The Setting

The setting for the Apalachee Batteries is on marshy islands in the Mobile Delta, often referred to as America’s Amazon. Not far from the Apalachee Batteries in the Mobile Delta is the location of the sunken remnants of the famed Clotilda, the last slave ship to enter the United States.

 

The forts are accessible only by boat in the Mobile Bay Delta, where the Blakeley and Apalachee Rivers meet just north of I-10. The vicinity remains wooded and uninhabited.

The locations of the Clotilda and the Apalachee Batteries. Image Credit: The Post and Courier
Lt. Col. James M. Williams, 21st Alabama
Image Credit: Alabama Historical Commission

“I am in a fine duck region now—have sent for my ammunition and will have a good time.”

– Lt. Col. James M. Wiliams, 21st Alabama 

Source: James M. Williams and John K. Folmar, From That Terrible Field: Civil War Letters of James M. Williams, 21st Alabama Infantry Volunteers (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1981), 150.
This map shows the location of the Batteries in relation to the 12 Mile Island. Image Source: Google Maps