Photo: Battery Duportail, a Endicott Period Coastal Defenses was built over half of the Citalel's footings

Photographer: Timothy Carr
Taken: 1988
Caption: Battery Duportail, a Endicott Period Coastal Defenses was built over half of the Citalel's footings
Additional Description: Battery Duportail constructed between 1898 and 1900. Following the Endicott System construction practice, incorporating concrete batteries into existing fortifications utilizing the old brick fort for additional protection. The design improvement of guns used during the American Civil War proved that brick and mortar forts like Fort Morgan obsolete. For a period of time after the American Civil War, the United States coastal defenses fell into disrepair and neglect. Many of then foreign powers were building heavily armored warships, armed with advance and powerful guns. In 1885 President Grover Cleveland appointed a joint military and civilian board to investigate and make recommendations on the modernizations of harbors and coastal defenses in the United States. The Board of Fortifications was headed by Secretary of War, William Crowninshield Endicott. Endicott’s board recommended a 127 million dollar construction program that included new forts with breech-loading cannons, mortars, floating batteries, and submarine mines for 29 locations along the U.S. coast. Battery Duportail was one of six batteries built at Mobile Point during that large-scale modernization. Battery Duportail was named after the Continental Army’s Chief of Engineers, Louis L. Duportail. The two story reinforced concrete structure was armed with two 12 inch disappearing guns. The Battery was in service from 1901 until the deactivation of Fort Morgan Military Installation in 1924. The guns at Battery Duportail remained in place until 1942 when they were removed for scrape.
Submitted: September 20, 2013, by Timothy Carr of Birmingham, Alabama.
Database Locator Identification Number: p254883
File Size: 0.126 Megabytes

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