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Gulf island national seashore park1/8/2024 ![]() ![]() Lifeguards are located at specific beaches within the park during the summer season (mid-May to August) including Opal Beach in the Santa Rosa Area, Langdon Beach at Fort Pickens, and Johnson Beach at Perdido Key. The beaches of GINS tend to be a little less crowded than the main public beaches but can still be packed, so be patient and considerate to others. Of those beaches, some of the finest for swimming and sunbathing are located in Florida’s Gulf Islands National Seashore. Miles and miles of the whitest beaches anywhere in the country are outlined with the emerald, green waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It’s not called the Emerald Coast for nothing. Here are nine reasons you will love visiting Florida’s Gulf Islands National Seashore. Each of these areas offers visitors incredible adventure and experiences. Confederates abandoned Pensacola in May 1862, and Fort Barrancas saw no further combat.The Florida unit encompasses an area from Okaloosa to Pensacola and is made up of six “areas”: Naval Live Oaks, Fort Barrancas, Fort Pickens, Okaloosa, Perdido Key, and Santa Rosa. Bragg wrote, for the number and caliber of guns and weight of metal brought into action it would rank with the heaviest bombardments in the world. 22 and 23, heavily damaging the outer defenses of Fort Barrancas. Federal forces answered with a massive bombardment Nov. Bragg responded on an October evening with about 1,000 men in a night attack on Santa Rosa Island, burning the camp of the 6th New York Infantry. Hundreds of Soldiers were also stricken by consumption, malaria and diarrhea.Īction came in September with a raid on the navy yard by about 100 Federal Marines and sailors from Fort Pickens. Each officer was expected to be ready for an intelligent discharge of all the duties of his station, and all soldiers were to devote themselves to the “acquirements of knowledge so essential to the success of the glorious cause on which we are engaged.” Drilling in the hot sun while closely laced up in heavy woolen uniforms was blamed for much sickness. A strict disciplinarian, Bragg banned alcohol within 5 miles of the camps and instituted a rigid schedule of drills and fatigue duties. Braxton Bragg took command for the Confederate Army at Pensacola in March. ![]() This produced a tense stalemate in Pensacola that rivaled that at Charleston Harbor, South Carolina and Fort Sumter in the months before the Civil War began there. Two days later, Alabama and Florida state militias occupied Fort Barrancas, Fort McRee, the Advanced Redoubt, and the Pensacola navy yard. It continues to stand strong today as a monument to our early national defense, to the workers and engineers who constructed it, and to the soldiers that served within its massive walls.įederal forces moved to Fort Pickens on Januthe same day the State of Florida seceded from the Union. Fort Barrancas has withstood not only the actions of war, but also of time and the elements. I Fort Barrancas became part of Gulf Islands National Seashore and underwent extensive restoration which was completed by the National Park Service in 1980. After the war, Fort Barrancas continued to serve as a part of the United States’ coast defense system until 1947 when it became part of Pensacola Naval Air Station. Hot shot furnaces improved the fort’s ability to defend the harbor from wooden vessels.Īlthough Fort Barrancas was built to stop any foreign invasion, the only time the fort saw actual combat was during the American Civil War. Assaulting infantry entering the dry moat would suffer heavy casualties from muskets and cannon fire through the opposing embrasures and loop holes in the fort walls. Built in a shape of a kite or diamond, the fort could withstand possible attack on four faces, two seaward and two landward. The brick archways and vaulted ceilings stare down into the wide dry moat, allow visitors to realize the strength of this imposing structure. The bluff (or barrancas) overlooking the entrance to the bay was so strategic, the Army Corps of Engineers built Fort Barrancas over the ruins of other forts built by the Spanish, French, and British as early as the late 17th century. Fort Barrancas’ unique location upon elevated shoreline bluffs provided it a commanding view of the entrance to the deep harbor in Pensacola Bay. Fort Barrancas, with the Advanced Redoubt, provided defense for the Pensacola Navy Yard. ![]()
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