The Brick Pentagon That Guarded Pensacola Bay Through Every American War Since 1834

Fort Pickens, Florida

Fort Pickens never fell to enemy fire during the Civil War, making it one of only a few Southern forts to stay in Union hands.

Built from millions of bricks on a remote Florida island, it became home to famous prisoners and countless soldiers over the decades. The fortress still stands strong against Gulf storms.

Here’s the remarkable tale of the fort that wouldn’t quit.

Fort Pickens

Fort Pickens has sat on Santa Rosa Island, Florida since 1834, watching over Pensacola Bay like a giant brick sentinel.

Workers spent five years building this five-sided fort, using 21.5 million bricks to create walls that tower 40 feet high across 16 acres.

The fort got its name from Andrew Pickens, a hero from the Revolutionary War.

Why build here?

Pensacola Bay stretched 13 miles long with deep water up to 65 feet – perfect for big ships and exactly what America needed to protect.

How Slaves Built This Massive Fort

A French engineer named Simon Bernard drew up the plans. Thick walls, five sides, built to last.

Over 300 enslaved people did the backbreaking work under Colonel William H. Chase.

These men carried dirt in heavy baskets weighing up to 30 pounds each. They mixed cement from ash, water, and sand in the blazing Florida heat. C

hase made money off their misery – he rented more enslaved workers than anyone on the Gulf Coast, then built his own brick factories using their labor and sold those same bricks to the Army.

When Union Soldiers Said No

Things got tense fast in January 1861. On the 8th, guards at nearby Fort Barrancas fought off local men trying to grab the fort.

Some say these were the first shots of the Civil War.

Two days later, Lieutenant Adam Slemmer made a smart move. Florida had just quit the Union that very day, so he packed up 51 soldiers and 30 sailors and headed to Fort Pickens.

Before leaving, he blew up 20,000 pounds of gunpowder at Fort McRee so the Confederates couldn’t use it.

Then came the awkward part. Colonel Chase – the same guy who built Fort Pickens – showed up demanding surrender. Twice. Slemmer looked him in the eye and said no both times.

The Battle of Santa Rosa Island

October 9, 1861, started like any other night.

Then 1,200 Confederate soldiers crossed the water in the dark, planning to catch everyone sleeping. General Richard Anderson split his men into three groups and landed four miles from the fort.

It worked at first. They surprised the 6th New York Volunteers at Camp Brown and sent them running. But Colonel Harvey Brown wasn’t having it. He gathered fresh troops and hit back hard, forcing the Confederates to scramble back to their boats.

When the smoke cleared, 14 Union soldiers were dead and 29 wounded, while the Confederates lost about 90 men.

Fort Pickens Unleashes Fury

Colonel Brown was furious about that sneak attack. On November 22, 1861, he decided payback time had come.

Fort Pickens opened up with everything it had – massive cannons that weighed 10,000 pounds each, firing 300-pound cannonballs across the bay.

For two straight days, the air shook with thunder. Union guns fired 5,000 shots while Confederate batteries answered with 1,000 of their own.

The noise was so loud it killed fish floating in the bay and shattered windows seven miles away in town.

Fort McRee got torn apart, but Fort Pickens barely got scratched.

One of Four Forts That Never Fell

Here’s something amazing – Fort Pickens stayed in Union hands the entire Civil War.

Only four Southern forts managed that.

The others were Fort Taylor at Key West, Fort Jefferson at Garden Key, and Fort Monroe in Virginia.

By summer 1861, about 2,000 Union soldiers held the fort while 7,000 Confederate troops camped across the water. The Union troops could watch every Confederate ship and troop movement from their perch.

Finally, in May 1862, the Confederates just gave up and left town when they heard New Orleans had fallen.

When Geronimo Became the Main Attraction

October 25, 1886 – a train pulled into Pensacola carrying the most famous prisoner in America.

Geronimo and 15 Apache warriors had been shipped 1,500 miles from Arizona after years of fighting the U.S. Army.

Local businessmen had a “bright” idea to turn Geronimo into a tourist attraction. They split him from his family and charged visitors 50 cents for adults, 25 cents for kids to gawk at the famous Apache leader.

The warriors were forced to do hard labor – sawing logs, pulling weeds, stacking cannonballs.

A year later, their families finally joined them before everyone got moved to Alabama.

The Day the Fort Blew Itself Up

June 20, 1899 started normal enough.

Then fire reached the powder room in Bastion D, where 8,000 pounds of gunpowder sat waiting. The explosion was so massive it completely destroyed one whole corner of the fort and killed a soldier.

Chunks of brick flew over a mile and a half across the bay to Fort Barrancas. The blast wrecked the southeast wall and knocked off the gun platform.

Four years later, the Army set off five tons of old dynamite near the fort, creating a crater big enough to hide a house.

These explosions changed how the fort looked but made room for newer weapons.

Concrete Replaces Bricks

The 1890s brought big changes. The old brick fort was getting outdated fast as ships got better guns. So the Endicott Board started building modern concrete gun positions all around Fort Pickens.

Workers actually tore down part of the old fort’s south wall to make room for Battery Pensacola and its four 8-inch guns. Between 1895 and 1899, they built four major concrete batteries – Cullum-Sevier, Pensacola, Van Swearingen, and Worth.

Instead of bunching guns together like the old days, these new positions spread them out wide for better protection.

Fort Pickens’ Last War

World War II brought German submarines right to America’s doorstep, prowling the Gulf of Mexico like sharks. Fort Pickens got ready for war one more time.

Battery Langdon became the star – its massive 12-inch guns could hurl shells 17 miles out to sea.

In 1943, workers buried Battery Langdon under thick concrete and tons of dirt to hide it from enemy bombers. They also installed four 155mm guns around Battery Cooper, using concrete rings you can still see today.

The fort even had underwater mines ready to blow up any enemy ships trying to sneak into the bay.

The End of 113 Years

Fort Pickens served as a checkpoint during World War II, watching every ship that passed by to make sure no enemies slipped through.

The fort’s last two gun positions got finished in 1943 but never received their weapons – the war was going too well for America to need them.

After 113 years of watching over Pensacola Bay, Fort Pickens finally closed in 1947. Not one of its guns ever fired a shot at real enemies, but they stood ready every single day to defend America’s coast.

Visiting Fort Pickens

Fort Pickens is part of Gulf Islands National Seashore, managed by the National Park Service since 1971. The Fort Pickens Area covers the western seven miles of Santa Rosa Island.

The area features sugar-white sand beaches and links to the Florida National Scenic Trail, offering both history and outdoor recreation.

Camping is available with 43 sites in Loop A alone, with beach access right across from the campground entrance. Live oaks shade nearly all sites, making it the most popular camping area in the national seashore.

Visitors can explore the fort, concrete batteries, and hiking trails including the Blackbird Marsh Trail with signs explaining the site’s rich history.

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