Fort Morgan ( Alabama ) Fort Morgan is a historic masonry star fort at the mouth of Mobile Bay , Alabama , United States . Some scholars regard it as " one of the finest examples of military architecture in the New World . " The post was named in honor of Revolutionary War hero Daniel Morgan . It was built on the site of the earlier Fort Bowyer , an earthen and stockade type fortification involved in the final land battles of the War of 1812 . Construction was completed in 1834 and it received its first garrison in March of the same year . Fort Morgan is at the tip of Mobile Point at the western terminus of State Route 180 ( Alabama ) . It and Dauphin Island , on which Fort Gaines is situated , enclose Mobile Bay . The Alabama Historical Commission maintains the site . War of 1812 . After the departure of the Spanish from Mobile in April 1813 , the Americans built an earth and wood redoubt on Mobile Point , ultimately naming it Fort Bowyer after Col . John Bowyer , who completed the construction before leaving in 1814 . In September 1814 the fort withstood a British naval and land attack , known as the First Battle of Fort Bowyer . The British returned in February 1815 after their defeat at the Battle of New Orleans and again launched an attack that became known as the Second Battle of Fort Bowyer . This time they were successful , with its American garrison surrendering the fort . Before the British could continue their attack towards Mobile they received word that the Treaty of Ghent , ending the war , had been signed on Christmas Eve , 1814 . When word of the treaty ' s ratification arrived shortly thereafter , the British withdrew . The site was a logical one for a more substantial fort that could defend itself from landward and protect the entrance to the bay , leading to Fort Morgan replacing Fort Bowyer . Construction . After the War of 1812 , the U . S . embarked on a program to strengthen its seacoast defenses . As part of this program , in 1818 the U . S . contracted with Benjamin Hopkins of Vermont to build a large masonry fort on Mobile Point after a design by Simon Bernard , who had been a military engineer for Napoleon . However , Hopkins died a year later in a yellow fever epidemic , having accomplished little . The next contractor , Samuel Hawkins of New York , died in 1821 , before accomplishing anything on the project . The Army turned the task over to the Corps of Engineers under Capt . R . E . DeRussey . Using slave labor , DeRussey was able to make some progress before he took ill in 1825 and turned the work over to his deputy , Lieut . Cornelius Ogden . Ogden completed the work in March 1834 and turned the fort over to Capt . F . S . Belton , commander of Company B , 2nd US Artillery . This unit remained at the fort for about a year and a half before their transfer to Florida to assist in the Second Seminole Indian War . Civil War . Eight days before Alabama seceded from the Union , Col . John B . Todd took four companies of Alabama volunteers and captured the fort before dawn on 3 January 1861 . The Confederates then proceeded to strengthen the defenses of Mobile Bay . The key point was the Main Ship Channel opposite Fort Morgan as this was the only approach where the water was deep enough to permit major warships to pass . To defend this area , the Confederates placed 18 of the fort ' s heaviest guns ( including two 7 " Brooke rifle s and two British - made 8 " Blakely rifle s ) , so that they could bear on the Channel . They also built redoubts and trenches east of the fort to impede further any attack via land . Lastly , they complemented the land defenses with a small flotilla consisting of the ram " Tennessee " , and three gunboats , " Morgan " , " Gaines " and " Selma " , all under the command of Admiral Franklin Buchanan . During the war , Fort Morgan provided protective fire for blockade runner s . All 17 vessels that ran out of the Bay eluded capture , as did 19 of the 21 that attempted to enter . During the Battle of Mobile Bay , Union naval forces under Admiral David G . Farragut were able to get past Fort Morgan and enter the Bay . They captured " Tennessee " and " Selma " , sank " Gaines " , and captured Fort Gaines . This freed the Union land forces under Gordon Granger to besiege Fort Morgan . During the siege , the wooden roof of the Citadel , a ten - sided barracks located in the center of the fort used to house the enlisted men , caught fire and the structure was badly damaged . ( Rather than restore it , post - War crews demolished the building . ) After two weeks of bombardment from sea and land , General Richard L . Page , commander of the fort , felt compelled to surrender . He did so on August 23 , 1864 , after first spiking the fort ' s guns . Once the Fort was in Union hands , the Union used it as a base for reconnaissance raids , and then as a staging area for the Battle of Spanish Fort and the Battle of Fort Blakely , which occurred days before General Robert E . Lee surrendered at Appomattox . Late 19th Century . During a renovation project in the 1870s , the fort received 12 200 - pounder Parrott rifled cannon . Eventually , however , the US Government abandoned the fort , letting it fall into disrepair . Then under the presidency of Grover Cleveland , Secretary of War William Endicott chaired the Endicott Board , which led to a program of building new , concrete batteries . Between 1895 and 1900 , Fort Morgan received five concrete batteries , supported by the latest in fire control , electricity , and communications . The first battery , Battery Bowyer , was operational during the Spanish - American War . It had four 8 " breech - loading guns on disappearing carriage s . The battery was closed in 1917 and the guns removed for conversion to railway gun s for service in Europe . At beginning of the Spanish - American War , Fort Morgan also received eight 10 - inch smooth - bore muzzle - loading cannon , converted to 8 " rifles with the insertion of a barrel sleeve . This was a makeshift and the Army later gave the guns away to cities for Civil War memorials . The second battery , completed in 1900 , was Battery Dearborn , named for Major General Henry Dearborn . The battery had eight breech - loading 12 " mortars in two four - gun pits . The intent was that should enemy vessels approach , the mortars would rain down shells on the vessels ' less heavily armored decks . The third battery , also completed in 1900 , was Battery Duportail , named for Major General Louis Duportail . Its armament consisted of two 12 " breech - loading rifles on disappearing carriages . The battery was decommissioned in 1923 . The Army removed the breechblocks and plugged the breeches before abandoning the guns in place . The Army scrapped the guns in the early 1940s . The fourth battery was Battery Thomas , named for Captain Evan Thomas , who had been killed in the Battle of Sand Butte in 1873 during the Modoc War . This battery ' s armament consisted of two British 4 . 7 " rapid - fire Armstrong guns . The battery ' s role was to prevent smaller enemy vessels from passing through the ship ' s channel in front of the fort . The battery was deactivated in 1917 and its guns removed . The fifth battery was Battery Schenk , named for Lieutenant William T . Schenck , who was killed in action in Luzon in 1900 during the Philippine - American War . The battery initially held two , later increased to three , 3 " rapid - fire guns . It too protected the ship channel . 20th century . Hurricanes in 1906 and in July 1916 caused a great deal of damage to the wooden houses at Fort Morgan along Officer ' s Row . The wide porches that helped cool the buildings in summer proved particularly vulnerable . In 1915 , the Coast Artillery Corps built an experimental battery , called Battery Test , about a mile away from Fort Morgan . The battery held a single 10 " gun on a disappearing carriage . Then in 1916 , the Navy had two battleships , the USS " New York " and the USS " Arkansas " , shell the battery for two days to see how well it would survive , which it did with remarkably little damage . The gun was removed shortly after the tests . After the US declared war on Germany in April 1917 , the fort took on the task of training Coast Artillerymen in modern weapons . The fort also trained field anti - aircraft batteries . In 1920 the Fort received four British 9 . 2 " howitzers . These guns were abandoned and later scrapped in 1924 when the Army abandoned the fort . Thereafter , the base deteriorated quickly . During World War I , the Army had established a radio transmitting and receiving station at Fort Morgan as a part of a nation - wide Morse - code communication network . The transmitter had the call letters WUR . When Fort Morgan was abandoned , the call letters were transferred to Fort McClellan , Alabama . In April 1942 , the Army re - occupied the fort and constructed an adjacent airfield . Initially , the Coast Artillery brought five Model 1918 155mm guns to equip the fort . The Army placed two on top of Fort Morgan on mounts that permitted 360 degrees traverse . The remaining three guns stood on the Fort ' s parade ground . The War Department turned it over to the State of Alabama in 1946 , and the Army again abandoned the Fort in 1947 . The War Department disbanded the U . S . Army Coast Artillery Corps itself in 1950 . Recent developments . Fort Morgan was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960 . In 2007 it was listed as " one of the nation ' s 10 most endangered battle sites " by the Civil War Preservation Trust in " History Under Siege : A Guide to America ' s Most Endangered Civil War Battlefields " . In June 2008 , a 90 - pound live Union naval shell was uncovered at the site . The shell was from a Parrott rifle on a U . S . Navy warship and was fired at the fort in the summer of 1864 . The discovery came during excavations as part of a project meant to repair cracks in the walls .