On Jan. 8, 1861, United States Army guards repelled a group of men intending to take Fort Barrancas in Pensacola Harbor. Historians say that this event could be considered the first shots fired on Union forces in the Civil War. [1]
Fort Barrancas, located on a barrier island, was one of four fortified areas that marked the southern defenses. Fort Barrancas has been a site for harbor fortifications since 1763, when the British built a fort. The Spanish captured Pensacola from the British in 1781 and constructed their own fortification on the site, calling it San Carlos de Barranca. The Spanish word barranca means bluff, which fairly describes the location of the fort.[2]
The United States began constructing fortifications at Pensacola in the 1820s, when Pensacola Bay was chosen as the site for a Navy Yard. Along with Fort Barrancas, which defended the Navy Yard, there were Fort Pickens and Fort McRee, both located on islands at the entrance to the bay. (Fort McRee has been completely destroyed by the shifting sands of the barrier island it was located on.) The Advance Redoubt, near Fort Barrancas, was an infantry fort, designed to stop overland movement of enemy troops toward the Navy Yard.
Fort Pickens was the largest installation that fortified Pensacola Harbor. Constructed between 1829-1834, Pickens was located at the western tip of Santa Rosa Island, just offshore the mainland. Construction was supervised by Colonel William H. Chase of the Corps of Army Engineers. Using slave labor, the fort used over 22 million bricks and was designed to be impregnable. Ironically, Chase was later appointed by the State of Florida to command its troops and seize for the South the very fort he had built.[3]
That the defensive positions were of critical importance was realized by both the Union and the Confederacy. On Jan. 5, Senator Yulee wrote from Washington to Joseph Finegan at Tallahassee, "The immediately important thing to be done is the occupation of the forts and arsenals in Florida." Union soldiers in Florida occupied the Apalachicola arsenal at Chattahoochee, containing a small number of arms, 5,000 pounds of powder and about 175,000 cartridges; Fort Barrancas, with 44 cannons and ammunition; Barrancas barracks, where there was a field battery; Fort Pickens, equipped with 201 cannons with ammunition; Fort McRee, 125 seacoast and garrison cannons; Fort Taylor in Key West, with 60 cannons; Key West barracks, 4 cannons; Fort Marion, with 6 field batteries and some small arms; and Fort Jefferson on the Tortugas.
Sen. Yulee pointed out, "The naval station and forts at Pensacola were first in consequence." There was then on the mainland one company of Federal artillery, commanded by John H. Winder, later to be promoted to general in the Confederate service. On account of Winder's absence Lieutenant Adam J. Slemmer was in charge.[4]
At the time of the Secession, Fort Pickens had not been occupied since the Mexican War. Lt. Slemmer, responsible for the U.S. forces at Fort Barrancas, decided that in spite of its dilapidated condition, Pickens was more defensible than any of the other posts in the area. His decision was accelerated around midnight of Jan. 8 when his troops repelled a group of men intending to take the fort. In consolidating his position, Lt. Slemmer destroyed over 20,000 pounds of powder at Fort McRee, spiked the guns at Barrancas, and evacuated his 80 troops to Fort Pickens. Because of his tactical thinking, Fort Pickens remained in Union hands throughout the Civil War.[5]
A native Pennsylvanian, Adam J. Slemmer was graduated from West Point in 1850 as brevet second lieutenant 1st Artillery. He was promoted to first lieutenant in 1854. Lt. Slemmer was in charge of the small artillery garrison quartered at Fort Barrancas when the Secession crisis occurred. With an under-manned garrison far from Washington, Lt. Slemmer considered his situation at Fort Barrancas to be untenable. The naval establishment, consisting of a minimal sea force and the Navy Yard, was under Commodore James Armstrong. Both Slemmer and Armstrong had been told that an attempt to seize the military works would be made as soon as the Florida politicians should declare that State's secession—and secession was imminent. Federal posts in Florida and Alabama had already been seized, and hostile troops were gathering at Pensacola.
