Preservation at Alabama's Fort Blakely-- Part 2: Sixty Acre Site

This newly acquired land is arguably the most important part of the whole battlefield as this is where the U.S. Colored Troops overran the Confederates.  The 60-acre site, known as Blakely Bluff is expected to contain valuable archaeological evidence related to the black experience.  The protection of this land will allow the University of South Alabama greater opportunities for field work at the site.

Writer Bill Finch who promotes Gulf Coast  conservation says:  "The involvement of black troops in critical U.S. battles like Fort Blakely  is largely untold.  Between the Revolution and the Civil War, more than 200,000 black troops fought for the U.S. prior to  being granted full citizenship.

"Today's accomplishment protects  one of the last critical pieces of  the war's most poignant battles,  prefiguring the nation's long battle for civil rights that followed.  The result is  one of the region's largest, best-preserved  and most significant Civil War parks."

This newly acquired land will reportedly restrict future development of the property as well.

Black troops also contributed to the Union victory at the Battle of Forks Road outside Wilmington, North Carolina in February 1865.

--Old Secesh