Abandoned Coastal Defenses of Alabama

Book excerpt: Abandoned Coastal Defenses of Alabama is a down-and-dirty guided tour through Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines, the retired guardians of Alabama's Gulf Coast. For nearly 200 years, these hauntingly beautiful Third System forts have stood stubbornly between the Yellowhammer State and a sometimes hostile world beyond. Pairing stunning original photography and vibrant prose, urban explorer Thomas Kenning recounts a blow-by-blow history of Forts Morgan and Gaines. His sensitive camera work documents the grandeur and decline wrought by the passage of time, as well as the lasting damage sustained during the pitched Battle of Mobile Bay--one of the most iconic battles in U.S. naval history. Threatened by a rising sea, disintegrating under the weight of centuries, Forts Morgan and Gaines have been named "one of the nation's ten most endangered battle sites" by the American Battlefield Trust. Abandoned Coastal Defenses of Alabama offers an arresting snapshot of this waning moment in American history--documentary evidence of a rich past slipping inexorably into ruin.