Lt. Slemmer decided to concentrate his forces to defend only one fort, and moved his four score troops on Jan. 10 to the greater security of Fort Pickens, then unoccupied. That was the date in which the Florida Convention passed the Ordinance of Secession. On the same morning, about 500 insurgents of Florida, Alabama and Mississippi appeared at the gate of the Navy Yard and demanded its surrender. Commodore Armstrong was powerless, for three-fourths of the 60 officers under his command were disloyal.
Commander Ebenezer Farrand was among the insurgents who demanded the surrender, and Flag-Officer Renshaw immediately ordered the National standard to be pulled down. The post, with ordnance stores valued at $156,000, passed into the hands of the authorities of Florida. The insurgents took possession of Forts Barrancas and McRee.
Two days later, on Jan. 12, Florida and Alabama troops took the mainland bases and demanded that Lt. Slemmer surrender Fort Pickens. That night, a deputation went to the fort, consisting of Captain Randolph, Major Marks and Lieutenant Rutledge. They demanded the peaceable surrender of Pickens to the governors of Alabama and Florida, but Slemmer declined to recognize the authority of those officials. Lt. Slemmer held his position until an informal agreement, or "truce," was established between President Buchanan's Administration and Florida. The terms were that Southern troops would not attack Pickens so long as Union troops remained aboard nearby ships and did not reinforce the fort.
The two vessels in the harbor, the Supply and Wyandotte, steamed out under the truce, but remained in the possession of the United States officers. The 80 men under Slemmer at Fort Pickens remained defiant. The following night, a small party of armed men from the mainland reconnoitered on the island and a few shots were fired from the fort.
On Jan. 15, Col. W. H. Chase, a U.S. Army officer of Massachusetts who had worked on building the forts and was thoroughly familiar with Pensacola Bay's defenses, visited Fort Pickens in company with Capt. Farrand. Chase was in charge of all insurgents in that region and Farrand had been second in command at the Navy Yard. Chase obtained an interview with Slemmer and tried to persuade him to "avoid bloodshed" by quietly surrendering the fort. Col. Chase said in conclusion, "Consider this well, and take care that you will so act as to have no fearful recollections of a tragedy that you might have avoided; but rather to make the present moment one of the most glorious, because Christian-like, of your life." Slemmer, it can be said, did make that a "glorious moment of his life" by refusing to give up the fort.
Nothing remained to the State forces except to make an assault. But the Florida senators in Washington and other representatives, including Senator Jefferson Davis, telegraphed advising that no blood should be shed.[6]
On Jan. 18, another demand was made for the surrender of the fort, and this too was refused. A siege of that stronghold was begun.
In the meantime, the government in Washington was sending reinforcements to Forts Taylor and Jefferson. On Jan. 21, Capt. Israel Vogdes, with a company of artillerymen, was ordered to sail on the sloop-of-war Brooklyn to reinforce Fort Pickens. On being informed of the overt act violating the truce, Senator Mallory telegraphed to a Mr. Slidell that it would doubtless provoke an attack upon the fort by the force of 1,700 men assembled under Col. Chase. Slidell urged that President Buchanan be informed that Fort Pickens would not be molested if reinforcements were not sent. Capt. Vogdes was then instructed not to land his men unless hostilities were begun. Lt. Slemmer, deprived of the promised aid of the naval establishment, was now left to his own resources. The fort was one of the strongest on the Gulf Coast. There were 54 guns in position and provisions for five months, but the garrison consisted of only 81 officers and men.
The situation remained tense, with Capt. Vogdes' men on shipboard off Santa Rosa island, and the Alabama and Florida volunteers on shore engaged in strengthening their defenses. On Feb. 11, Lt. Slemmer protested against the erection of a battery that he observed volunteers working at. Col. Chase promptly answered that the erection of batteries was not aiming at an attack on Fort Pickens, yet he would give orders for its discontinuance. [7]
Several days after the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, Capt. Vogdes was ordered by General Winfield Scott to land his company, "reinforce Fort Pickens, and hold the same until further orders." With that order, the conditions of existing peace were broken.
Capt. Vogdes requested the cooperation of Capt. Adams, who commanded the fleet, to help him make a landing. Adams refused, saying his instructions forbade such action so long as there was no aggressive movement on the part of the Confederate forces.
