Fort Bowyer  Fort Bowyer was a short-lived earthen and stockade fortification that the United States Army erected in 1813 on Mobile Point, near the mouth of Mobile Bay in what is now Baldwin County, Alabama, but then was part of the Mississippi Territory. The British twice attacked the fort during the War of 1812. The first attack took place in September 1814; unsuccessful, it led to the British changing their strategy and attacking New Orleans. The second attack, following the British defeat at the Battle of New Orleans, was successful. However, it took place in February 1815, after the Treaty of Ghent had been signed but before the news had reached that part of America. Between 1819 and 1834 the United States built a new masonry fortification, Fort Morgan, on the site of Fort Bowyer. Mobile had been a Spanish possession before the beginning of the Patriot War, but Congress had declared it American territory after the War of 1812 started. After Spanish forces evacuated Mobile in April 1813, the Americans built a redoubt on Mobile Point. In June 1813, Colonel John Bowyer completed the fort. The fort, which initially had 14 guns, was made of sand and logs and fan-shaped, with the curved face facing the ship channel into Mobile Bay. On the landward side there was a bastion, flanked by two demi-bastions. The fort's purpose was to impede any British invasion at this point on the Gulf Coast, as the fort commanded the narrow entrance to Mobile Bay. About a year after the fort's construction, the Americans abandoned it, but in August 1814, Major William Lawrence and 160 men from the 2nd U.S. Infantry re-garrisoned it. The First Battle of Fort Bowyer took place in mid-September, 1814. Captain William Percy of the Royal Navy decided to attack the fort in preparation for an assault on Mobile. He believed Bowyer to be a low, wooden battery mounting some six to 14 small caliber guns. Capturing the fort would enable the British to move on Mobile and thereby block Louisiana's trade. From Mobile, the British could move overland to Natchez to cut off New Orleans from the north. Percy took with him (22 guns), (18 guns), (20 guns; Captain Robert Cavendish Spencer), and a fourth vessel, (18 guns; Capt. Umfreville). American sources often mis-attributed the fourth vessel as , of 18 guns. Lieutenant Colonel Edward Nicolls volunteered to proceed with diversionary forces on land.