to force back the militia. Lt Slemmer knew that Fort Pickens was much easier to defend, 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 this fort throughout the Civil War. A Confederate force of one thousand troops landed east of Fort Pickens on October ninth, but was forced back by Union forces. Fort McRee and Fort Barrancas exchanged heavy cannon fire with Fort Pickens on November 22, 23, 1861 and January 1, 1862. Correspondingly in May 1862 after learning that the Union Army had taken New Orleans, Confederate troops abandoned Pensacola. Fort Barrancas Army Post was located east of the fort, which later on became headquarters for the Thirteenth Coast Artillery Regiment. . Due to some formal requirements, the United States Army deactivated Fort Barrancas on April 15, 1947 following World War II. Following eighteen months of restoration costing a little over one million and using ninety thousand new bricks, the fort was reopened in 1980 by the National Park Service. Fort Barrancas was the scene

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