March 26, 1865---The Battle of Spanish Fort, Alabama

MARCH 26, 1865:     

The Battle of Spanish Fort, Alabama:      

In a protracted but relatively unknown battle that lasted from March 27^th to April 9^th, United States forces assaulted the ring of landward forts surrounding Mobile, Alabama. In succession, Fort Huger, Battery Tracey, Battery McDermott, Fort Alexis, the Red Fort, Fort Blakeley, and Old Spanish Fort, all part of the Mobile defenses, fell to the Union. For all its length, the Battle of Spanish Fort was comparatively bloodless: Union forces, which numbered over 45,000 men, lost only 700 men killed, wounded, or missing.  The Confederates, numbering only 3,000, likewise lost about that number of men killed, wounded and missing. The Confederates’ ability to hold out for 12 days in the face of a force 15 times their size is a testament to their fighting spirit, a spirit which hadn’t flagged despite the isolation of the forts (Mobile had been taken by the Union in early August). The Battle of Spanish Fort is sometimes referred to (erroneously) as “the last battle of the Civil War” because it ended the same day as General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.   

Three mixed companies of armed free blacks and slaves begin drilling in Richmond. “I hope it will work well,” writes Sergeant Marion Fitzpatrick C.S.A., a Georgian. Native Richmonders are less supportive. “The darkies are very jubilant and think it great fun. The music attracts them like flies around a molasses barrel,” says William Owen, a local-born artillerist.