The entrance of Fort Barrancas may have been the location of the first shots fired in the US Civil War! A week after Florida seceded from the Union in January of 1861, a unit of Alabama militia, incorrectly informed that Fort Barrancas was abandoned, approached this drawbridge in the dead of night. The Federal presence at Forts Barrancas, Pickens and McRee was desperately small at the time, but Barrancas' front gate was guarded, and the men from Alabama were fired upon when they wouldn't identify themselves. No one was injured, but the Alabamians scattered into the night. This event occurred more than three months prior to the Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter, which does make it a likely candidate for the "first shots fired" claim. US Army Lieutenant Adam J. Slemmer was in charge of the Union's small detachment manning Pensacola Bay's defenses, and he wisely abandoned Forts Barrancas and McRee (after spiking their guns, natch), consolidating his efforts at the more easily-defended Fort Pickens. That fort remained in Union hands through the war, and along with Fort Monroe at Hampton Roads, Virginia, Fort Zachary Taylor at Key West and Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, the other three southern US forts held by the Union, served as a constant thorn in the side of the Confederacy.