Every year the good folks at Fort Morgan run a historic nighttime tour around Halloween focusing on the more morbid side of things there. As the fort is 200 years old (construction began in 1819) and was the centerpiece in the Battle of Mobile Bay in August 1864 as well as being garrisoned off and on from the 1830s through 1945, there is a lot to hear and see. As a bonus, these tours often open up sometimes closed areas of the fort, which is always a treat.
Besides, as I made the Fort central to the plot of my 2013 zombie novel (shameless plug), it just made sense.
I caught these images during the tour, which was very worthwhile, so if you can take advantage of the event or others like it, please find the time to do so.
Inside the casemates before sunset
The handprints inside the usually sealed magazine of Battery Duportail, a reinforced concrete, Endicott Period M1888MII 12-inch disappearing gun battery at Fort Morgan. These are about 12 feet off the ground and were made by gunners moving around about stacks of 268-pound shells and tons of bagged powder with their sweaty, chemical-laden hands forever staining the salt and calcium of the walls. The battery was decommissioned in 1931.
Dylan Tucker, Cultural Resource Specialist, Fort Morgan, portraying Confederate B. Gen. Richard Lucian Page, the Virginia-born former U.S. Navy officer who resigned his commission in 1861 to join the Confederate Navy, only to be saddled with an Army command that was on the receiving end of 3,000 shells from the USN!
Overlooking the Endicott-era Portland concrete battery towards Mobile Bay at dusk
Now to try to get to Fort Pickens, who has a similar program, next October…
Battery Langdon, Fort Pickens, NPS photo