Mobile Bay, that pear-shaped body of water, with its far-reaching system of water tributaries, has been a scene of settlement and fortification since the early days of French attempts at settlement in the New World. There was, to begin with, Fort Louis de la Mobile, which protected the infant first settlement of Mobile, precursor of the city of to-day. In various guises Fort Louis passed from one to another of the different races of men with which the history of Mobile Bay is associated. Then there are the forts placed on the islands at the mouth of Mobile Bay and the forts at the head of the bay where the big rivers flow in. Finally there is Fort Morgan (Fort Bowyer to begin with) which occupies the point of that long, thin peninsula of land which forms the southern boundary of Mobile Bay, dividing its waters from the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Fort Morgan to-day is in ruins and has never been thoroughly rebuilt since its capitulation to Farragut in one of the hottest battles of the Civil War. The governmental reservation of land on which the works are situated contains about 500 acres and is occupied, as well, by modern defences. The view from the point on which the old fort is situated gives a wide prospect of blue water and sky. Across the ship channel is historic Dauphine Island, on which Fort Morgan’s sister fort, Fort Gaines, was situated, and where the government to-day maintains extensive batteries. To the right are the waters of Mobile Bay, with the smoke of the city thirty miles to the north. To the left are the sunny waves of the Gulf. The first that we hear of Mobile Point as a place of fortification was in 1812, when the Spanish evacuated Mobile. General Wilkinson, in command of the United States forces in the southwest, put nine guns as a battery on Mobile Point and made his way on up to the city, where he commenced to fortify the perdido. Subsequently Mobile Point appealed to him as a better place for defensive works than a spot so far up the bay, and he placed a fortification here, which was called Fort Bowyer in honor of Lieutenant-Colonel Bowyer. The next occupant of Fort Bowyer was a more picturesque personage than General Wilkinson, none other than Andrew Jackson. Upon his retirement from Pensacola in 1814, Jackson stopped at Fort Bowyer and left a force there of 130 men under the leadership of Major William Lawrence. On September 12 the British appeared before the fort with land and naval strength and demanded the surrender of the little structure. Major Lawrence refused to surrender.