Changes

|size=450 feet by 150 feet|used=1839-1900s1906|demolished=[[1906]]

|armament=120 128 guns (1858)|garrison=40 (peacetime), 400 (war), 500 (siege)

==ConstructionDesign & construction==The fort was designed in [[1829]] by [[Wikipedia:Simon Bernard|Simon Bernard]]. Ironically, the man for whom the fort would be named in [[1840]], Army engineer Colonel [[Wikipedia:William McRee|William McRee]], had resigned his commission in [[1819]] in protest after Bernard was appointed to a high position in the Army Corps of Engineers.<ref name="coleman">Coleman, James C. (1988). Fort McRee, The Castle Built on Sand. Pensacola Historical Society.</ref>Its unique, boomerang-like design was necessitated by the narrowness of the Foster's Bank site and the need to face its main cannon force toward the [[Pensacola Pass|channel]].

Being built on a sandy barrier island, the foundation of the fort was raised to five feet above mean low tide (three feet above mean high tide). The fort was 450 feet by 150 feet at its widest points. The wall facing the channel was 366 feet long, and the top of the wall was thirty-five feet above low tide. A parade ground inside the fort was 400 feet long by 84 feet wide and featured two hot-shot furnaces. The ends of the fort were rounded with iron stairs leading from the parade ground to the upper levels, and a circular staircase (likely with granite treads) stood in the center of the fort. The armament at McRee included 128 cannons, including 24- and 32-pounders. Eighty-two were placed in two tiers on the casements and forty-six [[Wikipedia:Barbette|en barbette]]. The barbette platform stood thirty feet above low tide, with a 22-foot-wide terreplein that extended around the fort's perimeter. The casements themselves were 21 feet tall, with masonry arches divided by wooden timbers. Construction took place between 1834 and 1839, and as was the case with Pensacola's other area forts, was overseen by [[William Henry Chase]]. Construction required 15 million bricks and the total cost was $335,000.