Battery Schenck - Ft. Morgan, AL
N 30° 13.762 W 088° 01.408
16R E 401514 N 3344644
Battery Schenck mounted three 15-pounder Rapid-Fire guns when it was in service.
Waymark Code: WMKGN9
Location: Alabama, United States
Date Posted: 04/12/2014
Views: 4
Fort Morgan, Alabama was built as a coastal defense fort, completed in 1834. In 1885 President Grover Cleveland ordered the creation of a fortification board, under the direction of Secretary of War William Endicott, to report on the present state of fortifications and to make recommendations for the implementation of a modern coast defense program. The Endicott Board recommended a $127 million construction program made up of an integrated network of dispersed reinforced concrete artillery batteries to be constructed at 29 strategic locations along the U.S. coast. These concrete gun positions were to mount a small number of large breech-loading rifled guns, heavy rifled mortars, or small caliber rapid-fire guns.
At Fort Morgan two rapid fire batteries, Battery Thomas and Battery Schenck, were constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to provide protection for the underwater mine fields at the entrance to Mobile Bay. Battery Schenck, named for First Lieutenant William Schenck who was killed in action during the Philippine Insurrection, was the second rapid fire battery constructed at Fort Morgan. On March 6, 1899, the Chief Engineer of the U.S. Army endorsed an appropriation of $9,000 from the “Gun and Mortar Battery Act” of July 7, 1898 for the construction of emplacements for two 15-pounder rapid-fire guns. On June 4, 1900, the battery was completed without the guns and turned over to the Artillery. In September 1903, two Model 1898, 15-pounder rapid-fire guns manufactured by the Driggs-Seabury Company were mounted in these emplacements.
During late 1903, the construction of a third gun emplacement began on the north side of the battery and was completed by February 1904. The single Model 1902 15-pounder Rapid-Fire gun that was intended for this emplacement was finally mounted in December 1906. In 1920, the U.S. Army declared all Model 1898 15-pounder guns obsolete. During June and July 1920, Battery Schenck’s two Model 1898 guns were removed and scrapped. In February 1923 the battery’s Model 1902 gun was removed and transferred to Fort Pickens, Florida. Battery Schenck was then abandoned.
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