Situated on the bluffs overlooking Pensacola Bay, Florida, Fort Barrancas was built to protect the US from foreign invaders. Once considered vital to national defense, today it is preserved and managed by the National Park Service and is an excellent illustration of the evolution of military technology.

Built between 1839 and 1844, Fort Barrancas was the third fort established on the Pensacola bay. It was constructed over the ruins of a 1798 Spanish fort named Fort San Carlos de Barrancas and built by enslaved men.

Situated below the barrancas, which is Spanish for bluffs, was a 1797 water battery where in active days, cannon projectiles ricocheted off of the surface of the bay to hit ships at the water line.

When Abraham Lincoln became president-elect in November 1860, Southern slaveholding states began seceding or talked of seceding from the Union. A national crisis had began and the fort changed from Union to Confederate hands. During this time, it was used to organize and train Confederate soldiers until their evacuation in 1862.

Fort Barrancas was declared surplus in 1947 and on the afternoon when Mike, Chris and I visited, where outside temperatures peaked at 94 degrees Fahrenheit, it was certainly a delightfully cool environment to explore!

A dry ditch covered two sides of the fort. Assaulting infantrymen who entered the ditch suffered heavy casualties from musket and cannon fire through the openings in the wall, pictured below. This photograph was taken from the drawbridge which could be raised to isolate the fort’s main walls from land-based attack.