Battle of Spanish Fort

Map of Spanish Fort Battlefield core and study areas by the American Battlefield Protection Program.

Union forces embarked on a land campaign in early 1865 to take Mobile from the east. Maj. Gen. E.R.S. Canby's XIII and XVI corps crossed the Fish River at Marlow Ferry, and moved along the eastern shore of Mobile Bay forcing the Confederates back into their defenses. Union forces then concentrated on Spanish Fort and Fort Blakely, five miles to the north. On March 27, 1865, Canby’s forces rendezvoused at Danley's Ferry and immediately undertook a siege of Spanish Fort. The Union had enveloped the fort by April 1, and on April 8 captured it. Most of the Confederate forces, under the command of Brig. Gen. Randall L. Gibson, escaped and fled to Mobile, but Spanish Fort was no longer a threat.

With Spanish Fort's fall on April 8 and Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House the next day (unrelated to the fall of Spanish Fort, as Lee’s forces were in Virginia), Fort Blakely remained the last organized resistance to the Union east of the Mississippi River. However, as early as April 1, when Spanish Fort's fall became inevitable, Union forces had begun moving north in order to concentrate on Fort Blakely, which eventually succumbed late on April 9 in the Battle of Fort Blakely.

The fall of Spanish Fort and Fort Blakely permitted Union troops to subsequently enter Mobile unopposed after the Army of Mobile evacuated the City, occupying it on April 12, 1865.

Map displaying line of works ordered by Major General Gardner:[2]

• Map of Spanish fort and vicinity, drawn under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel V. Sheliha

• Spanish Fort Union order of battle

• Jordan, Daniel W. III (2019). "Operational Art and the Campaign for Mobile, 1864-1865: A Staff Ride Handbook" (PDF). Fort Leavenworth, Kan.: Combat Studies Institute Press, US Army Combined Arms Center. ISBN 9781940804545. Retrieved June 12, 2020.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• National Park Service battle description
• Update to the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission Report on the Nation's Civil War Battlefields - State of Alabama
• Fort McDermott
• Conflicts around Mobile during the War Between the States