SPANISH FORT — A team of archaeologists from the University of South Alabama is attempting to salvage information from an area along Highway 225 in Spanish Fort that will become a subdivision.

The site for the Garrison Ridge development will sit on what once was the center of the Union lines during the Battle of Spanish Fort, one of the final battles of the American Civil War in April 1865.

The team is conducting the historical research that will include photographs and excavation of several sites on 57 acres.

“This is the mitigation phase of the project, which means we are trying to get every bit of information out of it while it is still here,” said George Shorter, archaeologist and research assistant. “That day is looming closer for the research team because when construction of the subdivision is completed all of what is left of those days at the end of the Civil War will be destroyed.”

“This is where one of the roads will come down,” Shorter said, while pointing through the wooded area. “It will end up in a cul-de-sac about here,” he added, as he stood atop a former Union gun emplacement used to bombard Confederate forces during the 13-day battle.

“We have eight weeks; That is our scheduled work time,” Shorter said.

He said his team has determined that about two-thirds of the 57 acres does not have archeologically sensitive items on it.

The rest of the site interests Shorter not for the possible artifacts that might be buried on the battleground, but for the architecture of the earthworks.

“Every project you have to do a research design to decide what is there that we can learn something about,” Shorter said. “In this case it is how these works were built and how they evolved; The change in tactical approach is what is interesting to me, because it shows what tactics were like at the end of the war.”

Shorter explained the construction is different from what Union troops used in battlefields two or three years earlier.

He said the difference in construction is visible on the batteries. “It comes out here and stops,” he said. “Earlier on, the way these things were built you would have a big turn at the end to protect the flank. It does not occur on this battery.”

Shorter said he believes the change came because the Union forces did not feel threatened of an attack during the siege.

“I think everybody knew the war was winding down and they had learned the way to do this was to bring the big guns in lay siege and just wait,” he said. “There was no hurry,” he added, as he pointed to an area about 100 yards from Highway 225 that was an emplacement for one of the Union army’s bigger guns.

Another area of interest to Shorter and his team is a large trench area located approximately 200 yards from the first battery. He said he believes it may have been planned to mass the Union forces as they prepared for the final charge.

“That was scheduled for 8 a.m. on the morning of the 9th,” he said.

That charge never came because the battle ended when the Confederate soldiers were outflanked and overrun on the evening of April 8.

“The Confederates considered the battle of Spanish Fort a victory for the South,” Shorter explained. “It was in many respects; They held these guys for two weeks.”

“They only had 650 captured and the causalities were not particularly heavy.”

Shorter said the battle’s biggest success was the number of soldiers that escaped to Blakeley to fight the next day, which was the last major battle of the war.