Fort Barrancas Tour: Stop 9

Image of Parade at Fort Barrancas in Florida.

Kiss

Quick Facts

Location:

Pensacola, Florida

Significance:

Civil War, Black History, Confederates, Network to Freedom

Amenities

1 listed

Trailhead

Parade

This open area is a parade. Officers would assemble their men on the parade to deliver instructions or conduct inspections.

Three footpaths connect the parade to a barbette (bar BET), or earthen platform. Here 34 pieces of seacoast artillery, the heaviest cannon used in the 1800s, pointed over the fort’s brick walls. Today a 24-pounder cannon points toward Pensacola Bay. This cannon was cast in 1837 by McClurg, Wade and Company at the Fort Pitt Foundry in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The entire area is about 150 feet across, with the 25 feet nearest the walls sloping upward to a flat space along the walls where cannon could be stationed. This outer wall is about four feet high. One cannon is in place near the north east corner mounted on a base with wheels that allow it to be pointed in different directions. Feel free to touch, but do not climb. 

A reconstructed brick floor can be seen in one corner of the parade. Enslaved bricklayers built a hot shot furnace on this spot in 1847. Soldiers used this furnace to turn solid cannonballs cherry red. These missiles were used to set targets like wooden ships on fire.