In the meantime, General Braxton Bragg took command at Pensacola on Mar. 11 and ordered the resumption of work on the batteries. He informed the Federal commander that this action was justified "as a means of defense, and especially so under the threats of the new Administration."
The number of insurgents at Pensacola increased rapidly, and the Lincoln Administration resolved to send relief to Fort Pickens. A small squadron was dispatched from New York for the purpose. Navy Lieutenant J.L. Worden was sent overland to Pensacola with orders to Capt. Adams, in command of the vessels off Fort Pickens, to throw reinforcements into that work immediately.
Lt. Worden reached Pensacola on Apr. 10. On his overland trip, Worden had observed the war fever and preparations. Fearing arrest, he acquainted himself with the contents of the dispatches and then tore them up. He frankly told Gen. Bragg that he was sent by his government with orders to Capt. Adams, and that they were not written, but oral. Bragg gave the lieutenant a pass for his destination.
Fortunately, Worden's message was delivered in the nick of time for Bragg was on the point of attacking the fort. The reinforcements were thrown in and the plan was foiled. Worden returned to Pensacola, and was permitted to take the train cars for Montgomery, Alabama. At that moment, Bragg was informed by a spy that Fort Pickens had been reinforced. Mortified by his stupid blunder in letting Worden pass to and from the squadron, he telegraphed the Confederate government at Montgomery that Worden had practiced "falsehood and deception" in gaining access to the squadron, and recommended his arrest.
Lt. Worden was seized on Apr. 15, put in jail, treated with scorn by the Confederates, and kept a prisoner until the following November when he was exchanged. Lt. Worden, whose timely delivery of orders to Capt. Adams foiled Gen. Bragg's attack, had become the first prisoner-of-war held by the insurgents. Worden later distinguished himself in command of the Monitor at Hampton Roads,
A few days after the reinforcement of Fort Pickens, two vessels appeared bearing several hundred troops and ample supplies under Col. Harvey Brown. After four months defending Fort Pickens in the face of enemy guns, Lt. Slemmer and his small band of troops were worn by fatigue. They were relieved and sent to Fort Hamilton, New York, to rest. The grateful population of New York honored them. The President gave Slemmer the commission of major, and afterward of brigadier; and the New York Chamber of Commerce struck a series of bronze medals as presents to the commander and men of the brave little garrison.[8]
Reinforcements continued to be sent to Fort Pickens and the number of the insurgents intended to assail it also increased, until, in May, they numbered over 7,000. But events of very little importance occurred in that vicinity during the ensuing summer. As a result of Slemmer's actions, Pensacola remained a major Union stronghold throughout the war.
Timeline of Early 1861 (6)
Jan. 6 – State troops seize the Arsenal at Apalachicola
Jan. 7 – State troops seize Fort Marion at St. Augustine
Jan. 8 – Lt. Slemmer's troops repel insurgents from Fort Barrancas
Jan. 10 – Florida passes its Ordinance of Secession; Lt. Adam Slemmer transfers Union troops from Barrancas Barracks to Fort Pickens
Jan. 12 – State troops seize the Pensacola Navy Yard, Fort Barrancas, Fort McRee, and Barrancas Barracks. Confederate officials demand the surrender of Fort Pickens
Jan. 14 – U.S. forces garrison Fort Taylor
Jan. 18 – Confederate officials again demand the surrender of Fort Pickens
Jan. 18 – Union troops garrison Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas
Footnotes and Bibliography
1. Tulane University,
http://www.tulane.edu/~latner/Pickens.html 2. From the personal research of Andy Bennett,
http://andy_bennett.home.mindspring.com/coastal.html 3. Tulane University
4.
http://www.civilwarhome.com/Florida2.htm 5. Tulane University
6. E History,
http://www.ehistory.com/uscw/library/periodicals/ahotcw/section05/130.cfm 7.
http://www.civilwarhome.com/Florida2.htm 8. E History,
http://www.ehistory.com/uscw/features/battles/states/florida/0001.cfm 
