Alabama Genealogy

The Battle of Spanish Fort took place from March 27 to April 8, 1865 in Baldwin County, Alabama, as part of the Mobile Campaign of the Western Theater of the American Civil War.

After the Union victory in the Battle of Mobile Bay, Mobile nevertheless remained in Confederate hands. Spanish Fort was heavily fortified as an eastern defense to the city of Mobile. Fort Huger, Fort (Battery) Tracey, Fort (Battery) McDermott, Fort Alexis, Red Fort, and Old Spanish Fort were all part of the Mobile defenses at Spanish Fort.

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Popularity: 30% [?]

The Battle of Selma was a military engagement near the end of the American Civil War. It was fought in Selma, Alabama, on April 2, 1865. Union Army forces under Major General James H. Wilson defeated a smaller Confederate Army force under Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest.

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Popularity: 35% [?]

The Battle of Mobile Bay of August 5, 1864, was an engagement of the American Civil War in which a Federal fleet commanded by Rear Adm. David G. Farragut, assisted by a contingent of soldiers, attacked a smaller Confederate fleet led by Adm. Franklin Buchanan and three forts that guarded the entrance to Mobile Bay

The battle was marked by Farragut’s seemingly rash but successful run through a minefield that had just claimed one of his ironclad monitors, enabling his fleet to get beyond the range of the shore-based guns. This was followed by a reduction of the Confederate fleet to a single vessel, ironclad CSS Tennessee. Tennessee did not then retire, but engaged the entire Northern fleet. The armor on Tennessee gave her an advantage that enabled her to inflict more injury than she received, but she could not overcome the imbalance in numbers

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Popularity: 51% [?]

The Battle of Fort Blakely took place from April 2-April 9, 1865 in Baldwin County, Alabama, as part of the Mobile Campaign of the American Civil War.

Maj. Gen. Edward Canby’s Union forces, the XVI and XIII Corps, moved along the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, forcing the Confederates back into their defenses. Union forces then concentrated on Spanish Fort, Alabama and nearby Fort Blakely. By April 1, Union forces had enveloped Spanish Fort, thereby releasing more troops to focus on Fort Blakely. Confederate Brig. Gen. St. John R. Liddell, with about 4,000 men, held out against the much larger Union force until Spanish Fort fell on April 8 in the Battle of Spanish Fort.

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Popularity: 48% [?]

The Battle of Decatur was a demonstration conducted from October 26 to October 29, 1864, as part of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign of the American Civil War. Union forces of 3–5,000 men under Brig. Gen. Robert S. Granger prevented the 39,000 men of the Confederate Army of Tennessee under Lt. Gen. John B. Hood from crossing the Tennessee River at Decatur, Alabama.

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Popularity: 36% [?]

The Battle of Day’s Gap, fought on April 30, 1863, was the first in a series of American Civil War skirmishes in Cullman County, Alabama, that lasted until May 2, known as Streight’s Raid. Commanding the Union forces was Col. Abel Streight; Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest led the Confederate forces.

The goal of Streight’s raid was to cut off the Western & Atlantic Railroad, which supplied General Braxton Bragg’s Confederate army in Middle Tennessee. Starting in Nashville, Tennessee, Streight and his men first traveled to Eastport, Mississippi, and then eastward to Tuscumbia, Alabama. On April 26, 1863, Streight left Tuscumbia and marched southeastward. Streight’s initial movements were screened by Union Brig. Gen. Grenville Dodge’s troops.

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Popularity: 53% [?]

The Battle of Athens was fought in Athens, Alabama (Limestone County, Alabama), on January 26, 1864, as part of the American Civil War. The Union force was a detachment under Captain Emil Adams from the 9th Illinois Mounted Infantry regiment. The Confederate force was the 1st Alabama Cavalry, under Lt. Col. Moses W. Hannon.

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Popularity: 40% [?]

Deputies from the first seven states to secede formed the first two sessions of the 1861 Provisional Confederate Congress. Alabama sent William Parish Chilton, Sr., Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry, Thomas Fearn (resigned March 16, 1861, after first session; replaced by Nicholas Davis, Jr.), Stephen Fowler Hale, David Peter Lewis (resigned March 16, 1861, after first session; replaced by Henry Cox Jones), Colin John McRae, John Gill Shorter (resigned November 1861; replaced by Cornelius Robinson), Robert Hardy Smith, and Richard Wilde Walker.

The bicameral First Confederate Congress (1862–64) included two senators from Alabama—Clement Claiborne Clay and William Lowndes Yancey (died July 23, 1863; replaced by Robert Jemison, Jr.). Representing Alabama in the House of Representatives were Thomas Jefferson Foster, William Russell Smith, John Perkins Ralls, Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry, Francis Strother Lyon, William Parish Chilton, Sr., David Clopton, James Lawrence Pugh, Edmund Strother Dargan

Alabama’s two senators in the Second Confederate Congress (1864–65) were Robert Jemison, Jr., and Richard Wilde Walker. Representatives were Thomas Jefferson Foster, William Russell Smith, Marcus Henderson Cruikshank, Francis Strother Lyon, William Parish Chilton, Sr., David Clopton, James L. Pugh, and James Shelton Dickinson. Congress refused to seat Representative-elect W. R. W. Cobb because he was an avowed Unionist; therefore his district was not represented.

Source: Wikipedia

Popularity: 46% [?]

The state of Alabama was a part of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War after seceding from the United States of America on January 11, 1861. It provided a significant source of troops and leaders, military material, supplies, food, and, early on, cotton to be exchanged in England for munitions (until the port of Mobile was closed off by the U.S. Navy).

Antebellum Governor Andrew B. Moore energetically supported the Confederate war effort. Even before hostilities began in April 1861, he seized Federal facilities, sent agents to buy rifles in the Northeast, and scoured the state for weapons. Despite some resistance in the northern part of the state, Alabama joined the Confederate States of America. Congressman Williamson R. W. Cobb, a Unionist, pleaded for compromise. He ran for the First Confederate Congress, but was soundly defeated (he was subsequently elected in 1863 on a wave of anti-war sentiment, with war weariness growing in Alabama). The new nation brushed Cobb aside and set up its temporary capital in Montgomery and selected Jefferson Davis as president. In May the Confederate government abandoned Montgomery before the sickly season began and relocated in Richmond once Virginia seceded.

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Popularity: 30% [?]

The rural white minority’s hold on the legislature continued, suppressing attempts by more progressive elements to modernize the state. A study in 1960 concluded that because of rural domination, “A minority of about 25 per cent of the total state population is in majority control of the Alabama legislature.” Legislators and others mounted challenges in the 1960s. It took years and Federal court intervention to achieve the redistricting necessary to establishing “one man, one vote” representation.

In 1960 on the eve of important civil rights battles, 30% of Alabama’s population was African American. More than 980,000 citizens lived without justice in a segregated state.

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Popularity: 10% [?]